by Sam Farren
There was a but at the end of the sentence, unvoiced and heavy. Castelle nodded, pretending it was all perfectly clear, and kept walking.
“Not that I’m one to speak. What do I know of the sort? I lived in a temple until the age of twenty-eight, cut off from the outside world.”
“Excuse me?”
“Relationships, I mean. I can’t exactly spark a conversation about your relationship with Reed when I have no idea what I’m actually talking about. When it comes to, well, experience, that is to say, I…”
Oversharing to take the focus off Eos worked too well. Eos stared at Castelle as they walked, brow raised, and Castelle prayed for another bear trap to change the subject.
“Really? Never?”
“When would I have had the opportunity?” Castelle asked. “Not many eligible women wandered through the forest for me to happen upon, and my fathers were intent on finding me a partner for practical reasons. Continuing the bloodline and whatnot. It was always in my best interest to quash their ideas.”
The corner of Eos’ mouth curled into a smile.
“And yet you saw fit to interrogate me about my relationships?”
“Oh, hush,” Castelle said, shoving Eos’ shoulder. “I am perfectly qualified to ask questions. I’ve seen many examples of happy couples, you realise. Being a lone lesbian out in the woods has not blinded me entirely. Believe it or not, my parents actually adored one another, and my fathers at least pretended to care for one another around me. Plus, the servants always brought plenty of gossip.
“Besides, I am not entirely clueless. That is to say, there were maids, and I—”
Castelle bit the inside of her mouth, walking ahead as though Brackish coursed through her veins.
“Rhea?” Eos asked, never having any trouble catching up.
“Oh. No, no. No, that’s not—not that she isn’t terribly pretty, I’ll admit. I was younger. Much younger. Nineteen, twenty. I soon learnt that the maids got in rather more trouble than I did and put an end to it. For a few years after that, I suspect my fathers made sure to only hire straight maids.”
Eos hadn’t stopped smiling. The building embarrassment of every word was worth it.
Shaking her head, Eos took the lead, shoulders rising as she went.
“Are you laughing at me? Gods, Eos. Have some respect. This is all part of my tragic past, you realise,” Castelle called at her back.
Turning on the spot, Eos gave a low bow and waited for Castelle.
Castelle had never seen such amusement cross Eos’ face. It made her deaf to the rain, untouched by the damp fabric clinging to her damp skin.
She couldn’t stop now.
“Do your mothers live here? On one of the islands?” Castelle asked.
“No,” Eos said, after a pause.
“Oh? Are they still in Nor?”
“Yes.”
Her smile was gone, now.
“Do you ever visit them?”
“No.”
“Why not? Do you not get along with them?”
“It’s complicated.”
To say nothing of regicide and exile.
“Do you miss them?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you asking?”
Batting rain from the tip of her nose, Castelle said, “Because you know absolutely everything about my life and my family, and I could count the things I know about you on one hand.”
“That isn’t true,” Eos said.
“Let’s see,” Castelle said, making a list of her fingers. “Your name is Eos. You come from Nor. You have two mothers. You don’t eat animals. You dated Reed for several years. Oh, I apologise. There are six things. You have a cat named Rhyolite.”
“I do not see why you’d need to know anything else,” Eos said in that flat way of hers.
Castelle couldn’t tell whether she was serious. She settled for glaring at her.
“You’re enjoying this. Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? As I said, you know the entirety of my history. You know how I have spent my life. Our adventure together didn’t get off to the best start, what with the kidnapping and the bear traps, but I’m finally in a place where I can enjoy things,” Castelle said. Months ago, she never would’ve dared to say so much in one impromptu burst. “I’m starting to understand how I might have a real place in the world, and I’m no longer completely terrified of reuniting with Layla.
“I have a chance to be myself, Eos. To find out who that is. So, yes. I’m enjoying myself, for once.”
“Even in the rain?” Eos asked.
“Even in the rain,” Castelle agreed, grinning.
