“Apologies,” Ana said aloud. She kept her voice at a whisper lest the girl in her arms start up again.
“No need,” the man replied. He stepped into the candlelight and flicked his gaze at the children below. His cloak was green and he bore the leather armor of a Gaian soldier. Ana resolved that he must be a new guard for Nicolette. New diplomats and new guards with the same old routines as those before them. Even as life changes it stays the same.
“Donovan, is it?”
He nodded begrudgingly, displeased with her plucking his name from his mind.
“Should you not be with your lady?” Ana wondered. She shifted the baby from one arm to the other.
“She sleeps,” the soldier said. He gave her a soft smile that helped to break the tension in the room. Still, something about him seemed odd. “I thought I would look about this vessel. It’s of a sturdy make. Your father is lucky to serve the empire in such an easy way and yet… earn much for it.”
Ana’s left eyebrow peaked in perplexity. What her father earned was hardly anyone’s business but his own.
“You are very free with your thoughts, Ana,” the soldier said suddenly. His smile lingered.
She shrugged. “I was raised by sailors.”
He chuckled at that. “I should return topside. Have a good evening.”
Ana watched him climb the stairs quietly to a starlit night. A small boy’s cry in the corner brought her attention back to the present. She put down the girl she was holding and moved to soothe the other child. Just as she got his screams down to mere whimpers, the thundering footsteps of her father coming down the wooden stairs threw the boy back into hysterics. Three other babies joined in, and Ana shot a nasty look in her father’s direction.
“Father, please!” She scolded. “They were doing so well, the jarring of the sea has them all frightened.”
“Ana.” Thomas sighed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t find you here. I don’t know how many times I shall have to tell you. You should not be attaching yourself to these children.”
“I’m comforting them. They’re all alone down here,” Ana replied defensively. She hated the way her father could be so distant towards Thalassans, and furthermore could not understand it. Over twenty years ago he had begun a relationship with a Thalassan woman, and eventually Ana was the result. Thomas loved his daughter dearly, she knew, but if she had been born without extra senses would he have tossed her aside?
“They are not alone, they have each other,” Thomas stated, looking at the deck. “They will have to get used to their own company at some point anyway.”
“That’s encouraging,” Ana scoffed. “I guess I had better go upstairs and leave them to soothe one another.”
Thomas stared at his daughter. “I do not appreciate the hostility, Daughter. I mean only to look out for your feelings.”
There was a pause then as the two of them looked at the wooden cradles that hosted two babies each. Again Ana wondered how her father, or anyone else for that matter, could see these children as an abomination. They were beautiful, and she saw nothing wrong with them. Sophia was the only one Ana felt comfortable enough to discuss her feelings with, for her mother would not judge her for sympathizing with Thalassans.
“It is not that I do not sympathize with the Thalassans,” Thomas said suddenly. Ana glanced up from the cradles. “They have been loyal enough subjects in Gaia’s empire, and the vassal kingdom they have established has its own merits. However, that does not exclude the fact that they are different from us and that difference sews bad seeds among both our peoples. You must see that.”
“I’m sorry that I do not,” Ana said briskly. “Although I apologize for my temper, Father. These rough waters are making me uneasy, as well.”
The captain softened and his whiskered mouth eased into a smile. He looked tired, drawn like a man who has spent his life dealing with too much stress. Ana had noticed it more and more lately. The crow’s feet beside his eyes were more etched in. There was more gray than brown in his short beard, and he maintained a closer cropped haircut every year that he lost more hair.
“You are Gaian, my beautiful daughter,” Thomas said gently. “Were you born without your gifts, you would have stayed with your mother and only seen me one week out of the month. I know that it pains your mother to be away from you, just as it would have pained me. My life would have been a shell of an existence without you by my side in Gaia.”
“No Thalassan would have cared if I had lived permanently on Triton,” Ana said bitterly.
“It was not a chance we were willing to take,” Thomas replied.
Ana sighed. “I’m sorry, Father. That sounded cold. You know I love my life with you. I would have it no other way.”
“Perhaps you should go lie down, Ana. I shall have Katherine bring you something to put you at ease. I don’t want you down here visiting the Thalassan children anymore. It isn’t healthy for you to pine over them like this.”
“You realize that I help my mother in the nursery every day of the week that we stay on Triton. I’m not sure I understand why being with them now is any different than being with them while they are in my mother’s care.”
“I have said my piece,” Thomas said.
His mind was blocked to the prying she attempted to get the answers to her questions. Though it was a gift of Gaians to read thoughts, only the most practiced or extraordinary beings can read every thought one has ever had. However, even they can have trouble with an older Gaian whose wisdom allows them methods of controlling their thoughts or making their minds entirely blank. She was well aware that her father was listening to her wonderings about his past, but she didn’t steer her mind in another direction. She wanted him to hear the longing she had for his memories, perchance he may agree to let her in on the secret life that led to her birth. So few knew the story of Thomas and Sophia, someone had to be the one to enlighten her.
“Enough.”
