by Jim Galford
“If you mean in front of him, yes. Phaesys and I have no more secrets between us.”
“I…” Estin trailed off as Phaesys moved to the edge of his vision when the three of them stopped. “I’m not sure how to ask what I really need to know. I don’t want to insult anyone.”
Oria studied him with glittering eyes for a moment before turning to Phaesys. “You wanted to speak with my father for years, did you not?”
“I did,” Phaesys answered softly.
“This is your chance. Speak freely. Your words may answer the questions he’s afraid to ask.”
Phaesys bowed his head in acknowledgement and moved to stand in front of Estin. Out of instinct, Estin backed away a step, worrying Phaesys might reach for his weapon at any moment. Instead, Phaesys dropped to his knees, clasped Estin’s ankle, and put his face to the ground.
“Please forgive me for what I’ve done to you and your family,” Phaesys begged, his voice muffled by the sand. “I made mistakes that I cannot ever take back. None of you have any reason to ever excuse anything I did back then. Please know that I never meant for things to end how they did, and would do anything to take back my actions, no matter the personal cost.”
Estin looked up at Oria in embarrassed confusion, though she just smiled warmly down on Phaesys. Looking past her, Estin realized the two kits had followed. They were watching from a safe distance, hiding among the wagons, though their ears standing straight up over the pile of crates they were using as shelter gave them away.
“You turned us over to the Turessians,” Estin said softly, trying to keep his voice from reaching the kits. “You are a traitor, Phaesys. I don’t know why Oria forgave you, but it won’t be that easy for me.”
“Easy?” Oria asked, her tone suddenly angry. “It’s been years, Father. I have forgiven Phaesys, but I will never forget what he did back there. Do not pretend that any of us have managed to do the right thing every time. He made a mistake and time has passed. Phaesys, be kind enough to tell Estin what you did to earn forgiveness.”
Lifting his head only slightly, Phaesys took his hands off Estin’s leg and put them at his sides, well away from his weapon. “I forfeited all of my father’s holdings to the council and relinquished my place in the army. Without fortune or profession, I lived more than a year as a beggar in the city. I had actually not realized how badly beggars were treated in my own city. It was humbling.”
“He was under council edict that if he came into my presence, he was to be executed without question,” Oria said without taking her glare off Estin. “I went looking for him several times when I was in a particularly dark mood, hoping my guards would see him and kill him. Apparently, he was smart enough to avoid me back then.”
Phaesys smiled slightly and waited until Oria had finished before he went on. “After that year, I managed to apprentice myself out as a servant to a household. I was treated no differently than any of their cattle, and I asked for nothing more than that.”
“How does that get us to…this?” Estin asked, nodding slightly toward where the kits were trying to be stealthy.
“My masters found out about the edict,” Phaesys continued. “They decided that it might improve their station if they sent me to the council to make a delivery of goods. The expectation was that I would be executed and they would be heralded for willingly giving up a slave to appease a council member. I knew their intentions but did not shy away from my fate. They gave me an order and I obeyed.”
Putting a hand on Phaesys’s shoulder, Oria explained, “He chose a good day to come. Sirella was becoming scarce before she left my service, and the politics of the council were pushing me to the point that I am certain I would have begun killing people by week’s end. Given his background and my need for someone I could talk to, I chose to spare him, though I had few options in that regard. I needed someone who understood the politics.
“I could not simply ignore a council edict, even one that was created for my benefit. I had to exact a punishment on him that would show he had been through enough and that I was sparing him in the end. It was the only way I could employ him to help me reason my way through the council’s games. Honestly, I intended to make him wish that he had been executed.”
Estin watched Phaesys a little longer, wondering just how much he had changed in the last few years. Finally, despite his better judgment, Estin reached down and took Phaesys’s hand, pulling him to his feet so they could be eye to eye—or close to it, given that Phaesys stood several inches taller than him.
