Chapter 16 #2
“I suspected as much. There’s a glow about you that even mountain furs cannot conceal,” Liraen said, taking Aeryn’s hand.
Aeryn searched her mother’s face for revulsion. “You’re not... horrified?”
“Horrified?” Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “No, my child. Concerned, perhaps, but not horrified. Your father, however, may not greet the news so calmly.”
“How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?” Caeryth snapped.
“For several weeks,” Aeryn admitted, turning to her sister. “I wanted to tell you, but you were still healing, still adjusting, and I didn’t want to burden you further.”
“Burden me?” Caeryth’s composure cracked.
Their mother drew a deep breath. “We should continue this conversation elsewhere. I would welcome fresh air. Is there somewhere we might walk?”
Aeryn nodded. “Yes. There’s a garden near the eastern halls. It’s peaceful there.”
Caeryth looked ready to object, but remained silent.
They left the council hall by a quieter passage. Aeryn kept her pace measured as she guided them down two turns and a narrow stair toward Druin’s garden.
Liraen stepped among the plant beds, fingers hovering over curling mountain kale. “Planting in stone.” Her attention lifted to the figures in the center. “Who is that?”
“Serathen of the Silver Bough,” Aeryn answered.
Liraen froze. “The Silver Bough?” Her eyes widened. “But that cannot be. That’s our line.”
“Yes,” Aeryn said. “According to the orc historians, they weren’t fallen elves as our scholars claim. They were always their own people.”
Caeryth scoffed. Their mother remained silent, her eyes fixed on the stone figure of Serathen.
“When the orcs were exiled from Thiarra,” Aeryn continued, “Serathen followed Druin. She bore his children and remained with the orcs when they were driven into these mountains. And she was erased from the Memories.”
Disbelief shifted across Liraen’s expression, then calculation. “It’s… possible,” she said and traced Serathen’s stone belly with her fingertips. “The Silver Bough predates even the War of Division. If what you say is true...”
“Mother, you can’t believe this,” Caeryth cut in sharply.
Liraen’s shoulders lowered. Her gaze moved between her daughters as her face softened with a sadness Aeryn had seen only once or twice before.
“I was raised to think, but not to question,” she said. “You were raised not to think, so you would not question. And that, my daughters, will forever be my greatest regret as a mother.”
Aeryn gasped.
“What do you mean?” Caeryth asked.
Settling upon a stone bench, Liraen smoothed her travel silks with restless fingers. “Had you grown among my people, you would have learned to reason, though never to question. Among humans, however, a woman’s mind is deemed of little worth. Ignorance passes for obedience, and silence for virtue.”
She looked at Serathen’s statue.
“When the Council of Memory presents its histories,” their mother continued, “they offer them as absolute truth, unchangeable and sacred. But history is rarely singular.”
“You suspected omissions?” Aeryn asked.
“Suspected?” Liraen gave a hollow laugh. “No, Aeryn. It is an open secret among the old houses. The Council has always curated the Memories, removing names, altering narratives. When it suited them.”
“Are you saying you believe them? That Serathen was our ancestor?” Caeryth’s voice rose. “That everything we were taught is false?”
A long silence stretched between them before Liraen spoke. “I believe that truth is never found in a single telling.”
“But if it’s true,” Caeryth pressed, her voice trembling, “if Serathen bore children with an orc, then that would mean... we share blood with them.”
Aeryn waited for her mother to rebuke Caeryth, to defend the sanctity of their House and memory. Instead, their mother only stared at the statue in the garden’s heart.
“You find the idea repellent, Caeryth, because it wounds your pride,” Liraen finally said, her features tight. “But what truly changes by knowing the truth of one’s ancestors? Does shared blood diminish yours?”
Caeryth glanced away. “It matters. It matters because it makes us—”
Liraen folded her hands in her lap. “Answer me this, Caeryth. If tomorrow you woke with a miner’s calluses or a baker’s flour on your sleeve, would you cease to be my daughter? If your hair darkened, your voice deepened, or you loved someone not of your own choosing, would you be less worthy?”
Caeryth’s jaw trembled ever so softly. “I don’t know,” she managed, the words brittle as fresh ice. “You never let us choose.”
There it was. The old wound. Aeryn felt it too. Endless corridors walked with perfect posture, teacups balanced, lessons recited under watchful eyes, and heads bowed to avoid attention. Nights at the foot of their mother’s bed while she read from histories.
“You say you never had a choice. Yet here you are, both of you, in a garden that should not exist, upon a mountainside forbidden to our kind for centuries,” Liraen said softly.
“You wear what pleases you, Caeryth. You voice your doubts aloud. If I failed you, it was in underestimating your hunger for more than the human world permits.”
Caeryth’s hands flexed at her sides. For all her cleverness, Caeryth hadn’t learned how to want openly. She’d always hidden behind wit and the soft armor of compliance.
Liraen reached for Aeryn’s arm. “I would like to rest.” A faint, almost apologetic smile touched her lips. “The journey to the highlands was long.”
Aeryn stood at once and offered her mother her arm. “Of course.”