17. Chapter Seventeen Siyala
Chapter Seventeen: Siyala
It has been four months since anyone claims to have seen Papa, even longer for Mama and I.
Making several trips to Molsi, Mama pays no heed to the rumors that he left the island altogether.
Some people are kinder than others in their pondering of where he might have gone.
Perhaps he went in search of a cure for the blight, they say, their brows knit closely together as if this alone could be reason enough to abandon a family.
To disappear without a trace. Well, nearly without a trace.
In my father’s absence, one thing is left to remember him by: his debts.
When he was supposed to be working, he was instead burying the family in enough financial liabilities that Mama sobs nightly as she looks over the bills.
Tinctures. Potions. Salves. Godsdamn spells.
All things my father had purchased copious amounts of knowing they would do nothing to cure him of the magical blight, yet he was still drawn to them. A moth to a flame. Over and over again.
Then he was just… gone. No one could recall exactly when they’d seen him last, only that it had been a long time.
Time. It is funny how enough of it passing could completely change how I feel about Papa.
How that time could usher in a bitterness I never thought I could harbor.
Tiare and Titus feel shame from our father’s actions, and though they help where they can, I don’t blame them for not wanting to spend their hard-earned coin paying off his debts.
Kenji, however, never scoffed. He has not judged or sent my mother and I sideways glances as we shop the village merchants with the meager coin we manage to scrounge up between Mother’s visits to Molsi.
I have taken small jobs between school work, but my father’s descent into madness affected our reputations.
Everyone knows the blight is random. That it isn’t hereditary, yet they treat us as if we have the loss of magic flowing in our veins.
That, if they look too long or stand too close, the blight will latch on to them.
It made finding work difficult, so Kenji stepped in.
He helps my mother with small payments that keep the creditors content and the roof over our heads, and in return, she runs his errands and I clean his house.
At nearly sixteen, I will finish schooling soon, and then…
Then I can finally be free to leave. Leave the whispers and the judgement.
Leave the monotonous days and the cloistered feeling that has begun to settle into my bones.
Everyone in my family has become reliant upon their own ambitions and dreams. For Tiare and Titus, that is a life away from the chaos of Mama and Papa’s mess in villages a distance from Honna.
For my mother, it is still searching for Papa despite the signs that he is long gone.
They do not need me, and though a part of me feels…
hurt by that realization, another part of me rejoices at the freedom that is laid bare in front of me.
Not being needed means I can slip away without being missed.
And that’s what I intend to do.
A fact I tell Kenji one night, after spending the day organizing the room where he grows flora. Where I sometimes stay when Mama leaves. Sitting on the couch in his front room with our knees mere inches apart, his expression sours, an unknown emotion dancing across his face.
“You mean to leave Honna?”
I shrug, tucking my hair behind my ears. “There is nothing keeping me here.”
He scoffs, and I wonder if I have ever heard him make such a noise before. “Nothing,” he murmurs, reaching to set his tea down on the table in front of us. Turning to face me fully, he inhales sharply, looking me over. “Running away is not going to soothe your feelings, Siyala.”
“I’m not running away—”
“But you are,” he interrupts, reaching to lay a hand on my shoulder, his fingers draping over it as he presses them into the fabric of my shirt.
“That is what you have always done. Run.” I stare at him as my magic begins to creep up my neck, my pulse quickening.
Kenji’s eyes fall to the flutter of my heartbeat at my neck, lingering.
“You do not need to run when you have everything here to protect you. To keep you safe.”
“Safety is an illusion,” I counter, shaking my head.
“I do not fear being in danger. I fear being trapped. Stuck somewhere I’m not—” My words fall away to a stuttered breath, tears brimming at the creases of my eyes despite how I wish I could push all emotion away.
I have spent enough time crying in the darkness of my room.
In the shower. As a fox traversing the jungle alone.
I am eager to feel something other than despair.
Other than the loneliness that has wrapped its cold arms around me.
“I’m almost done with school, and once I turn sixteen, I will be free to leave. ”
Kenji’s dark brown eyes bounce between mine, his lips pursing into a straight line while his thumb sweeps against my collarbone.
