Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  Maera’s morning passed as she alternated half an hour of editing a white paper draft and helping tend children. She fed Aeneas a mash of phila fruit and cooked cracked wheat, then took him outside for sun and air. He liked to swing and fell asleep within minutes, as Maera knew he would. She laid him on the swing’s cushion and continued swinging while she reviewed her notes on the Fuomi language and lessons from Eina Saisannin on subtleties not found in the one Fuomi language book she had. The language formed tenses different from Caedelli, agglutinating syllables to root verbs, instead of short endings and axillary words in Caedelli. As she worked on memorizing how to form the perfect conditional tense, a movement caused her to look up. Her sister Ceinwyn stood six feet away.

  “Hello, Maera,” said Ceinwyn softly. “Could I sit with you?”

  Surprised, Maera only nodded. Ceinwyn rarely made any approach to her older sister. Maera scooted toward Aeneas to make room, and Ceinwyn sat next to her on the bench. Aeneas half-opened his eyes until Maera began slowly swinging again.

  “Maera, I know we haven’t been close, but that’s my fault. I just wanted you to know that I do love you as a sister and to say I’m sorry for how I’ve acted the last years.”

  Maera could not have been more astounded if Ceinwyn had turned into a murvor and flown away. Seconds passed while she groped for how to respond. “Uh . . . Ceinwyn . . . I guess I don’t know what to say.”

  “That’s all right. I just wanted to say this and get it out.” Ceinwyn started to stand up.

  “No, wait,” said Maera, putting a hand on her sister’s forearm. Ceinwyn sat back on the swing.

  “Ceinwyn . . . why did we grow so far apart? I remember us playing together, taking turns holding Mared, and me helping you with your lessons. When it all changed, I’ve thought maybe we were just two people who don’t get along. Some people are like that. For no obvious reasons, two persons grate on each other.”

  “Oh, Maera, I think it started when I began to envy you.”

  “Envy me! Why in God’s grace would you be envious of me?”

  Ceinwyn sighed in frustration. “Good God, Maera. Are you oblivious? You’re smart, beautiful, and so sure of yourself. I’m not smart or beautiful, and I’m never confident like you are.”

  “I . . . ” Once again, Maera didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s just the way things are, Maera. It’s not your fault. God simply made us different, and I’ve been weak to put blame on you for only being who you are. I think it got worse when I started worrying about finding a husband who would want me. And then, when you didn’t marry at an age people thought you would, I started to despair that if Maera Keelan couldn’t find a husband, then what chance did I have?”

  Ceinwyn paused, and Maera sat frozen, recalling the previous years and how she might have inadvertently affected Ceinwyn’s view of her.

  “I’ve known since I was ten years old that I wouldn’t be attractive like my sisters,” said Ceinwyn.

  Maera knew her sister’s words were accurate but wished it didn’t matter. Ceinwyn had inherited more of her father’s looks, including a generous nose and a prominent forehead. In contrast, the other three sisters resembled their mother. Maera didn’t think of herself as attractive, though her thinking had moderated since her husband asserted otherwise, but Anid would have grown to be a stunning woman, and Mared likely wasn’t far behind. For the first time, Maera honestly put herself in Ceinwyn’s place and could see how resentment might have developed. She also wondered, again for the first time, whether her efforts at helping Ceinwyn with her studies might have made things worse, because her own studying had come so easily.

  Maera couldn’t lie. Ceinwyn knew the truth, and truth was what she needed. “But sister, a person isn’t just how they look.”

  “That’s what Abbot Walkot told me. I spoke with him yesterday. I’ve been thinking that . . . this,” Ceinwyn said, touching the scar on her face, “was God’s punishment for how I’ve behaved and how I’ve only thought of myself.”

  “Oh, Ceinwyn, God isn’t cruel, nor does he punish us for petty transgressions.”