“What’d she put you through that was good enough that she thinks you should be standing here?” he asked, trying to meet Phaesys’s gaze. “Feanne would have beaten me to a bloody pulp, but I’m guessing Oria was more creative?”
“Much,” Phaesys replied, smiling more broadly. “She ordered me stripped of any remaining wealth I had…which was little more than my sword and armor that I had kept hidden over the years. Then I was to prove that I could help others, rather than myself. Failing, I was to be executed. I began taking in those who were displaced or most hurt by the war, and I cared for them in Oria’s home. Marr is actually my ward…my step-daughter, if you will. Her own parents died in the months after the mists came through.
“After a year of serving both Oria and the orphans of the city, Oria gave me a choice. I could either be set free and leave Corraithian lands with no further edict over me, or I could stay and be sold as a slave, marked until the day I die, with no opportunity to ever hold title again. I asked which she would prefer, as my debt was to her. She refused to answer, and I had to trust my heart. I was promptly sold as a slave…to Oria.”
“Slave?” Estin demanded, pushing Phaesys aside to confront Oria directly. He forced her back a step. “How dare you? Just kill him! After what we went through—”
“After what we went through, it was a valid test of whether he has changed,” she snapped back, planting a hand on Estin’s chest to keep him from coming any closer. “The council wanted him dead, given who his father was. Banishment was one option, but they would have hunted him down with no consequences. Slavery and the limitations that placed on him was the other. By making him my slave, I can keep him around, and I can allow him to live as I see fit. I was protecting him. Every day he came to me and asked me to forgive him again and again, until I believe it hurt me more than him to go through this. I needed him in my life. You of all people should understand, Father.”
“You had children with your slave?” Estin countered, his anger not diminishing in the slightest.
“I had children with my mate!” Oria growled back at him. “We are as close as you and Mother, but I cannot marry him under Corraithian law or he would be able to lay claim to my lands. The council wouldn’t stand for that. They’d kill us both to keep it from even being a possibility.
“Life is inconvenient, Father, but we are making the best of it. If I leave my seat on the council, I can marry Phaesys, but if I did that, people like Marr would die. I am picking my battles the way you and Mother taught me. I am not happy that I put Phaesys in the position he’s in any more than I’m happy he betrayed us all those years ago. For now, it balances out.
“I have named him my paladin—my personal guard who will sacrifice anything and will never possess wealth of his own. That title protects him, keeps us together, and allows me to do what I have to with the council. What other direction would you have me go that doesn’t sacrifice someone or something that our family considers important? Would you choose any other path if this was the only way that you could keep your family together, while saving others? If so, I may have idolized you without merit. I am doing what is right for my family and my city. As soon as I can be sure the city no longer needs me, I will set it aside to be with my family. For now, I have no regrets.”
Estin’s temper fell apart, and he looked past Oria to the kits, who were still watching from the shadow of the wagon. He watched them scamper back toward the tents. Finally, he turned to Phaesys. “Will you be
entirely honest with me?”
“Of course,” Phaesys answered instantly. “Ask anything. I swear I will hide nothing.”
“Tell me if you are happy with this arrangement. Being property, even to the person you are mated to.”
Phaesys nodded, taking Oria’s hand in his. “I swore that I would give anything to be back in Oria’s life. I would have given my life every day for eternity to make amends for what I did. I presented her with the weapon to execute me more times than I can count, and would still make that offer if I believed it would make her life one bit more pleasant. If this is what it takes for us to be together, I will endure the few hardships that come with it.”
“Hardships? Does she whip you daily or something?”
Oria’s barely controlled anger told Estin he had probably gone too far, but Phaesys gave him nothing in his calm expression. “No. What I endure doesn’t come from her. Because I cannot be her husband and she is the most powerful woman in Corraithian lands, I must watch day after day as other men attempt to talk her into marrying them, so that they can lay claim to her estate. I consider it a constant reminder that my mistakes put me in the shadows near the woman I love, rather than at her side. If she accepts their offers, I would be required to protect both her and her husband, and I would do so without question. I will never be her equal, but I will never complain about that.”