Magic tingles at the tips of my fingers, but I take a deep inhale to settle it.
“I see,” he finally says, and despite myself, my heart drops at the disappointment in his voice.
Kenji has mentored me, paid me attention when my parents didn’t.
More like an uncle than a family friend, Kenji has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and to think he might not agree…
Or even worse, maybe he thinks I can’t survive on my own.
I reach over and grab his other hand between mine, making his brows lift high on his forehead.
“You have done so much for me, Kenji, and I— Well, I just want to say thank you. You have been a better father to me than my own—”
“I am no father to you.” He abruptly pulls away, standing from the couch and running a hand through his hair.
The echo of his words hang heavy in the space between us, an awkward tension now pulling taut.
I blink, my fingers gripping the edge of my shirt as I watch him close his eyes and inhale deeply, forcing himself to relax.
When his gaze finds mine again, the storm that briefly lit them is gone.
“What I mean is that no one could replace your father. Least of all me.” The corners of his mouth raise, but something about his smile feels forced.
Taking a seat again, his hand rests over my knee.
“You are very special, Siyala. I just do not want you to throw away the opportunities within your reach because you are afraid of what is right in front of you.”
“I didn’t think it was possible to be more bored than on a slow day at the inn,” Immie says from a few cells down. “I was wrong.”
“Are you finding the dungeon lacking in entertainment?” I tease, rubbing at the tender skin of my thigh.
In the past week, the arrow wound has finally closed, the skin knitted back together.
But the light-colored mark will be a permanent reminder of that moment in the woods, when everything went both very right and very wrong.
“I used to crave silence. Now I see how one could go mad with too much of it.”
My lips quirk as I grit my teeth at the gentle ache still present.
“At least you have my nightly screams to keep you company.” I mean it as a joke, even if it’s not a lie.
But the delay in Immie’s response makes heat crawl up my neck.
When I was with Rhea, it was often her screams that would echo in the tower late at night.
Nightmares that no doubt involved the king kept her tossing and turning until she would shoot up in bed, sweat gleaming over her forehead.
I was grateful that, despite how my own memories often plagued me during sleep, I never seemed to cry out in my fox form. It seems that is not the case now.
“Do you need to talk about it, child?”
“No,” I say quickly, abandoning my leg to drag my nail over the thick hem of my tunic. “No, thank you. They are memories of the past. I would like them to stay there.”
Immie hums but, thankfully, doesn’t push. “I must thank you for making your guard agree to feed me. Even if the food is somewhat questionable.”
Chuckling, I stand from the cot and stretch my arms over my head, dropping them quickly when the stench of myself stings the air.
“You’re welcome, and he is not my guard.
” She gives a noncommittal noise of disagreement before she shuffles on her cot.
“Immie, the last time Xander was here, you made a comment about the king. About being around him when he was very young.” I hadn’t broached the topic of King Dolian with her before—partly because I’d forgotten in the wake of my own conversation with Xander, and partly because thinking of the king only ever ushered in thoughts of how I might kill him should I ever get my hands around his neck.
“You mean when I mentioned that I wiped his royal butt before he became whatever monster he is now?” She laughs, amused at her own words.
Walking to the front of the cell, I lean a shoulder against the bars of the door, folding my arms over my chest. “Did you used to work in the palace?” I still don’t know much about Immie, despite our conversations since her arrival.
I think she is intentionally holding back, and I suppose I can’t blame her.
When she doesn’t answer, I sigh. “Please, I am so bored! Don’t leave me to be stuck with only my own thoughts. ”
“If I tell you a little about me, will you do the same?”
“You heard a lot about me when I spoke with the guard last,” I counter, chest lifting with a deep breath.
“I was asleep for some of it,” she says back, making me snort.
Weighted seconds pass as I stare down the corridor, contemplating what I might say.
“I do not care for how you came to be here or how you might benefit the king and whatever it is he wants. I care to know the girl stuck in the dungeon who is protecting the princess. I care for the white fox.”
I smile as I look down at the dirty ground. “You remember me?”