Ana jumped at the sound of her father’s voice in her head. She had been staring at the baby boy that was still nestled safely in her arms. Thomas’ face was deep red, angered by her thoughts.
“So much for sympathy towards where my mind wandered. Be honest with me. If you do not like where my thoughts guide me, provide me with the answers I seek,” Ana replied.
“Your convictions will soon get you into trouble, Daughter. Get to your chambers, immediately. Do not let me catch you in this part of the ship again,” Thomas spoke through his teeth.
Without a spoken word or a conscious thought, Ana gently placed the now sleeping babe back in his rightful place next to another boy in the cradle they shared. She quickly ran up the stairs to the deck, brushing tears from her face as she went.
*
“What’s the matter?” Katherine’s question intruded into Ana’s mind as she entered the candlelit room where Ana stayed on these monthly voyages.
Ana wiped her mind clear of thoughts. “Not a thing.”
“You’ve been in my care since you were as young as those children below deck. I know you well enough to know that you are upset. Confide in me.” Katherine spoke aloud, crossing the small cabin to where Ana lay curled up on the bed. Her long brown curls were splayed out on the pillow beneath her head, and her blue cotton dress was tucked tightly around her knees for warmth.
Ana huffed out a breath. “I can’t understand why my father is so cruel regarding Thalassans. Or, at least, the orphans. He spends his nights in my mother’s bed when we visit Triton. He obviously doesn’t loathe their kind enough to sleep alone when she is around to keep him company.”
Katherine shook her head and sighed with grief over Ana’s words. “You don’t honestly believe that your father only shares a bed with your mother for such shallow reasons do you?”
Ana sat upright with a jolt. “What else am I to think? The very nature of their relationship is secretive, so why would I presume to know the depths of their feelings? Perhaps he is using her for a fuck, and the fact that she
is okay with such an arrangement deeply saddens me.”
“Firstly, do not use that language in my presence. I have not spent the past nineteen years teaching you to be a sailor’s wench,” Katherine chided.
“Apologies.” Ana’s eyes flicked away from her tutor in shame.
“Second of all, my fair child, it is not your position to pass judgment on your parents’ actions. If they wish to spend their nights together that is their business, however I feel it would be wrong of me to let you think the worst of them.”
Ana nodded. “Go on.”
“Thomas has been the captain of this ship for twenty-three years. He was a sailor as soon as he came of age, and my father was his captain. During his time as a sailor he met Sophia, and they quickly fell in love. It was completely illegal, not to mention insane, for a Gaian to be with a Thalassan. In light of this, they began their affair in secret, seeing one another for one week out of the month. Being that I was Thomas’ captain’s daughter, at times I was present on the ship when he would come back from his time in Triton with stars in his eyes. I even spied them walking hand in hand on the beach from time to time.”
Ana smiled at the notion of her parents’ budding romance, and wondered why she never saw them behave as such. Her memories of the interactions Thomas and Sophia shared were laced with cordial hellos and goodbyes as well as the late night arrival and early morning departure of her father from Sophia’s home in Triton. Why the sneaking around? Who should say something if they noticed more than a mere friendship there?
Answering Ana’s thoughts, Katherine said, “Think, darling. I’m sure you understand the need for such caution. Times have not changed, so their love must remain surreptitious. I was the only soul alive that knew of Thomas and Sophia’s love for one another, until you came along. Although I know that there are some who know more than they let on, but so long as your parents continue their trysts discreetly there is no cause for sounding alarms. Triton is a small community, and this ship bears only the best of friends.”
“Yes, I know.” Ana looked away. “Everyone in Tellus thinks my mother was a Gaian who died giving birth to me.”
“I came up with that story based on my own mother’s demise,” Katherine stated sadly.
Ana’s heart went out to her caretaker. “Is that why you lived on the ship with your father like I do?”
“Yes, when I did not stay with relatives in Tellus,” Katherine confirmed. “In fact, I became an orphan the day your father replaced mine as captain of the ship. But Thomas was not just any sailor, he was my father’s first mate. There was a horrible storm on the way back from Triton one month…
In a brief moment Ana could feel the grief and pain in her tutor’s heart at the flashing memory. Clouds of gray lanced lightning all around the deck in a downpour of rain the same color as the sky. “I am so sorry. I couldn’t imagine losing anyone I cared about so much in such a horrifying way.”
“Yes, to experience it firsthand as well…” Katherine began. She was forced to clear her throat. “It truly was horrifying. A person never fully recovers from something such as that I believe. The gods, however, see fit to have plans for us all.”
Ana sat with the gravity of those words weighing heavily on her heart, though she could not help but still feel curious. “Did anything change between my mother and father once he became captain?”
“No, they continued on as they were. I wasn’t present for that time, however. Once Thomas became captain I took up my own residence with the money my father left me and started work as a seamstress in our homeland. It wasn’t until your father found out Sophia had given birth to a Gaian child that I was called upon to be your housemother. I had not heard from him for a few years prior to that…”
“Why did he call upon you?”
“He was well aware that I knew of his clandestine acquaintance with Sophia, and trusted me to keep your identity a secret. I agreed, of course, and in return I was promised enough pay to compensate for having to travel so often.”
