“May I, my lady?” Enosh asked. Sume handed it over to him without a word. He flipped the map open. He noted a faint circle over the mountains by the eastern coast, overlooking the Gorenten Sea. “He did always love the water,” he found himself saying.
Sume looked up. Enosh pretended not to notice. “I doubt this has anything to do with Yn Garr,” Enosh said, folding the map and turning to Daro. “I’m not saying your plan has no merit, just that we may learn less than you think we will.”
“There’s nothing in Lon Basden that they won’t already know,” Daro said.
“Are you telling me we’re taking this risk on a hunch?”
“Not a hunch,” Daro replied. “A promise.” He hesitated for a moment. “She had been making plans to go there around the time the attack on the fort broke out. If she is alive…”
“Won’t she have gone back to Lon Basden?”
“You do not know her, Tar’elian. She told me she would go.” The determination in his face told Enosh it was useless to argue.
They crested along the coastline for several days, stopping by seaside villages to eat and sleep. They completed bypassed Lon Basden. Daro noted that there were too many soldiers even from the dock for it to be safe for them.
The winds picked up speed after Lon Basden, which as just as well, for there was only one last town on the coast after it. The land soon gave way to empty shores and tall cliffs of slate and granite. The sight of the jagged edges of the cliffs was a sharp jolt to Enosh’s memory, probably caused by the fact that the last time he had seen such formations, he was falling from them.
“I was fifteen when I joined Yn Garr in the Kag,” he found himself telling Sume not long after they hit the Gorenten Sea. “Kefier was twelve. I had an accident and had to spend almost a year trying to recover from it. If Yn Garr had not fished me out of the bottom of the ocean—or so I like to think—I would be dead by now. I tried to repay him as best as I could.
“I didn’t see Kefier again until after he had joined the Boarshind. By then, there had been too many years between us for me to approach him as if nothing had happened. We were not meant to travel the same road, Sume, and I thought that the best way was to let him be. I tried my best to look out for him, even pulling him out of the Boarshind dungeon after he got himself into some mess back there with a friend of his…”
“Yes,” Sume said. “It involved my brother, Oji. If you had paid more attention, you would know these things.”
Enosh patted the seat beside him. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down, her hands folding over her knees. “I am…” he began. He stopped, clearing his throat.
“You don’t have to explain,” she whispered.
He grimaced at her tone, knowing she didn’t intend it to have the effect it did on him. Carefully, he picked up her right hand, cupping it in both of his. He lifted it to his lips.
“I have never wanted to hurt you,” Enosh said. “But it seems like despite my best attempts…”
Her lips quivered into a smile. “A moment of introspection, coming from you?”
“Occasionally, I surprise even myself.”
Sume glanced at Daro, who was sitting alone by the bow. “He and Mahe, they make it look so easy, don’t they?”
“Well, he’s scared of her, which helps a great deal. Plus, he’s surrounded by mostly men, which I’m sure elevates her to goddess-like-stature in his eyes. He must have other qualities we can’t perceive, because I can’t for the life of me figure out what she sees in him. His eyes are slightly mismatched, did you notice?”
“I was thinking more of how much trust they have in each other.”
“That, too.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “I like to think you once looked at me the way I remember Mahe would look at him. It’s changed, hasn’t it?”
She pulled her hand away and placed it on his knee. “You flatter yourself, my lord.”
“Give me time. I think I’ve got half of it down.”
“Oh? How so?”
He smiled. “I’m terrified of you.”
They disembarked on a large stretch of beach, marked by a strip of sandbar extending from a river flowing into the sea. “It’s still a walk aways,” Daro said. “But I’ve been told it gets too difficult for anything but the smallest boats past the river.”
They followed Daro along the beach, past piles of driftwood and limpet-covered rocks. Enosh could recall how he and Kefier would spend entire evenings peeling them off with a knife to gather them for the stewpot. He had lived for years trying not to recall that idyllic childhood. He had figured it had no place in the life he was trying to lead.
They were some distance from where they left the ship anchored when they came across a shipwreck on the shore. Debris was scattered along the sand. A half-broken Dageian craft was smashed against the rocks. “That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid,” Daro said, whistling. “By Dorsin’s flaming beard, it looked like they were trying to steer themselves back to open water but couldn’t quite make it.”
“You have my eternal thanks at not getting us killed,” Enosh said.
“I’ll remind you when you least expect it.” Daro stopped in his tracks, looking up.
Enosh followed his gaze and saw the child sitting at the edge of the hill above them. For a moment, he thought his eyes were deceiving him. Behind him, he heard Sume give a gasp of surprise.
Interlude
A rush of emotion floods her chest as she sees her mother and that man walk towards her. Rosha catches it in time and locks it away underneath her. She stays perfectly still as they clamber up the trail to meet her and doesn’t react when her mother reaches out to draw her into an embrace.
When her mother pulls away, she looks her in the eye. “Tell me,” she says. She points at Enosh. “Jarche tells me he is my father. Please do not lie to me, Mama. Not anymore.”
“He is,” Sume says.
