Chapter 10 #2
“Was your bastard status really that big of a deal?” he queried. In Verlora they’d been more casual about relationships. Some chose to marry. Some didn’t. But all children were considered a blessing.
“It was more than simply the fact that my mother had me out of wedlock. From the moment of my birth, people knew I wasn’t pure Daervanian. My brother saw me as a stain on the name. My sisters treated me like an embarrassment.”
“Hearing that makes me happy I was an only child.”
She glanced at him. “You mentioned your father died the day Verlora fell. What of your mother?”
For a moment, he debated not replying. Then the words spilled. “My mother suffered from several ailments. Not so much physical as mental. She claimed to hear voices. To see things that hadn’t happened. I was told that when I was born, she took one look and began wailing. Couldn’t be consoled.”
“Oh dear,” Avera murmured. “I think that might be worse than being ignored by mine.”
“Oh, she did that too. My mother wanted nothing to do with me, and the few times we crossed paths, she’d usually start pointing and screaming, ‘He rides upon the wings of death.’” His lips twisted.
“At the time, I was barely walking.” And he’d been frightened.
To have someone so shrilly hate him had left a mark on Griff even to this day.
“That’s horrible.”
“She was sick, or so I kept being told. I was too little to understand other than the woman who should have coddled me hated the sight of me. My father had her removed from our home after she tried to drown me in the tub. I never saw her after that for she took her life before I turned four.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. At least then she was finally at peace.”
“My mother pretty much ignored me and then had the temerity on her deathbed to claim I was her favorite.” A wry twist pulled her lips. “She hid it well. Although, my brother must have sensed this invisible favor for he was constantly trying to hurt me until Gustav put a stop to it.”
His turn to mutter, “Sorry.”
“Guess we both had poor childhoods. It’s part of why I am so attached to Luna.”
“The horse.”
“A gift from my mother.” She nodded. “These past few years, she was the one constant in my life that freely showed affection.”
“I thought Gustav was a father figure.”
“Yes, but not one that ever hugged. The best I could expect was praise if I fought well when training.”
“My father was a stern man, but I always knew he cared. He was the one to ensure I got on a boat the day Verlora fell. I never saw him again.”
“Perhaps he managed to survive.”
“And never sent word?” He shook his head. “I gave up on that foolish hope a long time ago.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to know for sure? To understand what happened?”
He wanted to yell that he didn’t care, that it didn’t matter, but truthfully… “A part of me fears that answer. What if he was responsible?”
“I thought you blamed Basil.”
“Basil never did anything without my father’s say so.”
“Your father was important?” she queried.
“You might say that. He was Verlora’s chancellor. What Daerva would call king.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait, you’re from a noble family?”
“The last of my line, as far as I know.” Heir to a country that no longer truly existed. Leader of a people almost extinct.
Avera got an impish grin and she curtsied. “A pleasure to meet you, your highness.”
He grimaced. “We don’t partake in such foolish pageantry.
As a matter of fact, while my father might have been head of the government, he wasn’t the one making all the decisions.
We used to have thirteen senators, one for each district, who would propose and vote on proposals, with my father usually accepting the laws and resolutions they wanted to pass. ”
“In Daerva, mother made all the rules advised only by her duke.”
“Which is how it is on every other continent, if by different names.” Some had emperors, others kings or queens. The Pequilha called their leaders Warlords. Many of those positions were inherited at birth. His own family had been ruling Verlora for centuries.
“Verlora always fascinated me,” she admitted as they entered the castle. “I used to be so excited when one of your machines would arrive in the market.”
“Gadgetry was our main export. We had scientists always looking to innovate and design machines and tools to ease the burden of certain tasks.”
“But machines weren’t all you did. I thought you mentioned something about experiments.”
“We had a department that played around with how nature worked. What elements combined would create something new. Most attempts were failures, some ended up being dangerous even. The day of Verlora’s fall, when the ground started to shake, we at first assumed someone in the lab had managed to explode something again. ”
“Only it was the volcano.”
“Yes, the volcano erupted, but to this day I don’t know if it was a natural occurrence, or one caused by something the scientists did.”
“You mean Basil.”
Griff tucked his hands behind his back as he muttered, “From what I understand, Basil was playing around with things incompatible with the rules of science.”
“Meaning what?”
“Keep in mind everything I know is second-hand. But according to someone close to him who escaped, Basil became fascinated by magic because it didn’t follow the usual laws of nature. Supposedly he travelled the world, returning with items he claimed held power.”
“Did you ever see them?”
“Probably, but as a young boy, I didn’t pay much mind. I was more interested in playing games and ditching school.”
“Was my father a nice man?” she asked softly.
He startled, having forgotten her claim Basil had fathered her. “I liked him well enough. He was outgoing, smart—too smart, my dad said. Charming. I’m not surprised to hear he seduced your mother.”
“And left her.”
“Basil only truly loved one thing: his work.”
“Mother claimed he asked her to return with him to Verlora. She obviously refused, but I do believe she regretted that.”
“Had she returned with him, we would have known each other from a young age,” he pointed out. “Basil lived with us in the Citadel.”
“We would have been like siblings,” she joked.
He stared at her and shook his head. “I doubt I’d ever have seen you as a sister.”
Her smile fell and chagrin beset Griff at seeing she’d misunderstood. It led to him stepping close and tilting her chin to softly say, “What I feel for you is anything but brotherly.” Her eyes widened, and annoyed at having admitted that much, he gruffly added, “I’ve work to do.”
He abruptly strode away, mentally cursing himself, because what he felt for the little queen couldn’t be indulged in. For some reason, he couldn’t help but recall something else his crazy mother used to say, something that stuck with a little boy. “The little tiara will stick a knife in you.”