by Grace Martin
Aine took a tentative step into the room. ‘May I join you?’
You can’t eat my breakfast. ‘Sure.’
She sat at the table and folded her hands in front of her. She clearly wanted to wring them. ‘That was brave, what you did last night,’ she said.
‘Which part?’ I’ve been so very brave lately.
‘Oisin told me you insisted on bringing the refugees here, even though you knew you’d be exposed for having left the palace.’ She was watching me intently. I shrugged. There wasn’t much I could say to that. She went on. ‘How did you leave the palace?’
This trust thing probably went both ways so I was honest with her. ‘I’ve been a prisoner for nearly my whole life, Aine. It’s a special kind of hell to be locked up. When Saoirse had me captive in Cairnagorn this time, I decided I was going to make sure I could never be held against my will again. One of the guards there was Draceni and her wife had been a Librarian before the fall of Cairnagorn. She made sure that I won’t be trapped ever again.’
‘I can understand that. After Sir Cai, I swore that I would never be defenceless again. That’s why I asked Mihall to train me. I should have trusted you enough to tell you that the other day.’ Aine bit her lip. ‘I’m so sorry, Emer. I truly, truly am.’
‘I know.’ I sighed. Aine always meant well. She probably was truly, truly sorry, in a way that someone like me would probably not really be sorry for anything. Aine cared too deeply. That was how she’d been fooled in the first place. Saoirse knew Aine’s weaknesses. She’d played on them. She loved to manipulate people. I was worried sometimes that Aoife and I were too similar, but at least in that we were different. She was a master manipulator. I struggled to get my point across at all.
‘I know, Aine. And look, it’s okay. I forgive you, all right? I know you never meant to hurt anyone.’
Aine put her hands into her face. When she removed them, wet with her tears, she said, ‘Is it really true that you’re my daughter?’
‘I’m being very brave and very honest, lately. There was a special on at the shops. Two virtues for the angst of one. Yes, it’s true. Weird, isn’t it?’
I hated that it was weird. I wanted it to feel natural. I wanted her to open her arms as she had when I’d met her in my own time, to weep because she loved me. I was starting to realise that although this was upsetting to her, she would never see me as her daughter. She might get to know me as a friend. She might even see me as a sister, one day. But she would never be a mother to me.
I felt like something had been ripped away inside me, like a bandage stuck to a wound, pulled away too quickly. It hurt. I was never going to have a mother. I’d wanted a mother more than anything, and the best I was going to get was a girl my age, sitting across a table from me, who was truly, truly sorry that she’d placed the word of a stranger over mine.
It’s a hard dream to give up.
‘And it’s true that Rhiannon is here, now?’
Your real daughter? ‘Yes. My age. Or a little older.’ But Rhiannon would receive every motherly instinct in Aine’s heart, no matter what age she was. I never thought I would envy, Rhiannon, but here we were.
‘Right now, she’s near Caillen, being looked after by her father. I know Ruairi will keep her safe.’
I gave a mocking laugh before I could stop myself. ‘Near Caillen? That was the first hive. In my time, the village of Caillen was a sooty smudge on the landscape. The only people who survived Caillen were those inside the mountains when the dragons came.’
Stop it, Emer, stop it! I mentally smacked myself, but it couldn’t have been harder than I’d just verbally smacked Aine. She went pale, rocking in her chair like she was going to faint right out of it.
‘Emer, no!’
I clenched my hands under the table, fingernails digging into my palms. ‘She’ll survive, Aine. I know she will, because she did.’ I slowed down, thinking things through. ‘I don’t know what happened to her father, though. She told me that she went looking for her mother — looking for you. She told me that she found you and… you…’ Maybe I shouldn’t be telling this story. But it was too late to stop now.
‘Don’t you dare stop there,’ Aine whispered.
‘You’re going to wish I did,’ I replied.
‘I need to know. Tell me, Emer! If you know, I have a right to know. I am her mother!’
I passed a hand over my face to compose myself. This was going to be brutal. ‘She found you and you branded her. With sorrow signs.’ I indicated. ‘On her face.’
‘I did not!’