Rosha chokes back her tears. “I was playing by the rocks when I saw your ship. I came down to see who it was, and then I saw you. I was sitting here trying to think of all the things I want to tell you.” She looks at the man. “I don’t know if I can call him Father.”
“I understand,” Sume replies. “We’re not asking you to. We’re just happy you’re safe, Rosha.”
“I had to leave. I had to save Papa.” She stands up. “Who is Kefier and why did he raise me as his?”
“Enosh was not with us before you were born. We needed to maintain the appearance of a family. You know how it is in Jin-Sayeng.” Sume tucks her hair over her ear. “Kefier is your father’s brother.”
“He’s my uncle?”
“Yes,” Enosh breaks in.
She absorbs this information without a flicker of surprise. “That makes it better.”
Her mother pulls back. “It does?”
She nods. “I don’t want him out of my life.” The matter-of-fact way she says it seems to surprise them. They don’t argue with her, though, which is good.
“I know he has a house here somewhere, Rosha,” the third person with them says. Rosha has never seen him before, but he looks friendly. “Do you know where it is?”
“It’s where I’ve been staying,” Rosha says. “But it’s a long walk away.”
“Is there anyone else there with you?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. She pauses, noting the hopeful look in his eyes and his thick, black hair, which is exactly how she described it. “You’re Izo, aren’t you?”
“Mahe. You’re with Mahe. I knew it! I told you, Enosh, and you…” He takes a sharp intake of breath. “Why isn’t she with you?”
“She asked me to look out for you. He will come, she said.” She gestures to him. “We need to hurry. She is very ill. She almost died trying to save me.”
Between the dark spaces of dreams of dying soldiers and groaning, Mahe wakes to the feel of Izo’s calloused hands in hers.
“Did I die?” she asks.
Laughter bursts from Izo’s lips, though his eyes look wea
ry. “No, you did not. No, my love. I wasn’t going to let you.”
Her lips twitch. “I saw it. Yn Garr’s beast. I did not think I truly believed in its power until I saw how easily it went through our cohort.”
Izo places the rim of a cup against her lips. She takes a sip of water and coughs. “You should rest,” he says, adjusting the pillow under her.
“No,” she replies. She touches his face, feeling the exhaustion begin to creep away from her. “I thought I would never get the chance to tell you all about it.”
“Is that the sound of fear in your voice? I would’ve found you, my love, no matter where you were.”
She drops her hand to the side of the bed. “I saw my death in its eye. I couldn’t explain it. I felt like there was something crawling inside my skull. I wasn’t being sensible. I saw how it killed our soldiers and I thought I could kill it if I could find an opening. Then it flung itself into the sea and I saw the child follow and I stopped thinking. I had to save her, Izo. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Izo asks.
“I lost our child, Izo.”
Confusion dances in his eyes. “What child?”
“I sent Rosha away because I didn’t want her to see. I found out in Lon Basden and was waiting to tell you when I could see you and I never got the chance to…”
He takes her into his arms, wrapping her into a warmth that she never thought she would feel again. She curls up against the crook of his neck and feels him kiss the top of her head. Tears she has held back for days begin to fall.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I lost your child while trying to save another.”
“It was not a trade you knew you were making. A life needed to be saved. That is enough. You couldn’t have known. If you had seen their faces when they saw her safe…” She realizes he is also crying. The sound of his anguish breaks her heart even more than it already has.
Harder than the loss comes the morning after.
Chapter Four
Lord Iorwin fell to Yn Garr’s blade three days after King Elrend’s death. He was the third lord to defy his claim, and the last. Eyes glowing blue, and with agan-infused veins popping through his skin, Yn Garr turned to the rest of the Hafed, who dropped to their knees and swore fealty to King Agartes Allaicras right then and there. The Hafed crown was his, now, uncontested.
Kefier, watching this unfold in Fort Oras’ courtyard, turned to leave. Lady Isobel was standing in the middle of the path. He didn’t acknowledge her and tried to make a wide berth around her.
“Are you mad at me, Commander?” Isobel asked.
“I’m just angry,” Kefier replied.
“Your company is now owned by the Hafed king himself. This does not please you?”
“It makes no difference to me.” He placed his hand on his sword and turned to face her, deciding that he was going to cut through her if she continued to block him. His stance seemed to tell her as much. She took one step back.
“You’re thinking of leaving. His New Royal Highness will not like it. Defying him is treason, now.”
“Let him try and stop me,” Kefier said.
The sound of his voice seemed enough to convince her. She dropped her head and stepped aside.
He met no one else along the way—the scene in the courtyard was keeping them busy. Kefier did not bother to stop by his quarters and passed through the tunnels connected through the kitchens, which was where Sevlor and his men had broken through the night of the attack. He reached the bottom of the cave where Abel had trapped him and Ailat, climbed up the ladder, and arrived at the shore, looking out onto the Gorenten Sea.
He had not left the fort since that night. The sea that had swallowed his daughter was now calm, with the sort of flat, grey stillness and streak of sunlight that would entice him in for a swim when he was a boy. Revulsion stirred up in him. For the first time in his life, the sound of the rolling waves and the salt-smell in the air brought no comfort.
