20. Refuge
Refuge
Faren
No sooner than Faren had let out a startled cough, Mariana’s mother had tugged her into a fierce embrace. Faren had never seen Mariana appear soft before, but as she melted into her mother’s arms, the sharpness in her shoulders relaxed—just for a moment.
Then her mother pulled back, surveying her daughter.
She touched Mariana’s cheek with the back of her hand, squeezed the water from a wet strand of Mariana’s hair, then tipped Mariana’s chin up with her thumb.
Fussing, as only a mother could. “You appear to be in one piece.” Her voice was sonorous, pleased. “Are you?”
“I am.”
From somewhere inside the cottage, a male voice called, “Leera? Who is it?”
“It’s Ana,” Leera called back. Big, brown eyes flicked up to Faren. “And she brought a man.”
Floorboards creaked. Footsteps approached.
An older gentleman appeared. He was shorter than Faren, barrel-chested, with a kind face that creased with relief at the sight of his daughter.
“My dear Ana,” he murmured, bending to kiss Mariana’s temple.
When he straightened, he eyed Faren with blatant curiosity.
Snaking an arm around his wife, he whispered, “I thought you were joking about the man.”
Another male voice called from within the house. “Mariana’s here? With a man?”
“He’s not a man,” Mariana protested, scowling at Faren over her shoulder.
“He looks like a man,” Leera teased. “A handsome one, at that.”
Flattered, Faren stood a little taller. Ran a hand through his sopping hair.
A younger gent of about thirty rounded the corner, further crowding the doorway. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Mariana: same eyes and mouth, but with shorter hair and a more masculine stature.
At the sight of Faren, he clapped a hand over his chest, staggering back with mock surprise.
“That’s not just any man—look at his armor.
That’s a Mighty Knight of Fenrir.” He made a show of peering past them into the dark.
“Is the sky falling? Did the Mirrors shatter? Have the Fates abandoned us?” This must be Bard, Mariana’s brother.
Faren would recognize brotherly goading anywhere.
Color blazed across Mariana’s cheekbones. “It’s not like that,” she grumbled through clenched teeth.
“Like what?” her brother asked innocently.
Faren—feeling magnanimous—decided to rescue Mariana from further questioning.
He cleared his throat, getting the family’s attention.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bellkeep.” He offered a respectful nod.
“And Bard, I presume?” The younger man beamed.
“My name is Faren Hayward. You are correct about my station in the Order of the Mighty. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. ”
Leera smirked at Mariana. “He acts like a man, too.”
“Trust me, it comes and goes,” Mariana muttered.
Faren couldn’t help but smile, thoroughly amused by Mariana’s discomfiture.
Leera’s eyes sparkled. “Tell us, dear, why have you brought us a man—nay, a knight—at this hour?”
“He is irrelevant.” Mariana gestured behind her, toward where Orna and Pete waited unseen in the gloom. “I come with folks who need refuge. Homesteaders who suffered a fire and have been displaced. They’ve been waiting in the rain while you’ve been fixating on the man.”
At her declaration, Leera gasped, Bard swore, and Mariana’s father reached for his coat. Mariana appeared wholly vindicated as her family sprang into action. She clipped Faren with her shoulder as she moved past him, heading back out into the rain.
Bard snickered as he followed his sister. “She doesn’t get defensive for no reason,” he whispered to Faren, lifting his hood as he stepped off the porch.
Faren didn’t know what to make of the comment—but there was no time to ask.
The next half hour was spent making rain-soaked introductions and bringing the homesteaders into their temporary refuge.
Leera welcomed Orna into the cottage, her arm wrapped around the other woman’s shoulders, with Mariana trailing on their heels.
Bard assisted Pete, allowing the injured older man to use him as a crutch.
Meanwhile, Mariana’s father braved the storm and mud with Faren, the two of them working swiftly to shelter the homesteaders’ wagon and animals in the Bellkeeps’ large barn.
When that was done, they turned their attention to Simon and Sunny.
The horses were stalled side by side, separated by a half wall; Mariana’s father gave each horse a serving of oats, and the geldings munched happily as the men removed their tack.
“Name’s Horace, by the way,” Mariana’s father said, un-cinching Simon’s saddle.
Faren removed a piece of Sunny’s barding, setting the curved metal plate on the straw floor. “I’m sorry we aren’t meeting under better circumstances. I hope this isn’t an imposition.”
