Chapter Nineteen
Piris
The wind on the river bit through the pitch-black furs Piris wore over her matching leathers. They also matched her mood as she watched her father give instructions to his men before they boarded the vessel. He’d send along his best, she knew it for fact. He wouldn’t risk his precious girl with anything less. His ship was the fastest in his fleet, prepped and ready to get their party to and from the hidden caves where the rebels hunkered down as quickly as possible, to get her back home.
A phantom bitter taste on her tongue crawled up from her gut thanks to what had passed between her and her father the day before. She’d not spoken to him since, choosing to stay in her room instead of meeting the others for dinner. She’d licked her wounds alone, once again stuffing the emotions down so it didn’t show on her face when she saw him the next morning.
He’d come to see everyone off, her and her friends and his men. As had her mother, who stared at Piris from her position along the end of the wide stretch of dock. She waved her daughter over, turning away to look downriver before Piris began walking to her, assured her daughter would come when called. And she did.
She may have stomped a little hard, enough to be an outward sign of her displeasure, even if her face stayed frozen in its most imperious look—the one she’d learned from the auburn-haired mother wrapped in tawny furs in front of her. Her mother never used it with her family. No, it had always been reserved for those who whispered about her daughter behind their backs, those who thought her lesser because she was supposedly a null. A lie, of course, but a good one for a number of reasons, not least of which being it made it easy for their family to see who was friend or foe without giving up their secret.
Still, her family had given up much. She had given up a usual childhood as a young lady, though it was hard for Piris to imagine liking dancing and eloquence lessons more than her fight training, so she didn’t mind. She did mind the weight of secrets at such a young age, a weight she understood but one that still chafed and choked at times. Her mother, the lovely Lady Mimi Volesion—the bright-red light of the ballroom—when Piris had been a young child, had given up her position in society. Given up her hopes for having a normal lady as a daughter. She’d never said as much, but Piris knew there was no way her mother could have wished for what had happened to them. What she had done to them. Yet her mother had borne it all with her brand of grace and love, never hesitating to protect in her way.
Piris pretended the direction of her thoughts didn’t force her to swallow grateful tears as she stopped in front of her mother. Her stance eased, her feet softer as she grew closer, her eyes lighter in the morning glow and the small wet lining them. “Mother.” Her word was hoarse as she tried to wrestle the inconvenient pull of emotions hovering around her for some absurd reason.
“Daughter,” Lady Volesion whispered, stepping toward her only child, wrapping her tight in her small arms, and pulling her down into her smaller frame. Warmth radiated in her embrace, pulsing into Piris as if by magic, though her mother’s magic was not warmth but exceptional hearing, something allowing her to pinpoint all those harsh whispers in all those ballrooms until people learned never to voice anything about Piris remotely close to her mother’s presence.
Piris hugged back, breathing deep the familiar frost and winter berry scent of her, holding tight for long beats until she leaned her cheek into the thick auburn hair so like her own and whispered, “I’m so sorry,” there.
Lady Volesion’s eyes were sharp, assessing, when she pulled back and asked, “Sorry for what?”
“For…” Piris hesitated, not knowing where to begin. She swallowed and gave it all. “For all of this. For your life all these years. For my stubbornness even now. For the worry every bit of it must cause.”
Her mother cupped her cheek, looking deep into her eyes, as she said, like a vow, “Never, never be sorry for who you are, my love. I am not.” A few of the hovering tears slipped, but her mother wiped them away without a word before anyone else could see. “Your father was right about one thing, Piris. You cannot know what it is to worry for a child. Not yet. Maybe never if you choose. But, I know your heart. Know the worry and love there, so you can guess.” She gave a small smile before continuing. “The real truth is no matter what, the worry would have been there, always.”
Piris pushed back against the words. “Your life as a mother—”
A small, smooth hand pressed to her mouth, stopping her words. “Has been the greatest joy of my long life, and nothing you believe can change that fact. I would never change who you are. Part of who I am is your mother, happily your mother. Do not try to change that about me.” She lowered her hand, looking at her husband who now stood, arms crossed, watching them both from a distance. “Your father means well, you know.”
Piris gave a small sneer but also nodded. She did know.
“He was mistaken. Misguided. He will be again. Believe me. It has happened many times in our long marriage.” Piris snorted, which made Lady Mimi smile a little wider. “The difference is when he makes a mistake, he learns from it. Eventually. I’ll help him grasp this latest lesson a little more quickly, but he will learn.”
Piris hissed out a breath, wanting to hold on to her anger, the anger that fueled her and made the worry of what might come shift to the back of her mind. “If you say so.”
“I do. I also say this: it is important you learn to forgive, Piris. People will hurt you, and no one can hurt you more than those you love. If they love you as you love them, they will make amends for the hurt, and you must let them.”
“Why?” Piris knew the question was petulant, childish, but she wanted to grip her anger tighter, not let it go.
“Because the love you exchange is worth more than the safety you think anger provides.”
Piris didn’t know what to say to that, and it appeared her mother was done with her good-bye lecture, so she took Lady Volesion’s arm and led them both down the dock, sidestepping the last of the supplies waiting to be loaded onto the ship. When they reached her father, Piris paused, not knowing what to say to him either. He didn’t force her to say anything. He lifted an arm to grasp her shoulder tight before bringing her into a fierce hug he released almost as quickly as he’d initiated. A silent nod, then he took his wife in his arm and moved away, to the shore, to watch the boat leave from a distance.
