eight #3
“I dare not bring it up with him unless I have a solid plan. Because there’s a gaping hole in this plan, despite my inability to reconcile my mother’s heart and the grief I’ve already spent on the whole situation.”
“He’s not of Gardiah blood.”
“No. Just mine. And… that barbarian’s. I hardly doubt he was of noble blood.”
“And enough people among your staff know for you two to get away with passing him off as your husband’s.”
Jacelah bit back something. Tears? She hardly looked like she was about to cry. This woman only cries in private. She had locked down any desire to cry in front of others.
“I’m sent the occasional photo of him,” Jacelah explained. “Let’s just say he looks nothing like my husband or other children. And I don’t mean blond hair like Sulim’s. She’s the first blond to marry into this family in generations.”
“I see.” Joiya folded her hands in her lap and sat back on the couch.
Mira glanced between her and Jacelah. Have fun with this one, Ma.
Joiya always had advice to offer, but often, Mira could not anticipate what her mother would say when such a tricky situation came up against her skills as a priestess.
“You do not have an enviable situation, Lady Jacelah.”
Well, starting strong, anyway. “The spiritual answer to this would be to dig deep into your soul. Commune with the Void. Among us julah, we would consult the ancestors, despite what they would probably say. Since humans do not have that option…”
She tapped her finger against her chin. “Prayer and meditation will bring you to your answer. And, I suppose, a candid talk with your daughter-in-law. She might have an answer that you have not considered.”
“You think so?”
“Do you not think she has considered her situation? Besides, there might be something else lurking beneath her lack of desire to be a mother. But whatever happens, remember to communicate with an open mind and a heart for your fellow woman. We are all doing our best in the lives we are given.”
The topic was not brought up again until Joiya and Mira were alone in their room.
Mira sat at the window overlooking the woods behind the house, while her mother dug through their luggage for the warm socks she had been wanting for those past two nights.
Mira had a feeling that Joiya had left them behind at an old campsite, but didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“How would you handle that as a Lady?” Mira asked her mother when she came closer. “Or, perhaps I should ask… how will you handle that when I inevitably bring great shame to Great Dame Dunsman’s legacy?”
Mira’s mother looked at her as if that were impossible. Don’t be silly, Ma. Mira lived to make her father’s mother always visit death’s door because she had been scandalized once again.
“Neither of us has to worry about that,” Joiya said. “Despite your lack of desire to bring a husband and children into House Dunsman, you have plenty of family I can harass about becoming your heir one day. Or have you forgotten your destiny, my heart?”
Mira turned her head away from the window, but she did not look at her mother.
Instead, her gaze went past Joiya, blurring the whole bedroom together into one mass of white walls and blue trim.
If she half-closed her eyes, she was back on Dunsman estate, staring at the summer-yellow walls of her childhood bedroom as they closed in on her.
One day, when her father either passed away or retired from his lofty positions and tremendous titles, Mira would take his place in the family hierarchy.
The patriarchal structure of Yahzenian society dictated that male progeny often inherited in the family while girls were bartering chips for arranged marriages, but when there were no male heirs…
Then girls like Mira grew up to become the most powerful person in the family.
Her mother had been training her since it was apparent she would be the only child born to Joiya and Nerilis Dunsman.
While the door was open for Mira to fall in love with a scion of another House who needed her to be his Lady one day, it was quickly determined that no such life was for Mira Dunsman,
who practically screamed it as a child and followed it up by getting into trouble with any woman who would be her coconspirator.
Mira would never marry—for on Yahzen, marriage was only for those who could breed together.
Like my parents. Barely. Mira was a miracle baby, though.
Her mother would let her get away with murder.
Again.
When I’m Lady Dunsman… There would be no husband, even in name only, to share her power. If Mira thought that far into the future, though, she saw a shadowy woman with her. She would warm the Lady’s bed, yes, but also be her comfort, her consult… her consort.
And when Mira was Lady, nobody could tell her that such a woman was not allowed to live on Dunsman Estate with her. Or even multiple women, if she deigned to follow in her parents’ footsteps and change the very definition of expected nuptials.
Lately, that shadowy figure in her imagination took more shape and color.
At least House Dunsman had a strong tradition of bringing blondes into the family.