“I’m glad you agreed,” Ana said, smiling. She reached for Katherine’s hand.
Katherine smiled back warmly and squeezed Ana’s hand. “I am, as well.”
“Katherine,” Ana began cautiously, “I am grateful to hear of my parents’ beginnings, and it’s pleasing to know that they once loved each other very much, but how does that explain his bitterness towards Thalassans?”
They were both quiet then and listened to the waves crashing against the walls of the ship. The movement of the vessel caused the candle flames to dance wildly and the orange glow that lit the small room seemed to breathe with the motion and energy of the sea. The sun had set and the portholes in Ana’s cabin reflected the room just as a mirror would, rather than providing a window to the blackness outside.
“The history of our world is a strange one,” Katherine began, looking as if she did not know where to start. “You have seen many books on the subject, no doubt, but there are portions either missing pieces there or avoided entirely. There was a time when there was no need for the title of ‘Thalassan’. Gaia was not just the name of an empire but of our race as a whole. We were all Gaian, but very different from what you know Gaians to be. In the beginning there were no extra-sensory powers, so we all lived as one on the mainland. The archipelago was something on the brink of exploration, with few people even laying claim to having seen the islands at all.
“In time, babies started being born with a sense that not many others possessed and were looked upon as frightening and mysterious. Children possessed abilities that most believed to be myth. They could read others’ thoughts and move things without touching them. After much time had passed, the minority that was once an abomination became the majority. Generations upon generations came and went, and eventually it was seen as an oddity for a child to be born without those additional gifts of the mind.”
“Why is that so bad?” Ana interjected, crinkling her brow. “That doesn’t make them our enemies.”
“Of course not, but once they realized that they were unable to compete with the rest of the Gaian population in many aspects of life, they started withdrawing to segregated communities. There was a distrust there, as there often is between people who are different from one another. Think about if you had no such ability but most of the others around you could always tell what you were thinking.”
Ana frowned. “That makes sense. I suppose I would feel that way if I were Thalassan in a world of Gaians. But how did they end up on the islands?”
Katherine thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “If you think about human nature, when a group of people isolates themselves from everyone else there must be distrust on both ends. The Gaians began to look at these Thalassan communities with unease. The prejudices only got worse. They called us ‘readers’ and we named them ‘thinkers’ because they never seemed to cease that pastime. Once both sides began to establish two different forms of governance it seemed that war might be imminent. It was something neither side desired. War is expensive, and Gaia had no wish to savage against a taxpaying sect of itself. The Thalassans were as outnumbered by us then as they are now, and they decided to move to the archipelago they reside on today. Over the next couple of centuries, their form of government continued and blossomed into how it is now. Yet Gaia’s empire still holds them firm as a separate, but still integral, part of Gaia. They are typically the first wave of troops sent to the Eastern Lands when those provinces get unruly.”
Ana shuddered. It was rumored that the primitive people to the east performed cannibalistic rituals, and even things such as simple boats or a written language were alien to them. She quickly moved her mind back to Thalassa. “I always thought that they were banished to the islands.”
“In a way they were, but you must understand that in this time they were frightened of the Gaians, as well. They wanted to have their own ways of life, unthreatened. For the most part, now they are.”
“I see.”
Katherine smiled upon her pupil. “Do you understand the reason for your father’s bitterness now that we have spoken?”
“Not exactly,” Ana nodded weakly. “I mean, I can see why he would be bitter towards Thalassans, based on the prejudices that have existed for centuries. He couldn’t have the family that he wanted with the woman he loved all due to this old mutual hate between societies. However, that would make me equally as prejudice against my own culture, were I him. Both Gaia and Thalassa are responsible.”
“Yes, my child. I would wager you’re right about his bitterness toward Gaians, as well. But there is nothing to be done about it. There is no way for them to be together, regardless of how either of them feels. I imagine that has caused quite a bit of turmoil in the more than twenty years that they’ve loved one another. Eventually, maybe it just got to be too much and that’s why they seem so cold to you. I cannot speak on that part of the story, but I do know that he still loves your mother very much. Let that bring you some peace, even if our world is full of intolerance.”
Ana rose to pace the small room. “It’s too bad there is nothing done at a higher level to achieve peace, though I understand where there might be fear and uncertainty. I suppose that is a rather naïve hope, is it not?”
“It is,” Katherine said with kindness in her eyes. “It does show what a beautiful heart you possess, despite everything.”
Ana then crawled back in to bed beside Katherine, smiling. “Thank you for bringing all of this to light. I never wanted to believe that he was using my mother for what she could offer him physically. It’s comforting to know that there is more between them than I thought.”
“You’re welcome,” said Katherine quietly.
As Ana pulled the covers around her and began to drift off to sleep, she beamed as Katherine sang the sailor’s tune she loved so dearly. Moments later, just as she was on the brink of slumber, she heard someone appear at the doorway. Half-asleep, she didn’t turn over to see who it was.
Severance (The Sovereign Book 1) Page 8