“Not at all. We have the means.” Horace draped Simon’s soaked saddle blanket over the partition between the stalls. For a few seconds, the barn filled only with the sound of the pounding rain on the roof and the rustling livestock. “Tell me: why is my daughter traveling with a Mighty Knight?”
“She was hand selected by Lord Haron to escort me on a mission,” Faren said. “I can’t divulge much more than that.”
“The Lord himself?” Horace sounded dubious—concerned. “Is this part of her sentence?”
Faren winced, realizing that what he’d said was not the compliment he’d meant it to be; that Lord Haron was not likely to be held in high regard here.
Though the general public was not permitted to know about the Order of the Valiant, specifically, it made sense for her family to at least understand that her knighthood was of a forcibly repentant nature.
Wanting to ease Horace’s worries, Faren considered his next words carefully. “My mission required someone skilled and trustworthy to assist, and Mariana…” Faren loosed a breath: half laugh, half sigh. “She’s the most talented knight I’ve ever met, if I’m being honest.”
Horace met Faren’s eyes over the partition, as if trying to see whether he was kidding. Their gazes held for a beat, and then Horace took up a bristle brush and began grooming Simon’s neck, shoulders, and back. “I would’ve expected you to tell me she was a menace,” he said finally.
Faren chuckled. “Oh, she is definitely a menace—but an honorable one.”
“That’s my Ana.”
Finished with the barding, Faren got to work on his saddle bags; the leather straps were so swollen with rain that the buckles took some yanking. “Was she always so strong-willed?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Aye. Leera likes to remind everyone that Ana came out of the womb kicking.” Horace smiled to himself. “She’s always had a strong sense of right and wrong—though that didn’t always align with the law.”
“My Order does not condone crime,” Faren said slowly, “but I respect strong morals.”
Horace made a thoughtful humph. “I haven’t met many Mighty Knights,” he said, “but you aren’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
Horace grimaced. “Probably shouldn’t say.”
Before Faren had left Fenrir City, he’d assumed that Mighty Knights were lauded even in the most rural corners of the territory. He wondered if Horace’s apparent distrust extended beyond the Bellkeep’s property.
The gold plating on your chest is more wealth than most folks in these parts will earn in their lifetimes, Mariana had said. Do you know what they feel when they look at that? Not comforted or inspired, but supplicant. Lesser.
It was clear that Mariana came by her unfavorable opinions honestly.
Faren smiled at Horace, making sure the other man knew that he was not insulted. “I’m sure whatever you’d say would pale in comparison to what Mariana has told me to my face.” Faren scratched his chin, sobering. “Some of it might even be true.”
Horace continued brushing Simon with quick, staccato strokes. “Will you be traveling together much longer?”
“I’m not sure.” Faren paused with his hands on Sunny’s saddle, about to slide it off.
“How much do you know about Mariana’s charge?
” Immediately, he tasted a sourness at the back of his throat, his Oath tattoo tingling with warning.
It was still such a foreign sensation for a devoted knight such as himself, but he was not cowed by it as he once had been. He wanted to know.
Horace wiped his forehead with a knuckle. “Less than you, I reckon,” he said. “I know enough to worry about her, but not enough to have to worry about the rest of my family.”
His implication was clear: knowing too much had consequences.
Faren thought back to when they’d first met the homesteaders, how cold Mariana had been, how brutally she’d tried to shelter them from knowledge that was not for them.
He couldn’t imagine the pain and isolation Mariana experienced in lying to her own family about the nature of her sentence… her entire existence.
“She doesn’t deserve it.” Faren’s words came unbidden. “She doesn’t deserve this—”
“She committed a crime,” Horace interrupted softly. He skated a hand down the length of Simon’s face. “Crimes beget punishment.”
Faren gritted his teeth. Still wearing his wet clothes, his body temperature was dropping, a damp cold seeping into his bones—but it was Mariana’s suffering that chilled him. It was his guilt by association that sent a shiver down his spine. “She was only a girl,” Faren whispered.
Horace was quiet for a long while. When he spoke again, his voice sounded distant. “I begged them to convict me instead. I begged them on my knees, but they wouldn’t. Watching them take her away…knowing I’d failed her as a father…” Horace shook his head and spat on hay-strewn floor.
His candor poked a hole in Faren’s chest, deflating him. “You raised an incredibly strong, cunning woman.”
“But I didn’t raise her,” Horace said. “She raised herself. Out there, with a sword in her hand.”
Faren swallowed thickly. He didn’t know what to say.