Around midday, they stopped at a stone shelter of a restaurant, built for travellers who didn’t want to commit to veering off the path and searching through nearby settlements. There was little on offer, but the woman braving the cold and rain promised them it would be the best soup and freshest bread they’d had on Caelfal.
Castelle had no complaints. She sat on the low, narrow bench running the length of the restaurant, teeth chattering as she warmed her hands on the bowl. The rising scent brought her back to her senses.
Eos tore apart the bread, wasting no time as she unrolled a map across the tabletop.
Castelle stared at the archipelago upside down, tracing the path they’d taken with her eyes. All the way across Laister, bridges burnt behind them. Halfway across Llyne, before the bear trap caught her, and across the rest of the island, months later. Up to Fél, over to Wayston, through Vertias, and onto Caelfal.
Eos saw Castelle looking and used the end of her spoon to trace the next leg of their journey. The four smaller islands of Vertias, Wayston, Fél, and Aria rose between Caelfal and Yarrin, but the northernmost port allowed ships to circumvent them all.
There weren’t going to be any more stops between them and Yarrin, no more islands for them to explore.
Eos stared at the map for a few more minutes, before rolling it back up. Castelle had never given her enough credit. She’d planned the journey down to every individual, branching path they took, avoiding mercenaries and would-be assassins along the way.
There was a whole world of danger Castelle was blind to, purely because Eos assured the way ahead was safe.
“The ships to Yarrin are regular enough,” Eos said, dropping the map into her bag. “If we are quick, we can reach the docks before sunset.”
Castelle had a few spoonfuls of soup left, but rose from her seat. As welcome as sitting was, it did nothing to dry her clothes, and discomfort was best assuaged by movement.
Eos carried their bowls and plates to the counter, thanked the woman for the meal, and pulled her hood up.
“Shall I take a bag?” Castelle asked.
“No,” Eos said, as she always did. “Your leg is still injured. Focus on that.”
“If you insist,” Castelle said, ducking beneath her hood as they returned to the road.
Half a mile in, a stranger’s voice rose over the rain, offering them a lift in their carriage. The driver had taken a family friend from the northern port to Torshval as a favour for their sister, but hadn’t had the time to waste in finding a fare for their journey back. Eos slipped some of their fast-depleting gold into the person’s hand and Castelle did her utmost not to dive into the carriage.
The space was cramped, but not uncomfortable. Eos sat straight, hands folded together in front of her, and Castelle sunk into a corner, eyes closed as the ground rocked beneath them. The rain struck the roof and windows like a thousand tiny pebbles, unrelenting and rhythmic, convincing her it was impossible she’d ever braved it.
They’d definitely make it to the port in time to catch a ship to Yarrin, now. Layla’s temple was largest on the island, twelve miles from the coast. Eos had pointed to it on a map for her. There wasn’t a reason in the world to delay the inevitable, to find a place for the night and wait for morning light to open the path to them.
Castelle wished she cou
ld’ve overcome the dull pain that flared in her leg and charge through the city, into the temple, but needed Eos to nudge her along. Still, she brimmed with nervous energy, leg rocking as the carriage rolled towards the port.
“I do,” Eos said, out of nowhere.
“You do?” Castelle asked, focusing on her, not Layla, dozens of miles away.
“I do miss my mothers. But I have not seen them for a very, very long time. Things happened. Because of my doing, because of the war. I… I do not know how I would face them, so I do not. It is complicated. War complicates things, complicates people. Sometimes…”
Eos’ words trailed off and her fingers dug into her knees.
“It’s alright. Thank you for sharing that with me, Eos. I know it can’t be easy, but I am genuinely glad to get to know more about you.”
“I am thirty-six. If you wanted another fact.”
“That’s eight, now,” Castelle said, holding up her fingers.
The port looked like the last five-hundred Castelle and Eos had visited. Taverns and inns lined the docks, a dozen merchants braved the rain at their open stalls, and crowds gathered to squint at schedules and buy tickets on passenger ships.