  “I’m not sure the abbot believes that. Although he helped me understand that the attack wasn’t caused by God, he couldn’t rule out that the blow that did this,” she touched the scar again, “was touched by God not to kill me, but to give me a chance to change. I don’t know if he’s right, but in the last month, I’ve done more thinking about who I was and who I want to be the rest of my life. I know that this,” she touched the scar again, this time unconsciously tracing it from her jaw up above the side of the eye and back behind her ear, “makes my previous worry about appearance so trivial, as if now anyone would remember how I looked before.”

  “Does this have anything to do with how you’ve been wearing your hair?” asked Maera. She suddenly realized that she’d noticed something different about her sister the last sixday but hadn’t been able to put a finger on it.

  “My hair,” stated Ceinwyn, smiling. “Yes. After the bandages came off, I kept it combed over the side of my face as much as possible to hide how I looked. It was Balwis who scolded me for doing that.”

  “Balwis?”

  “He was showing me how to shoot a musket, and my hair kept getting in the way of looking down the barrel. When I told him I needed my hair the way it was, he said, ‘Tie the God-damned hair back so you can see what you’re shooting at. This way, you might be more danger to your own people than the Narthani!’”

  Ceinwyn laughed, for the first time Maera could remember since when?

  “Then he said, ‘Let everyone see it and know you got it fighting the Narthani. It’s a badge of honor and shows how brave you are.’

  “‘Me?’ I said. ‘Brave?’ But it got me thinking that as long as I have the scar, to hide it is the same as hiding myself from the world and unworthy of a hetman’s daughter. I was so worried about not finding a husband, and now, with the scar, it’s likely even as a hetman’s daughter I won’t be appealing as a wife. The scar is not going away, and I have to learn to live with it.”

  Maera frowned. “Well, I don’t know if I agree with Abbot Walkot, but I definitely agree with Balwis. He’s not my favorite person, but in this, he and I agree. You were brave when it counted. You were injured defending our family from the killers. You didn’t have time to decide what to do, you just acted, and I’m proud to call you my sister.”

  Ceinwyn’s eyes filled, and a single tear trickled down to the edge of the scar and followed its course down her face. The two sisters didn’t speak again for several minutes but held each other in a tight embrace. They relaxed only when Aeneas complained about the cessation of swinging.

  Two Solitudes

  Her reconciliation with Ceinwyn hovered around Maera’s consciousness. She made a point to pay more attention to those around her—after chastising herself for not picking up on Ceinwyn’s changing moods and actions since the attack. Gwyned became her first target in searching for clues. Anarynd’s friend and fellow escapee from the Narthani had seemed to have periodic grumpy moods that Maera passed off as merely part of Gwyned’s personality. Then it occurred to her that the moods seemed too often associated with Carnigan’s presence or absence.

  As was Maera’s preference, she moved to direct questions. “Gwyned, is there something about Carnigan that bothers you? He seems fond of Morwena.”

  “The big oaf doesn’t seem to realize Morwena has a mother!” groused Gwyned.

  Maera’s brain made connections. “Well, I’ll be,” Maera said. “You like Carnigan and can’t get him to pay attention to you?”

  Gwyned reddened but gave Maera a defiant look. “So what if I do? Can’t I get interested in a man?”

  “Of course you can. It’s just a surprise, because I don’t think of Carnigan as an eligible man. There’s no reason for that, except I hadn’t ever heard about him being involved with a woman.”

  “I don’t know if he has or not,” said Gwyned, “but he’s unat
tached, which makes him eligible. I appreciate you and Yozef letting me and Morwena stay here, but I don’t see that as permanent. I always expected to be married and have a family, though how I started a family is not what I imagined.” Bitterness coated the last words. Morwena’s father was Gwyned’s slavemaster.

  “Gwyned, you know you can stay as long as you want. You’ve become a member of our family, and I think of you as a friend. If you’re interested in Carnigan in that way, maybe you should just tell him.”