‘Not yet. But that’s what she said happened. She had no reason to lie. She has the brands to prove it.’ I shrugged. Words were not my friends tonight.
‘Tell the rest,’ she urged.
‘Rhiannon was found by Aoife. I don’t even know how old she was. At one point, she escaped, and found the Draceni. They gave her tattoos, all around the sorrow signs. She has a very striking appearance. There is a bee-’ My hand stopped halfway to my forehead. Aine wanted answers, but I was pretty sure she didn’t really care about which patterns adorned Rhiannon’s face.
Aine launched herself out of her chair. ‘I couldn’t have been the one to brand her,’ she muttered. ‘Never. I would never. I could never. Not anyone, much less my own child!’ She started to pace the room, taking the same path I’d taken before she entered. She kept talking, more to herself than me. ‘I would never do that. Aoife, though? Ooohh, yes, Aoife would delight in that. Aoife would even set it up. That has to be it. We look the same. Even more alike than twins. We’re Umbra’s heirs. It had to be Aoife.’ She rounded on me. ‘Did she tell you how she knew the difference between us?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
I was getting annoyed. She hadn’t asked how I was taken out of her care. She didn’t ask about my sister, the baby she’d named Umbra, who had been hurt so badly by Aoife’s assassins that the only way to save any part of her was to put her spirit into the crystal that now resided in my brow. She didn’t even know that the sister I’d talked about wasn’t really my sister, but my cousin, Aoife’s daughter, and the creepyguardians had just told us we were twins to excuse the fact that we were identical.
I hadn’t even told Sparrow that we weren’t sisters. I wasn’t sure I would ever tell her. And Aine, who was the most maternal out of all of us? She wasn’t even asking the questions.
‘I want to see her.’
‘Of course, you do.’ I didn’t manage to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
Aine paused. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I thought you weren’t going to lie anymore?’
‘Hey!’
I’ve never been so glad to hear a knock at the door. I jumped out my chair so fast that I reached the door before Aine, even though she was right next to it. ‘Breakfast. Supper. Whatever. Smells amazing.’ It did. But the last time I’d eaten… I had to take a moment to try and recall. It was a very long time ago. Aside from the bread and water I’d taken in the dungeon, I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch with the Rhydda yesterday.
It felt like a very long time ago. I took the tray from the servant with murmured thanks. My new family Ganainn marking was shadowed but delicate on the inside of my wrist. I’d gone deep into my own darkness today. I’d dwelled with terrible thoughts and fed the pain I’d always nurtured inside me. That wasn’t who I wanted to be.
Maybe I wasn’t the nice one. But I didn’t want to be nasty like this.
I took the tray over to the table. The cook had been generous. Even hungry as I was, there was more than I could possibly eat. Maybe someone had taken notice that I hadn’t made any demands of the kitchen for a while. That thought helped somewhat. Servants notice more than the people upstairs think they do.
I laid everything on the table. ‘Come on, Aine,’ I said, my voice softer. ‘Join me. Break bread with me and help me drink my own bodyweight in soup.’
She joined me, but slowly. I gave A
ine the bowl and poured some of the soup for myself into a cup some unknown servant had placed ready on the bedside table. There was a jug of water on the bedside table, too, in case I got thirsty overnight. It was a very nice room, as far as prison cells went.
‘I’ll take you to see Rhiannon,’ I said, handing her a chunk of bread. ‘She may not be happy to see you, though. She thinks you branded her. She… holds on to a grudge.’ Boy, was that the understatement of the evening. ‘Are you sure you want to see her? It won’t be the same as reuniting with your baby. Your baby is still out there somewhere.’
I had to ask if she was sure. I couldn’t bear the idea that Aine would reject Rhiannon when she realised that it wasn’t going to be the same as coming home to a baby who toddled into her arms and offered nothing but love. Rhiannon wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t want Rhiannon to be hurt as I was hurting.
‘She’s still my baby,’ Aine replied, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘It hurts me to know that she’s been hurt. I need her to know that I love her.’
I should have blown on the soup. It was too hot. It burned my throat. Or maybe that was jealousy, I don’t know. I tried not to let it take hold of me again. ‘She needs that, too, Aine. I’ll take you there, as soon as we’ve eaten.’ I tried to smile. ‘And you’ll get to see how I made my daring escape.’