Eos left Castelle with the bags at her feet and handled the business of tickets. Castelle feared nothing in particular from those gathered along the docks, and passed the time reading the names of the larger merchant vessels unloading their cargo in crates and barrels.
The ship was ready to board almost immediately. Castelle shouldn’t have been ready to leave, deep down, shouldn’t have been ready to tear herself from Torshval and all her family had left behind, but she stepped onto the boat without looking back.
Brackish’s eagerness had seeped into her bones, and it wasn’t unwelcome. Whatever the sword needed to see, needed to remember and let go of, was on Yarrin. Castelle’s thoughts wouldn’t shift far from it, until she could piece together what’d happened in the old city.
Her family’s foundations were a lie. Ava Greyser hadn’t escaped Nor and brought those loyal to her with her. She’d been but a face in the crowd. Brackish hadn’t been an ancient, angry spirit; only a woman who’d been wronged. Ava had done nothing to earn her crown. The crown never should’ve existed to begin with.
Castelle needed to know more.
She needed to know that something, one single, solitary thing, rang true.
Ava Greyser really did have red hair. She could cling to that, should the worst happen.
The voyage to Yarrin was three times as long as any Castelle had ever taken. The ship arced around the north of the archipelago, far from the rocks littering the coast, heading for Yarrin’s northernmost point.
“How long does it take to reach Nor?” Castelle asked.
“Three days, in good weather. Providing you leave from Caelfal,” Eos said.
Three days was nothing. They’d walked across half of Caelfal in that time and only seen a dozen settlements along the way. Three days was nothing; Nor wasn’t a world away, wasn’t the unknowable, unreachable land her fathers had made it out to be.
“Am I still to head there? After I’ve reunited with Layla, is that still the plan? To deliver Brackish to foreign shores, letting go of any pretence of a reign for once and for all?”
Eos sat with her eyes on the grey waves and didn’t turn at Castelle’s question.
“That is what Layla and I always intended, yes.”
With all they’d been through, bear traps, assassins, rekindled memories metamorphosing into the real world at the beckoning of lost spirits, Castelle had let herself forget there was to be an end to this. They were not wandering indefinitely, free to follow their whims and their spirit-sword.
Eos would deliver Castelle to Layla, and her role would be done. Castelle couldn’t bring herself to ask Eos if she was coming to Nor, even to see how she would react. Eos was exiled from Nor. Eos had no intention of returning, not even to visit her mothers.
Layla’s temple was where Eos’ path ended. Castelle slumped in her seat, cloak pulled tight around herself.
She couldn’t mention it now. Couldn’t tell Eos that she’d known for days. She’d kept it to herself for too long. If she mentioned it now, she’d be weaponising it. She’d be using it to catch Eos out, to demand something of her.
Instead, Castelle said, “You’ve known Layla for a while, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Your cousin is a very private person, when it comes to her past. She does not speak of it, does not use her old family name. She does what she must to keep herself safe. Few know of her relationship to you. Svir, who she counts amongst her friends, does not even know, and Svir knows most things,” Eos said. “I have spent time in her temple. I have worked for her, in the past.”
“Oh? What sort of errands does she send you on, short of kidnapping Princesses?”
Castelle forced herself to smile.
“There are plenty in need who cannot reach the temples, for a variety of reasons. Layla often has me offer them safe passage across the archipelago. You aren’t the first person I’ve rescued.”
“This is a rescue mission now, is it?”
“Isn’t it?”
Castelle laughed, but couldn’t commit to it.
“No one is suggesting you stay in Nor forever. You could consider it a simple delivery. Take Brackish to Nor, abdicate beyond a shadow of a doubt, and return to Fenroe. If that is what you wish.”
“You make it sound so simple. We’ll need contacts. Officials in Nor to oversee the proceedings, whatever those are. And then there’s Brackish herself. Who’s to say if she even wants to go all the way across the ocean!”