“I do, and I bet you have quite the tale to tell.”
An understatement.
“But, in the meantime, I shall regale you with my own story, if only to keep our boredom from slowly killing us. Yes, I worked in the castle as the head maid.”
“How long were you there for?”
“I was hired right after the birth of the first born, Prince Conrad. He was Dolian’s older brother and—”
“Rhea’s father,” I interject, to which Immie hums in agreement.
“Though my duties kept me mostly in other areas of the castle at first, eventually, I worked my way up so that I was in charge of the queen’s wing.
She was a good woman, but life as the companion to a monarch can be a lonely thing, and she was often struck with bouts of sadness that would leave her bedridden. ”
I draw my brows together, resting my temple against the cold metal of the cell door. “Bouts of sadness?”
“Aye. It would be the strangest thing. One day, she would be on the floor playing with the boys. Chasing them in the gardens between their lessons. Watching them practice archery or spar. Then the next, it would be as if she was a shell of herself. Pale and unable to keep her eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time.” She pauses to take a deep breath, her voice thick with emotion over the memory.
“When the sadness would hit, the king would ignore her for weeks after. He viewed it as a weakness. A defect that stained his good name.”
“What about the boys?”
“They loved their mother, but when she was not around to shield them from their father, they absorbed the weight of his attention in awful ways. Conrad had it easier, being the firstborn and the heir. His father pushed him but also allowed him to have freedoms that he didn’t allow Dolian.”
“You would think it would be the other way around.”
“King George might have been a good man at one point in his life, but by the time the boys were in their teens, he had become jaded by his power. Cruel to a fault. And then their mother died.” Immie’s voice hitches on the last word.
“Queen Morgana’s death was unexpected, and the king did not allow his sons to mourn her.
He pushed Conrad into taking on more responsibilities, and he directed his leftover ire on to Dolian, who would often not be seen for days at a time.
The boy was constantly scrutinized and punished for any misstep, large or small.
It doesn’t excuse the man he has become,” she says, and I imagine she’s paired a shake of her head with the declaration, “but I can understand why he was so drawn to Luna when she showed him a speck of positive attention.”
Luna. “Rhea’s mother?” I ask incredulously. Why would she give Dolian attention unless… “Gods above, is King Dolian actually Rhea’s father?”
“No, no. Rhea is very much the child of Luna and Conrad. However, it wasn’t Conrad who first noticed Luna when she arrived at the castle.”
Brows furrowed, I tuck this information away, the need to learn as much as I can about Rhea’s parents prompting another question. “What was Rhea’s mother like?”
“A wild thing,” she answers fondly. “I found her wandering the streets of Vitour, bright-eyed and barefoot at seventeen. Everywhere she walked, her unique looks garnered stares and whispers. She was ethereal. But it was clear that she was lost, and when I approached her, she told me that she had just arrived in town with the clothing on her back and not much else. I pushed to know where she was from, and she always answered the same. That it didn’t matter because she wasn’t going back.
I can’t say why I offered her a job in the palace, what drew me to her or why she knew I was someone to be trusted.
Back then, things were different, I suppose. ”
“Indeed.” I wonder how a woman like that—so vibrant and lively—could be drawn to even speak to someone like King Dolian.
As if reading my thoughts, Immie lets out another heavy sigh.
“She caught his eye when she ventured into his wing to retrieve more towels. She didn’t tell me much about their first encounter, and it wasn’t until months later that I realized a friendship had sprouted between them, but it was clear that the two of them found a sort of kinship with each other. ”
“Rhea wondered a lot about her mother,” I say, closing my eyes as I picture her sweeping the living room, speaking to me as if she thought I might answer. “She didn’t know much about her, nothing beyond the small crumbs Alexi—her King’s Guardsman—could tell her.”
“Perhaps in the Mage Kingdom, she can find some answers.”
A knot works in my throat as my head tilts to the side. “You think her mother was mage?” A creaking hinge punctuates my sentence before bootsteps follow. Guards are coming.
“Where do you think Rhea got her magic from?” Immie answers quietly.