  An impressive repertoire of curses erupted from Gwyned’s snarling mouth. “Don’t you think I’ve tried hinting up and down?! He’s not stupid, but he can be dense when he wants to be. And I know what’s on your mind—why Carnigan?” She paused and looked away. “After what happened to me, with a Narthani daughter, and with more men than women, my chances of finding a man I’d want to marry are slim, if not Carnigan. And no, he’s not some kind of consolation man I’d only be settling for. I admit that it would be a comfort to have a man around to protect me and Morwena. I can’t imagine any man who I’d feel safer with than Carnigan, being who he is. Despite how he looks and acts at times, he’s a kind and gentle man. Something of a gentle giant. You’ve seen how he looks after Morwena, and she adores him in return. Am I madly in love with him? Maybe not, but I believe that could come.”

  Maera switched from confidante to authority. “Gwyned, here’s what we’ll do.” By her tone, Maera was asserting, not asking. “You give it some thought about telling Carnigan how you feel. If not, I’ll tell him.”

  Maera’s Idea

  Maera felt bleary-eyed after several hours of reading reports, answering communications, and writing MIU summaries for the War Council. Her attention kept wandering to the reconnection with Ceinwyn and her talk with Gwyned about Carnigan. She used to get sharp pains in her neck and shoulders before Yozef showed her how to change her posture when working long hours. He also had a desk and a chair specifically made for her height and arm reach. At least the kerosene lanterns solved the light problem. Trying to do this much paperwork by candle or whale-oil lamps would have been worse.

  She stretched her neck and arms as she walked from her study. The house was dark and quiet. Yozef had gone off to one of his shops—something about “signal rockets” and needing to test them at night. Anarynd tended to Aeneas. The wet nurse, Braithe, had given Aeneas his last breast-feeding of the day and had retired to the staff cottage, where she, her daughter Islan, and her husband, Gowlin Reese, one of the permanent family guards, lived.

  Maera’s breasts had quit aching after she stopped breast-feeding Aeneas, though her pangs of guilt remained at not being a full-time mother to him. She knew in her heart that she truly loved the baby. She loved holding him, nursing him, and even changing him. Yet she acknowledged that her willingness to take him out in public and show him off to visitors was partly due to her urge to display her “accomplishment.” Look what I did. Maera Keelan, now Maera Kolsko-Keelan. You wondered if I ever would be a normal woman or if I ever would produce an heir to Keelan, which my responsibilities dictated. Look at this! She smiled at the image of herself as proud mother.

  Yes, she was a mother and wanted to be a mother, but she just had so much to do! The preparations to face the next Narthani attack were intense. There were nowhere near enough hours in any day to do all that needed doing. She felt overwhelmed at times and couldn’t understand how Yozef handled even greater demands on his time. More and more, he had come to depend on her help. As she had for her father, she screened correspondence for him, prioritized it, and, where possible, answered in his place or drafted answers for his approval signature. She also reviewed the reams of intelligence reports that had accumulated, looking for insights from Yozef’s suggestions or her own knowledge of Caedellium and her intuition.

  In her introspection, she was honest. As intense and stressful as the demands were on her time to help prepare for Narthani, she loved it. For the first time in her life, she knew that others recognized her for her contributions to a grand effort. Yes, she served as Yozef’s assistant, but so did a dozen others, whatever their titles. She didn’t know if others saw what she did. What Yozef called his “general staff” consisted of a grouping never seen before on Caedellium. A dozen people who planned for action carried out by all the clans of Caedellium and whose mission amounted to nothing less than the salvation of the entire island and people. This dozen included hetmen, senior advisers to hetmen, and men who had had no preeminent role before now. The development had been gradual, but as planning continued and the feeling of the Narthani threat intensified, more and more decisions flowed through Yozef. She wondered if even her father recognized that, effectively, Yozef was making most major decisions and directed where efforts would go.

  She was part of that general staff. Yozef called Culich, her, and Owill Brell the staff’s Intelligence members—the “G-3s.” Her problem was how to fit every role into each single day—a task she knew was impossible.

  She paused in the central hall. It was quiet. No, not quite quiet. Faint squeaking sounds came from the veranda in front of the house. It was warm this time of year. She walked to the front entrance and through the multiple layers of curtain that Yozef had designed to let in air while keeping most flying creatures out. As she stopped just outside the doorway, still with one hand holding back curtain folds, she could see Anarynd rocking, softly humming as she looked down at the sleeping Aeneas. Maera’s heart melted. It was a classic scene of mother and child—except Aeneas was not Anarynd’s.