The abrupt change in Oria’s demeanor to near tears told Estin it was no easier on her than it was on Phaesys. Finally relenting, Estin nodded and held out his hand to Phaesys. “Welcome to the family. Glad to see your relationship isn’t any more sane than the rest of ours.”
Phaesys took Estin’s hand, and for the first time that day, Phaesys calm surface broke. He pulled Estin into a hug, sniffling as he did so. It was awkward for Estin, having wanted to kill Phaesys earlier, but the world changed too fast for him to hold on to that anger. Instead, he held Phaesys as long as he wanted. Eventually Phaesys backed away and cleared his throat as he tried to regain his composure.
“That leads me to another question,” Estin thought out loud, pointing back toward the tent. “Marr?”
“Is with Rinam, yes,” Oria answered, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Rinam is just shy of six. Is that right?”
“Pretty much,” Oria said, drawing patterns in the sand with a toe to keep from looking directly at him. That simple expression reminded him of her mannerisms when he had last seen her, even with so many years in between.
“How long have they been together?” he finally asked. “She seems really nervous to meet Feanne and I.”
“Officially they have been together about six months, since she was declared an independent adult, no longer under Phaesys’s watch. That was when they set out looking for you two.” Oria continued to fidget. “She is nervous because I may have told her stories about you two that put me in a position of trust with her, while making her fear you two, lest she break Rinam’s heart.”
Estin groaned and tried to ignore the chuckles from Phaesys. “Unofficially?”
Phaesys spoke up when Oria hesitated. “About nine months, since about six months after Marr moved into Oria’s household. We had other issues at the time they began sneaking off. We were unable to address it before they were rather attached.”
“Elia and Atall are a little more than six months old,” Oria added, smiling sheepishly. “When Phaesys pointed out that Rinam was getting a little…close…with Marr, I was in no position to care, as I was still figuring out how the whole pregnancy thing worked. I am always aware of what happens under my roof, but I was in no place to deal with it. Now, it would break my heart to separate them. They ran off together with Theldis and Alyana, thinking they would go find you two. By the time we heard from them the week before last, I hardly felt it was appropriate to start a fight over their relationship. The three barely remembered you two, but they were so excited to get on the road and find you both. I did not want to dull their enthusiasm with an argument.”
“The pirates…your idea or theirs?”
Oria rolled her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. “Theirs. I told them in one of my notes that if they needed money for their travels, I would provide it. Somehow that was relayed to some rather unpleasant people as a reward for finding the two of you. I’ve paid out near enough money to buy the city of Altis just keeping my brothers and sister from getting themselves killed by people who were trying to collect on that supposed offer. I had actually assumed this latest news was another false claim.”
Taking her free hand in his, Estin leaned forward. “Can you ever forgive us for being gone this long?”
She tightened her grip on his hand and smiled. “Tell me that it was worthwhile. I want to know you had good reason and that, if nothing else, you found a way to kill Arturis.”
“We did. We found out how to kill all of them.”
“I assume the retreat of the mists three years ago is your doing as well, along with the collapse of magic?”
Estin shrugged. “You’d have to ask your mother. I got myself in trouble again and missed some of the action. I’ve been stuck on the ocean for a long while.”
Oria smiled and nodded, clasping his hand more tightly. “I just need to do one thing before I can say all is forgiven, and that’s actually why I asked you out here alone.”
“What?”
Oria held up a finger to have him wait. Removing the veil and handing it to Phaesys, she slowly rolled up both sleeves and fastened them above her elbows with silk cords. Then, shifting the hem of her robe to keep it from tangling her legs, she turned and punched Estin in the jaw, knocking him over backward.