After the meal, I changed Aine into a bird, then moved to stand in the moonlight. The feeling of feathers springing from my skin was a welcome hurt. At least as a bird, Aine could only demand limited conversation from me.
I took her to the hospital first. I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea where they were. We peered in windows and listened for voices, but it was getting late, and there were few voices. I couldn’t find any sign of… of my sisters. We took to the city, flying low and halting on random rooftops. I found them by pure chance, when I’d nearly given up and Aine was beyond desperation.
I heard their voices first. They were murmuring to one another in an attic room. It was very late at night by now. Almost the whole city was asleep. I was so tempted to listen, to hear what they were talking about. I hoped that Rhiannon would be talking about the time she first found the Draceni, but that wasn’t the sort of person I wanted to be, either. I deliberately drew their attention before I could make out anything but their voices, flapping my wings against the window and pecking at it with my beak.
They’d been sitting just out of sight. Sparrow came to open the window and gave a cry of shock as another bird, Aine, followed me in. She tried to shoo Aine out and I tried to stop her. The spectacle made Rhiannon, sitting on the edge of the bed, laugh.
I’d so rarely seen her laugh. It pulled the spiral sorrow signs on her cheeks into teardrops. She opened her arms and I hopped onto her lap. She changed me back and I gave her a grin, sitting on her lap.
‘Are you quite finished?’ Sparrow asked, nightgown flapping in the breeze and looking pointedly at Aine, still in her bird shape.
‘Finished,’ I replied, hopping off Rhiannon’s lap and turning to Aine. Both Rhiannon and Sparrow gasped when they saw Aine. I’d forgotten that they hadn’t known her as long as I had. Rhiannon’s face instantly shuttered. I’d forgotten how remote she could be, as well. Sparrow was looking from me to Aine and back again.
‘You look the same!’ Sparrow breathed.
I nodded. ‘We’re related. She’s my mother.’
Sparrow went very still. ‘Our mother?’ she whispered.
Oh, no. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. What had I done? Sparrow didn’t know that Aine wasn’t her mother. I’d dealt with the information that we weren’t sisters, but how would she deal with it? It hadn’t made a big difference to me, because no matter who her mother was, Sparrow was my sister. But how would she feel about it? She’d shatter.
But wasn’t I through lying? I felt like I was underwater as I said, ‘My mother, Sparrow. Your mother is her twin sister.’
And I watched her shatter.
She staggered first. Rhiannon leaped to her feet to catch her. Sparrow shook her off. ‘Hawk…’
‘I’m sorry, Sparrow.’
‘You’re lying. You’re a terrible liar.’
‘I’m not lying. She gave birth to twins, but my twin was Umbra, not you. The creepyguardians lied to us when they said we were twins.’
‘We have to be twins. We look too alike to be cousins.’
‘Look at all of us, Sparrow. We’re all identical. We’re Umbra’s heirs. All Umbra’s heirs look alike.’
‘No.’ She backed away. Rhiannon came to put her arms around her. Sparrow let her, and shook within them.
Aine stood there without speaking. I knew it had to be hard for her to watch Rhiannon and say nothing, but I was so grateful that she allowed Sparrow time to say what she needed to say.
Rhiannon said, ‘Your mother? Aine, the Dark Queen?’
Aine nodded. I’d expected a surge of emotion from her. I thought she would throw herself at Rhiannon. I’d been certain she’d cry. Instead, she was just standing there.
Rhiannon’s hand went to her cheek and she let go of Sparrow, who weaved a little without the support. ‘You’re not the one who branded me,’ Rhiannon said. ‘The one who branded me wore a special locket to contain her powers.’
‘Probably my sister,’ Aine said.
‘My mother?’ Sparrow asked. She looked from one to the other, trying to find the small differences in our faces that had been marked by our temperaments. She gave a bark of laughter. ‘My mother is the White Queen? My mother is the villain?’
‘And you said, Emer, that this woman is my mother?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘Yes. And I’m so sorry, Sparrow, but yes. But that doesn’t mean that you-’
Her laugh was becoming hysterical. ‘I guess I don’t have to worry too much about being a good girl anymore, do I?’