  As the rocking continued, Maera started to step onto the veranda, then stopped. Tears slowly coursed down Anarynd’s cheeks and fell as droplets to a circle of wetness on her blouse. Anarynd had not noticed Maera. She looked at Aeneas with a longing that tore at Maera. Whether from their lengthy friendship, by empathy, or just by supposition, Maera knew what was in Anarynd’s mind. Holding a baby of her own. Sitting on her own porch. Having a husband and a family. Having a normal life. Anarynd was thinking maybe none of these would happen for her.

  Maera quietly backed into the house, letting the door curtains settle into place. If she had gone to Anarynd at that moment, what would she have said? Everything is going to be all right? What happened to you makes no difference? We’ll come through the Narthani threat? You’ll have a fine family someday?”

  Maera’s thoughts had been jolted from her own apprehension at balancing her life to Anarynd’s future. Maera couldn’t conceive of Anarynd living anywhere but near her. Not now. Not when Anarynd needed all the support possible. Not when Maera needed her friend near. Not when there was someone in the house she felt totally secure about leaving to care for Aeneas.

  The answer—possibly, answers might have been more accurate—congealed in her mind so casually, it was as if some outside force had planted it there. A path to a future. So simple . . . and so difficult.

  The idea was so unexpected, she needed time to mull it over and gently probe the opinions of the other parties. After two sixdays, the pitfalls of carrying out the vision still seemed fewer than the benefits she saw. She first approached Yozef about it.

  It was a fifthday. They would all be going into Caernford the next morning for Godsday service at St. Tomo’s. Yozef had decided to work on his journals that afternoon. His schedule had made it so difficult for him to reserve an hour a day that he tried to sporadically grab a few hours to write in his journals in his native “English.” He had steadfastly declined to teach Maera English, saying there were other, more important demands on their time. He had returned to their home for midday meal. Maera arranged for Anarynd to take Aeneas to Gwyned’s cottage, along with the other children. She wanted to talk with him alone, and she had no idea how he would respond. If she understood him, he would be surprised, give arguments against it, listen to her counter-arguments, and then say . . . what? She had no idea.

  They were halfway through the plate of cold sliced meat and cheese, bread, and cold roasted vegetables. Maera had also op
ened a bottle of a plum wine Yozef favored. Normally, they didn’t consume alcohol until evening meal, but today he didn’t seem to notice the change in routine.

  “Yozef,” Maera began. “I’ve been thinking about Ana.”

  “Anarynd? Is she all right?”

  “Oh, nothing physically wrong with her. She’s gotten much better once she started looking in on the other women she came with. Then there’s her help with Aeneas and coming to feel she’s part of the household.”

  “I think it’s not just her. We all feel closer after the attack,” said Yozef. “I certainly agree it’s been good to have her here when we both need to travel. I know Braithe and Gwyned are reliable, but they’ve got their own children.”

  Maera nodded, her brown hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Also, it’s not just for when we both travel. Even when we’re here, both of us are so busy. I’m not criticizing either of us—it’s just the way it is and all that’s happening and all that might happen. Having Ana here has been a tremendous help. Of course, she’s my oldest and dearest friend. I didn’t realize how much I regret not seeing her regularly until these last months. I find myself starting to dread the thought of her leaving.”

  Yozef looked surprised. “Is she thinking of leaving?”

  “No,” said Maera, “she hasn’t said anything about leaving us, but we have to understand that her present situation can’t last forever.”

  “Where would she go? Of course, we could help support her. Normally, a woman alone and without family support would be in a difficult position. Is she thinking about marrying someone?”

  Maera shook her head slowly. “She doesn’t think she will ever marry. I think she’s wrong, but after what happened to her, and then being rejected by her family, it’s a wound that’s difficult to heal. If they had taken proper care of her, it might be different, and she would still be in Moreland. You know, she was betrothed before being taken, and that family also rejected her.”