“Everything okay?” Jarok’s voice shocked her system when his question hit her, so she spun and saw the prince looking between her and her parents, a frown on his full lips.
“Fine,” she said, moving around him to walk up the landing plank and onto the ship. She knew he hated the word, but it was the only one she had at the moment, so she let it hang between them.
He muttered some curse of annoyance she couldn’t quite hear, but she understood the outline, based on his tone. She didn’t realize she was lost in her head until she almost ran right into Gem.
“Whoa there, Piris. Ready?” Gem hefted the pack slung across one shoulder as if in example.
Piris turned to show her own pack firmly strapped across her back, along with one of her short swords. No need to flash the daggers strapped to her sides, her chest, her legs, and ankles under the leathers.
“Good. Looks like you and I are bunkmates,” Gem responded, flicking her head toward the door leading to the cabins below deck.
Piris didn’t balk, knowing full well the lack of personal space on most ships. She followed her new friend down into their small quarters and flung herself on the hammock she called out as hers. She didn’t sleep. She did close her eyes and think on what her mother had said for a long while before other worries and fears for what would come crowded her mind.
Restlessness urged Piris out of their cabin and up the stairs to the deck late in the night. She’d sailed the Great River many times with her father on short trips with the whole family or, on occasion, for training exercises he devised that took them farther afield than the woods surrounding Volesion Peak. She’d always been restless in the small cabins, but being stuck in a cabin with Gem made it worse. She liked her new friend. Respected her. Would fight by her any time. She didn’t like being stuck in a tiny room on a ship with her as she snored in her hammock as if she had no cares in the world. Piris went above before she throttled the warrior with her tiny pillow.
There was a man at the door to the cabins who let her exit, one at the wheel, one in the crow’s nest above, and another stationed along the bow. The river was smooth here, easy to navigate even in full dark, so no more were needed above. She’d heard men in the mass bunks below when she’d exited her room, chattering among themselves. They’d established sleeping shifts so fighters could be ready in case of a surprise attack, but no need for them to crowd the deck on a calm night.
All of those thoughts melted away under the vastness of the sparkling night sky above her, a river of light echoed in the actual river below, glistening with reflections as the ship cut through the glass-smooth water. It was breathtaking, enough to make her lose a sense of herself for a moment, to contemplate the beauty and depth and odd sense of mortality welling inside her. Until she heard a thump far too close behind her.
She spun on her heels, but if it’d been an assassin, she’d have been long dead. No, not exactly, because it was an assassin. If it had been an assassin out to kill her, she’d have been long dead. This assassin had no reason to harm her.
“Darin,” she said, taking a step back. The slope of his shoulder stiffened a touch at her retreat.
“Lady Piris.”
“Just Piris, Darin. Unless you’d like me to start calling you lord as well?” Her sarcastic tone somehow eased the stiffness of the man, and he moved to the railing, leaned down to place his forearms there, and looked out at the water and the banks of the Springlands they hugged.
“Piris it is,” he said, his voice clipped but not angry.
She moved to stand beside him, not close enough to touch but close enough to talk. For long minutes, it seemed he did not wish to talk, and she was equally happy to let the silence linger as they stared out into the dark beauty of the night. Something niggled in the back of her mind, something she needed to ask, not out of simple curiosity but a need to know for her own future.
“How did you do it? Make so many forget your title?”
His head turned slowly, and he pulled his hood back so she could see all of him. He studied her, his cold green eyes looking for signs of weakness, or maybe signs of what she wanted from such a question. It was a ridiculous question to ask someone like Darin; it was prying and rude and implied so much about who he was without voicing it.
He nodded, as if finding a good answer in her face, and gave his own. “I did what my king commanded me to do.”
Not exactly what Piris wanted to hear, but an honest answer to be sure. “Would you rather be Lord Marco?”
Looking out over the river, his brow furrowed and his chin jutted. With his sharp profile and shock of white-blond hair, Piris could see an icy handsomeness there. Nothing she would ever touch, but there nonetheless.
“No one has asked me what I would want in a very long time, Piris,” he admitted. Cutting eyes over at her once again, he said, “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t care about the title. I’d only want a quiet life deep in the fields of the Springlands, far away from people who’d never think to ask me such a question.”
He’d more than earned it, Piris thought, but she was not king of the Springlands and couldn’t do anything for the assassin at her side—nothing except shove her shoulder slightly into his for a second before pulling back and saying, “I hope you get your fields of peace one day.”
Darin was again stoic, silent and unmoving for several beats before he cast a quick look behind them and straightened from his lean beside her. He pulled his hood back up but said, “You have the opportunity to be who you want to be, Piris. Your parents expect nothing more from you. And the royals here… They are different. I say take the title you choose and damn the rest.”
He twisted around, giving her no time to reply, and gave a short hello to the Fae coming up on them from behind. She looked over her shoulder and saw it was Jarok. He gave the assassin a nod as he moved closer, to take the empty space Darin left. The prince slid in closer to Piris… touched his muscled arm down the length of hers. She had to admit she didn’t mind.