Continued, Half City #3
And after twenty of them, there were days when it felt like I’d had enough corn and squash for a lifetime.
I tried to imagine my life filled with other flavors, landscapes, people…
But I’d seen so little, the fantasies were blurred and vague—a cluttered constellation of books I’d read and stories I’d heard over the years.
“It smells divine in here.”
My eyes found my mother as she hobbled in. A bit worse for wear today, her hair was tied back in a damp braid at the nape of her neck. She was only forty, but her thin body and sallow cheeks aged her.
“Here, let me help you,” I said, walking to her.
Leigh hopped off the table, leaving one candle unlit, to come to her other side.
“I’m fine, I promise.” She clucked at us. But we ignored her. It had become a well-choreographed dance at this point.
“Roses and thorns?” she said, once we had seated her at the table.
My sweet mother, who, despite her chronic fatigue, pain, and suffering, always genuinely cared about what happened in our days. Whose love of flowers had made its way into our nightly routine.
My mother had come to Abbington with me when I was nearly one.
I never knew my father, but Powell was willing to wed her and take me in as his own.
They had Ryder less than a year later, and Leigh seven after that.
It was rare in our traditional town to be a woman with three children, one with a different father than the rest. But she never let unkind words cloud the sunshine she radiated daily.
She worked tirelessly her whole life to give us a home with a roof, food in our bellies, and more laughter and love each day than most children get in a lifetime.
“My rose was saving Mr. Doyle’s finger from being amputated,” I offered. Leigh made a retching sound. I left my thorn out. If they hadn’t realized it yet, I was not going to be the one to share that our brother hadn’t written to us in a year.
“Mine was when Jace told me—”
“Jace is the boy Leigh thinks is cute,” I interrupted, and gave my mother a conspiratorial nod. She shot back a dramatic wink, and Leigh’s eyes became slits aimed at both of us.
“His cousin is a messenger in the army, delivering plans directly from King Gareth to his generals where even ravens can’t reach them,” Leigh said. “The cousin told him that she saw a man with wings in the Onyx capital.” Her eyes went big and blue as the sea.
I looked to my mother at the absurdity, but she just nodded politely at Leigh. I tried to do the same. We shouldn’t poke so much fun at her.
“How curious. Do you believe him?” Mother asked, resting her head on her hand in thought.
Leigh contemplated this as I sipped my stew.
“No, I don’t,” she said after deliberating. “I guess still-living Fae are a possibility, but I think it was more likely some kind of witchcraft. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed, even though I knew better. The Fae had been completely extinct for years—if they had ever been real at all. But I didn’t want to burst her imaginative bubble.
I smiled at Leigh. “I see why you’re so in love with Jace. He’s got all the good intel.”
My mother bit back a smile. So much for not poking fun. Force of habit.
Leigh frowned and launched into a tirade about how she obviously didn’t have any romantic feelings for this boy. I grinned, knowing that song and dance all too well.
Stories like Jace’s cousin’s were always floating around.
Especially in relation to Willowridge, Onyx’s mysterious capital city.
The night before Halden left, he had told me it was rumored to be filled with all kinds of monstrous creatures.
Dragons, goblins, ogres—I could tell he was trying to spook me, hoping I might nestle myself into the safety of his embrace and allow him to protect me from whatever was beyond our kingdom’s barriers.
But it hadn’t frightened me at all. I knew how those tales went.
Men, built up in story after story, twisted by retellings into some horrific beasts, wielding unknown powers and capable of untold torment.
In reality, they were just…men. Evil, power-hungry, corrupt, debauched men.
Nothing more, nothing less, and none worse than the one who had lived in my own home.
My stepfather was more vicious and cruel than any monster from a story.
I didn’t know if that truth would have brought Halden more or less fear on the day he and Ryder were sent off to war. It definitely wouldn’t help me if Leigh and I were forced into battle next.
Truth was, our King Gareth was doing the best he could, but Onyx had a far superior army, better weapons, stronger allies, and I’m sure countless other advantages I knew nothing about. I could promise that Onyx wasn’t winning this war because of some big bad that went bump in the night.
My mother’s sigh brought my thoughts back from wicked, winged creatures to our warm, wooden kitchen. The last dregs of daylight were slipping across the room, leaving the dancing flames of the hearth to cast her sallow face in shadow.
“My rose is this stew, and my two beautiful girls sitting in front of me. My kind, responsible Arwen.” She turned to Leigh. “My bold, brave Leigh.”
Ice ran through my veins. I knew what was coming next.
“And my thorn is my son, who I miss so, so dearly. But it’s been a year since we’ve heard from him. I think…” She breathed. “I think it’s time we accepted that he—”
“Is fine,” I interrupted her. “Ryder is fine. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to get a letter out in the conditions he could be in.”
“Arwen,” my mother started, her voice warm and comforting and making my skin itch with its gentleness.
I babbled over her. “Can you imagine trying to send a letter to a small town like ours from a jungle? Or, or…a forest? From the middle of an ocean? Who knows where he is?” I was starting to sound hysterical.
“It makes me so sad, too, Arwen.” Leigh’s little voice was even harder to bear. “But I think Mother may be right.”
“It’s healthy to talk about it,” Mother said, taking my hand in hers. “How much we miss him, how hard it will be to continue on without him.”
I bit my lip; their serious faces were cleaving me in two. I knew they were right. But saying it out loud…
As soothing as her touch was, I pulled my hand away and turned to face the window, letting the evening breeze whisper over my face and closing my eyes to the cool sensation.
My lungs filled with dusk air.
I couldn’t be the one to make this harder for them.
Wrapping my hands around my bowl to quell their shaking, I turned back to face my only remaining family.
“You’re right. It’s unlikely he’s—”
The deafening sound of our front door slamming open caused the bowl I was holding to jump from my hands and shatter on the floor.
Bright orange splattered everywhere like fresh blood.
I spun and saw my mother’s face go slack with shock.
In front of us, breathing heavily, face bloodied, and leaning into the doorframe to support a twisted arm, stood my brother, Ryder.