“Brackish is from Nor. There is every chance she will want to return home,” Eos said. “And do not worry about the details. Layla has been working on this for years. She will have every step planned out for you.”
A few days to get to Nor. A few weeks to smooth matters over. A few days to get back to Fenroe.
It might not even take a month. Everything her journey had been leading up to would take less than a month, and where would that leave her? Back on Fenroe without a clue how the world worked, finally free of her royal blood, but not her nightmares.
“What happens when I come back? What do I do then?” Castelle murmured.
“What do you wish to do?” Eos asked.
“That’s the thing, Eos. I don’t have the first idea what I’ll do when I’m finally standing still. I don’t know what I want, what I enjoy. Oh, I enjoyed much of my childhood, that is certainly true, but it is so distant and was taken from me so abruptly that I am no longer that person. Perhaps I never was. I can’t find the answers,” Castelle said. Everything that’d lurked in the back of her mind rushed to her lips. “And, as you may be aware, I’ve spent the last fourteen years doing much of nothing. Being fed lies, reading books without a jot of reality in them, waiting, waiting.
“Do you want to know the truth? The most fun I’ve had lately has been these past few days. With you, out in the rain. Following the path Brackish has set out for us, even with memories literally crumbling around us. I even enjoyed my brief time with Svir, Tanen, and Niamh, once Svir was safe and no longer intent on selling me.
“It felt like having friends for the first time in an age. It isn’t just the thought of seeing Layla that scares me, Eos. It’s the thought of standing still again. I spent so very long doing nothing that the prospect of not having some distant destination to head for puts me on edge.
“I could stay with Layla. I could repay my debt to Fenroe and help those truly in need. I wouldn’t hate it. I expect it would be something different every day. Yet I’d be going from one temple to another. I don’t want to be imprisoned by four walls again, Eos. Even if I could leave them. Something in it feels wrong. Something makes me want to scream, and I…
“I suppose I’m being selfish, aren’t I? Looking for an adventure beyond the work of the priests.”
Eos finally grew tired of watching the waves.
“You do not need to make any decisions yet. You may feel differently, come tomorrow. You may feel differently, once you are at the temple. Once you are reunited with Layla, something within you may finally settle,” Eos said. “It is natural to feel restless. Do not blame yourself for not knowing what to do with your life, now that you have it to yourself.”
Castelle ran her fingers through her short hair. Eos may have always been reserved with her words, but of late, they were always good ones. Always worth waiting for.
“And what about you? Will you be here, when I return to Nor?”
“I live in Fenroe,” Eos said, shifting in her seat. “Where else would I be?”
Castelle turned her gaze to the grey waves that’d fascinated Eos. It would be so easy to say nothing else, to let things drop, but Yarrin was on the horizon and the darkening sky could do nothing to hide it, to stop it drawing close.
“You know what I mean,” Castelle murmured.
Eos leant forward, chin rested on her knuckles. She wasn’t all empty thought and blank stares. Something churned behind her eyes as she considered telling Castelle why she couldn’t return to Nor, and all that conversation would lead to.
“I will be here,” Eos said, as Yarrin’s port came into view. “Of course I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eos stumbled onto land. The fear of Castelle’s heart never letting her take a step onto Yarrin was soon forgotten. She jumped off the boat, grabbing Eos’ elbow.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yes,” Eos said, passing an accusing glare at her feet. “Fine.”
Eos wasn’t the sort of person who stumbled, who tripped her way off boats. She hoisted her bags further up her back and hurried down the pier, away from the eyes fixed on her.
Castelle didn’t have to struggle to catch up. Eos faltered along the docks, hands wrapped tightly around the bag straps, eyes fixed on the ground.
“What is it, Eos? You don’t look well,” Castelle said.
“It’s nothing. Nothing, I—I am tired. That’s all,” Eos said, face wan, fingers trembling.