‘Why are you so obsessed with not being called “good” or “nice” anyway?’ I snapped. ‘I would have given anything to have you tell me I was nice, when we were kids. It’s not fun, you know, being told I’m not the nice one. It hurt, actually. I’ve waited years to tell you that.’
‘You were so lucky that you didn’t have the Master on at you every year, telling you to be a “good girl.” That’s what he did. Every year, when he took me on “holiday” to his house, he would give me gifts and toys and harvest my magic until I barely had the strength to stay awake anymore. He told me to be a good girl. He told me that I was the nice one, and nice girls don’t make trouble. He used those words like weapons, to keep me in my place, to stop me from fighting back. Nice girls don’t fight back. You never had to worry about being nice. You could do whatever you wanted to do. And now it turns out that I’m not necessarily the nice one, either.’
‘You are the nice one, Sparrow. You care about people.’
‘Do I? You’re the one who’s been running around being a hero, Emer. Cuchulainn told me what you were like when you were in a featherskin, how you risked everything to expose Master Darragh, how you never let yourself be cowed. I fell to pieces. I felt like I wasn’t even human anymore.’
‘That’s what she wanted you to feel!’
‘My own mother!’ Sparrow cried. She ran to the window, turned herself into a bird and flew away. A few months ago, I’d thrown myself off a cliff. Cuchulainn had saved me, nearly killing himself, too, in the process. I counted myself lucky that Sparrow flew off that edge, she didn’t fall off it.
Rhiannon pursed her lips at me, then sighed. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Emer. That conversation was never going to go well. I’ll talk to her.’ She didn’t even glance at Aine before she followed Sparrow into the night sky.
Aine and I were left alone. I rounded on her. ‘Fat lot of good you were!’ I cried.
‘What did you expect of me, Emer?’ She was curiously calm.
‘Some emotion!’ I shouted. I pointed out the window. ‘That was your daughter and you didn’t care any more about her than you do about me! I thought you lov
ed her! Sparrow might not like to be called the nice one, and I know I’m not the nice one, but I thought you still had a heart! I thought you’d care!’
‘I care,’ Aine replied. She sat on the windowsill. ‘I care about Rhiannon and I care about you. Is that why you’ve been so upset tonight? Because you think I don’t care?’
‘Well, do you?’ The words slipped out before I could stop them.
She met my gaze fearlessly. It was so easy to underestimate Aine, to see her soft exterior and forget that she would become the Dark Queen one day, rule a nation and terrorise the White Queen. Every now and then, though, I got a glimpse of that Queen.
‘I care,’ she replied. ‘I do care about you. But you have to give me time. You must have known about this for a while. You didn’t throw yourself into my arms, calling me Mother and sharing any kind of affection with me. You’ve done nothing but fight with me since you got back. You’re not making it easy.’
I bit back a reply that I wanted her to care, whether or not it was easy. I looked around the room. There was a bookcase along one wall. It made as good a target as any as something to focus on while I tried to calm my scattered thoughts.
‘You cared about Saoirse instantly,’ I said, eventually, my back to her. ‘The moment she told her first lie, you were in her arms, crying on her lap and telling her you loved her. I can understand that you wanted a mother, that you’d always wanted a mother. But I wanted a mother, too. I know it will take time. But you can’t be surprised if it hurts.’
She sighed. I sighed. ‘Would you let me care about you?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. After all of this? I don’t know.’
She was probably nodding, but I didn’t look back at her to be sure. She didn’t reply.
‘Why didn’t you care about Rhiannon?’ I asked. ‘You treated her like she was a stranger.’
‘She was a stranger.’
‘She’s your daughter, grown up. She’s not a stranger.’
Aine’s hand fell on my shoulder. I hadn’t even heard her get up. I gasped in shock, dropping my shoulder to try and loose her touch. I couldn’t help it. She’d given me no warning. I couldn’t tolerate people surprising me from behind. ‘Sorry,’ she said in brief apology. After they’d all reviewed my memories this morning, she knew why she should have given me a little warning. She turned me to face her.