Very little occupied Kefier’s thoughts during his slow walk back south. There was nothing to think about. The weather remained clear, cold but not biting, and he knew the trails by heart and didn’t have to backtrack or use his map. A part of him wouldn’t have minded getting lost, but his feet continued to take him through familiar terrain: a hill here and there, a murky lake, covered in cracked ice, a clearing full of heather and brush, the small buds peeking through the dead foliage marking the beginning of spring.
He stopped only at night, when his feet would no longer cooperate, breaking his own protocol to build a fire. The motions made it easier to continue not thinking. He almost expected to hear the sound of hooves in the distance, but the night remained silent. If Yn Garr had sent men after him, they were doing a poor job of it.
This was the pattern that took Kefier all the way back to the mountain where he built his home. From the distance, he could see a stream of smoke curling from the rooftops, which didn’t alarm him, because he knew Ailat and the Gorenten were there. The sight of the smoke pleased him; a home needed to be lived in, needed the warmth of people and the sound of laughter within its walls.
A memory of Baeddan’s house, the one he had fixed up in an effort to attract its owner all the way back to it, returned to him. That had been a home that never recovered from sorrow. Kefier’s house, at least, would not carry that taint. He had set aside a room especially for Rosha. It was smaller than the one she had in Yn Garr’s house, but there was a closet she could have filled with books and a ladder that led to a deck on the roof where she could read, alone and uninterrupted, on clear days. That she had never been in it now seemed like a blessing. Kefier didn’t think he could bear the sorrow if his mind’s eye began seeing her everywhere.
He paused to catch his breath and realized maybe it didn’t make a bloody difference. He could see Rosha sitting cross-legged on the rock that led up to the path leading to the house. He had heard of apparitions before, or spirits crossing with the agan where such connections are strong, but he didn’t think it would ever look so clear. A moment passed by. She blinked at him. He hesitated, not out of fear of her appearance itself, but the fear that she would leave him if he did anything wrong.
What do I do? Do I breathe? Do I step forward?
Kefier must’ve stood there for a very long time, because he caught that familiar twitch of irritation on Rosha’s face—a thing she inherited from her mother, though he would never admit it—and got up. “You know too, right?” she asked. “Is that why you don’t want to greet me? Because you’ve been lying to me like everyone else?”
Her words shot through him and failed to stick. He continued staring at her. She approached him now, her eyes dancing. Her hair was combed, with a new hair pin keeping it in place. This stood out because Rosha never bothered to comb her own hair. Did spirits care about such frivolities?
“You’re still not talking,” Rosha snapped. “Did you just find out yourself and now you want nothing to do with me? I just need to know. Papa…” Now the scowl disappeared, replaced by tears. She was crying, this child that didn’t seem to want to cry lately, her face contorted the same way it did when she was so much younger and her whole world revolved around him. He knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that somehow she had not been taken from him. She was alive. His little girl was alive.
He reached her in two paces, grabbing her and lifting her up in his arms. She stopped crying as soon as she realized that tears were flowing down his face, too. She reached up to wipe them away. The warmth of her small hands made his heart want to explode. “You still love me, right?” she asked.
“Child, when did I ever stop?” he choked out.
“They told me everything. And I couldn’t ask you during the battle, so I was afraid…”
Kefier set her down. “Who told you?”
Before she could reply, he heard a familiar voice calling Rosha’s name and saw Enosh trotting down the hill. “Your mothe
r’s going to be worried sick about you again if you keep running off like this,” Enosh was saying, right before he saw Kefier. His face tightened.
Kefier felt Rosha tug at his hand. “You go on back,” he told her in a low voice. She glanced at Enosh once before taking a deep breath and disappearing up the path.
“This is fantastic,” Enosh said. “If I knew we would have a family reunion, I would have asked Ishir to cobble up something. A nice seafood stew, Agantuan-style.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kefier asked.
Enosh sighed. “You have to stop talking to me in that voice. It makes me want to hit you, which will make me look like the villain. Look—”
“I don’t want you here.”
“Of course you don’t. But, I have to point out, that legally, that house over there is mine. You used my money to build it, ergo…”
Kefier started to step towards him. But seeing Rosha had the effect of lifting the weight of the world from his shoulders, which stopped him from reacting to Enosh’s words the way he normally did. He didn’t have the energy for a fight. “How did you tell her?” he asked, choosing to let the irritation bubble through his voice instead.
“It’s a long story,” Enosh replied. “Perhaps it’s best if we talk about it inside.” He gestured to Kefier. The ease with which he went up the path that Kefier himself had set down was unsettling. In the span of a few minutes, Kefier’s entire world was turned upside-down once again. He was getting tired of it.
But he followed Enosh into the house without another word. He caught sight of Ishir, who nodded in greeting, oblivious of the tension in the air, and spoke of Ailat and Storri still helping the Fort Oras slaves settle in the valley. He had not seen them at all since he himself had gone down there to bring supplies.
Kefier noticed Enosh looking intently at him. “What you did out here is surprising,” Enosh said. “I didn’t know you cared at all about the plight of our people.”
An Elegy of Heroes Page 121
