116. Tressa
Tressa pushed open the doors to the tavern, ignoring all the faces that turned and looked her way.
She had her eyes locked on one woman, who sat at the back of the room in a secluded booth surrounded by her five personal bodyguards.
Eluvan Abebe, the Queen of House of Life. Her mother.
Tressa walked straight back to the booth, nodding at her mother’s familiar guards before standing in front of her mother.
Her mother’s black curly hair was short, to show off the twisted crown of goldsteel donned on top of her head. She was draped in a long golden gown that had the green lunar moth of House Life embroidered on it. She looked beautiful, but something in her mother’s brown eyes betrayed her grief.
They stared at each other for a long moment, before her mother fell on her, a blubbering mess of tears and snot, looping her arms around Tressa’s neck and dangling down as if her legs could no longer hold the woman up. “Tressa . . . Tressa, my girl. Home, where she belongs,” her mother sobbed.
Tressa was thankful that her skin was dark enough to cover her embarrassment as she looked over her shoulder and saw the whole tavern had turned to stare at her.
“Momma . . . Momma, shhh. It’s okay.” Tressa ran a hand up and down her mother’s back in soothing strokes as she continued to tremble in Tressa’s arms.
“I’m just so glad you’re home. I couldn’t live one more day with you away from me. It . . . it felt like you were both gone,” her mother sobbed, and guilt filled Tressa’s chest.
Tressa hugged her mother more closely and kissed her on the top of the head. “I missed you too, Momma. I love you.”
“Sit, please.”
Tressa sat.
“Tell me about Gimren; you have seen him, haven’t you? He’s there at the Northern Castle. Has he proposed yet?”
Tressa’s mouth tipped up slightly, but she shook her head. “No, Momma he hasn’t proposed. We wanted to wait until after the Choosing.”
“Well, you’re done with that now, so tell him to propose anytime.” Her mother looked at her. “Is that Heilstorm monster still at the castle? Maybe her head could be a bridal gift.”
“Rorax is as much a victim of the Choosing as Roo,” Tressa said, keeping her voice calm.
Her mother took her napkin and wiped the frown on her mouth. “My own daughter is so foreign to me.”
As her mother moved, something on her finger flashed in the candlelight. “What is that, Momma?”
Her mother just shook her head, putting the napkin back on her lap. “We can talk about that in a bit.”
“Is that a ring?”
Her mother didn’t answer. She just grabbed her glass of her wine with the hand that didn’thave a giant diamond sitting on the middle finger and took a long swallow.
“Mom,” Tressa snapped.
“Tressa, do not speak to me like that,” her mother snapped back.
Tressa recoiled, like her mother had slapped her across the face, before she leaned forward, pressing her palms against the table.
“You will tell me where you got that ring right now.” Her mother flinched, and even to Tressa, her voice sounded foreign and hard.
Movement caused Tressa to look out the window. A pair of men walked past, and the sun caught the silver mace etched on the chest of their plate armor. The green metallic edges of their armor shone so brightly it felt like Tressa might go blind as she stared. There was only one House that used that color of green on their armor, only one House that had a silver Morningstar as their House sigil.
She forgot how to breathe. Her lungs burned and her heart stopped beating in her chest as she turned back to her mother in shock. “You wouldn’t.”
Her mother’s mouth pinched. “Tressa, you don’t understand.”
“What did you promise him?”
“Who? I-I didn’t promise him anything, I—”
Tressa slammed her hands on the table. “What did you promise him, Momma? The King of Alloy doesn”t do anything for free.”
Her mother’s gaze fell to the table, as she started to fiddle furiously with her wedding ring that she hadn’t taken off once in the five years since her father’s death. “He gave us soldiers to help secure the border and vowed he would protect us and threaten anyone who might think about challenging us as the ruling family of House Life . . . In exchange we must use our vote in the Council of Houses to sway them against his trial.”
Tressa’s heart crumpled smaller and smaller in her chest with every word. “Momma, what were you thinking?”
Tears started to slip down her mother’s cheeks, and Tressa’s heart deflated even more.
“I was thinking that I miss my family. That I missed my only surviving daughter, and this was the only way I could get you out of your servitude at the Northern Castle and get you home.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her wrist. “I was thinking that they were going to send you to a god’s awful war after the Choosing . . . I was thinking that I was already so alone . . . and that I . . . I wouldn’t be able to handle it if you left me, too.”
Tressa’s mouth snapped shut. She pushed herself away from the table.
She needed some air and she needed to get out of this god’s forsaken tavern. She turned but only took two steps when something else caught her eye through the same window.
Tucked under the arm of one of the soldiers was a familiar book. A book that was one of a set she had once seen in the library in Surmalinn. A blood red book with gold trim and the goddess of death, Marras on the front.
Tressa’s whole body froze into a block of ice.
One of Sumavari’s books.
A thousand thoughts tracked through her mind. Shit, shit, shit.
“Do you see that?” her mother whispered.
Tressa could do nothing but gape at the soldier, who mercifully didn’t notice her staring, as he tucked the book in the back of a saddle bag and mounted his horse.
Her mother turned her face to look up at Tressa, the same fear and shock in her eyes that was currently burrowing into Tressa’s heart.
“What have I done?” she asked.
Tressa bent down on the side of the table and pressed her hand over her mother’s. It was shaking and cold, so she squeezed it tightly. “I have to go, Momma. I must warn Ayres and the House of Death. But then I am going to come back, I promise. We will figure out what to do. Together, okay?”
Tears streamed down the Queen’s face, but she straightened her shoulders and nodded. “Go.”