Landing with a thud, Estin spit out a mouthful of blood and checked to be sure she had not broken his jaw. When he looked up again, Oria was standing over him, offering him a hand up, stretching the fingers of the hand she had hit him with.
“That,” she said, yanking him to his feet, “is for hitting me in the face with your tail. My eye swelled nearly shut for days, and I still have a few scars on the inside of my mouth from where my fangs cut in. Now, all is forgiven. I didn’t want Mother out here when I hit you, because she would have taken my ears off before she thought it through.”
Laughing despite the pain, Estin hugged Oria and breathed in the scent of her now that he was close enough to get past the oils the Corraithians seemed to use to coat everything. A rough greeting from his lost child was far better than anything else he could imagine.
“So when do I get to see these lands of yours?” he finally asked as Oria led him back toward the tent. “We’ve got to be hundreds of miles from Corraith.”
Keeping an arm around him as they walked, Oria replied, “A little more than a hundred, and you have already seen my lands. We’re on my lands. Most of the river is mine, along with large sections between here and Corraith itself. Once you’ve gotten done catching up with everyone, I’ll let you two find a place anywhere under my banner that you want to live. You’re not sneaking away again. You will live anywhere you want that I control.”
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving.” He walked on a little longer before adding, “It could take some time to get used to my kits all being grown up and finding families of their own. I left four of my children and came back to six adults, two of whom are as much part of the family as my own, plus two grandchildren. It won’t be easy to wrap my head around.”
“Only two grandchildren?” Oria asked, without any hint of humor in her expression. “Oh…you didn’t know?”
Estin froze midstep and nearly fell over. He looked down at Oria’s robe, seeing no hint that she was pregnant. Given the layers of cloth, it would have been easy to hide. If she were pregnant, it had to be recent.
“No, no, not me,” Oria said, grinning as she waved away his concern, smoothing the front of her robe over her stomach.
Estin swallowed hard. “Then you mean…Marr?”
Oria kept her mouth shut for a moment before bursting out laughing. When Est
in looked over at Phaesys for confirmation, he saw Phaesys was shaking his head sadly.
“She honestly thinks that jokes of that sort are funny,” Phaesys said, giving Oria a disapproving glare. “You should have heard the nonsense she filled Marr’s head with about the risks of spending time alone with a boy. I’m surprised that Marr is willing to let Rinam within a hundred paces of her. To this day, I think Oria told her those stories just so that I had to squirm when forced to reeducate Marr about topics I still have a hard enough time discussing with Oria. I did not believe my penance required educating young women about their relationships with men, but Oria certainly put me in that position.”
“I wouldn’t entirely deny that was intentional,” Oria said, putting her arm back around Estin. “Take a deep breath, Dad. I promise, no more surprises for a few days at least. Rinam and Marr aren’t too serious yet. No talk about marriages or life-matings that I’ve overheard. If this is the worst they come up with by this age, I’d say I did well enough for them. Things could have turned out far worse for all of us.”
They stepped into the tent, and Estin watched as the two young kits crawled over Feanne, who was on the ground, laughing and pawing back at them. Beside them, Rinam held Marr in his arms, hugging her as they smiled down at their games. Marr tried to quickly slip away when she saw Estin watching her—unsuccessfully, as Rinam did not let go. To one side, Theldis stood stoically, his tail wagging slowly—a near mirror of Phaesys’s quiet watching for threats. To the other side of Rinam and Marr, Alyana had her attention on Alafa’s money pouch, but snapped her gaze to Estin with a falsely innocent grin.
Through it all, the soldiers stood at the edge of the room, ready to leap to the defense of the wildlings—a reversal of roles that Estin had never expected to see.
As Estin walked from the entrance of the tent toward the others, the kits stopped their attack on Feanne and sat up. They watched Estin with their whiskers twitching nervously. Occasionally their gaze darted to Phaesys and Oria before coming back to Estin. His initial attack on Phaesys had clearly left the wrong first impression.