A Different Stone
When we were done playing, we stared at each other, the only sound in the room the fire crackling in the background.
I did not need to say it aloud. I did not want to return. Not yet. The room was warm and I felt safe and that was the simple truth.
Moreover, I needed to see Colsar. With each passing hour my cough seemed to lessen. I did not want Colsar to see me ill and worry.
If he was there at all.
Eravic reached in his cloak and pulled out the parcel I had given him.
“A stone?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you ready?”
I stared down at it. “This does not look like one of my mother’s stones,” I said.
He nodded. “It was in the parcel. Perhaps it is a memory, but one that is not hers but that she wanted you to have all the same. The witches of the Witchward can see anything, they say.”
“That frightens me,” I admitted.
He smiled. “Well, I’ll be here to tell you how much you snore and drool while sleeping when you awaken.”
“Lies,” I said with a small laugh.
Then I took the stone and leaned back in the chair, eyes closed.
My mother did not go to the king when she returned for the amulet that day.
She knew what would be waiting for her when Orsin emerged from his council meetings. She had broken his rules, left without permission, intervened in something he considered his. The punishment would come regardless of what she did now. She went to the harem instead.
Hara was already packed.
She was standing in the center of her room with a bag at her feet and her daughter on her hip and a look of quiet determination on her face.
"I heard what you did," she said when Ryaran walked in.
"Then you know I don't have much time."
"Neither do I." Hara looked at her. "You have always been good. Since the day you arrived here you have been good when you did not have to be." Her arms tightened around her daughter. "I am taking her and leaving. Whatever comes next I will not let her grow up here."
Ryaran looked at Asharin in her arms. At the small face, still too new to the world to understand what world it had arrived in.
"My brother," Hara said quietly. "He is the Baron of Veynar. I ran away as a teenager. She sighed. “Orsin convinced me he was a simple merchant until I learned I was pregnant. Then he brought me to the harem, and it was too late to leave.”
She paused. "My brother only knows I was married to a man who mistreated me. He does not know the rest." She looked at Asharin again. “The Baron is not a good person. But his wife is kind. She will look after them both, if you want.”
"His wife?"
“Yes.” Hara said it with the certainty of someone who had not yet received news.
"I will write him from the ship. Tell him I am bringing my cruel husband's illegitimate daughter to raise as my own.
" She met Ryaran's eyes. "He will not turn her away.
I am his weakness. And once they are there I will always be close. I will always watch over them."
Ryaran looked at her daughter for a long time.
Then she placed her in Hara's arms.
Hara arrived with both children at the Baron's estate on a cold morning.
The Baron's wife had died weeks ago.
He stood in the doorway of his own house in mourning black, his young son clinging to his leg. He looked at his sister. He looked at the two small girls. He looked at Asharin with disgust.
He did not understand why his sister insisted on raising her husband's bastard alongside her own legitimate daughter, especially since the husband had beaten and mistreated her. He said so.
Hara said it was not a discussion, and made him promise to house and raise her.
He gave his word, but did not want a whore’s daughter near his niece. She would have to stay in the servant’s quarters.
Hara disagreed and demanded he prepare the guesthouse for her and the two children.
They were arguing about it near the edge of the manor.
Just then the Threns came out of the woods.
There was no warning. There rarely was. One moment the tree line was still and the next it was not and the sound of it reached the house before anyone had time to think.
The Baron moved immediately, not toward the girls but toward Yvara, his hands already pulling her in before his mind had caught up with his body.
Hara moved toward me.
The arrow found her before she reached her.
She fell without a sound.
Servants came rushing over as the Baron stood with Yvara in his arms. They picked Hara up immediately.
It was starting to rain. One of the servants reached for me. “Leave it outside,” the Baron barked. The servants looked at each other and quietly shuffled inside. Moments later, two servants snuck out of the Baron's house and quietly lifted me out of the rain.
“Lady Hara died protecting her. She must have made a promise, and if it isn’t kept, she will not rest well.”
The other woman nodded. I recognized her as Emva’s mother, Judice. She had always been kind to me until she had been too sick to stay in the manor. “Look,” she whispered. “Golden eyes, this one has. The veil will do her good, it will keep her from jealous eyes.”
The other woman reached into the basket I had arrived in and pulled out a small envelope.
“What is inside?” Judice asked. I almost laughed, her eagerness for news was exactly like her daughter’s.
The other woman opened the envelope. There was a silver pendant inside and a folded note.
She handed it to Judice, “Save the necklace for the girl. The note has words I cannot read. Tell me what it says.” Judice leaned over and read silently.
Your name is Asharanis. You have only a pendant for now and the clothes on your back. But a kingdom and army and a family that loves you await you one day.
A promise was made. When it is offered, accept it. It will keep you safe from rooms that seem light but are full of darkness.
You are more than most. Do not let anyone convince you that you are less than that.
If you are reading this and hold my daughter in your arms, burn this. Give her the pendant.
She is smart enough to figure out the rest.
And one day she will hear this letter.
No one can keep me from her.
Love,
A Queen to a Queen
“Well?” The other servant said. “What does it say?”
Judice frowned just briefly, and I heard her mutter under her breath. “Asharanis is for Alarna.”
She understood. The name itself was dangerous. Too many Alarnan royal women carried that same ending. Ryaranis. Jularanis. Asharanis would have marked me as something more than the bastard daughter of a cruel man.
She was not only hiding the letter. She was hiding me.
She turned to the other servant. “She says the girl should be called Asharin, and that she loves her very much.”
“All those words and that is all it says?” The woman sounded skeptical.
“Aye. Fancy words telling the girl not to spread her legs too soon like she did.” Judice shrugged. “I’ll use it for kindle later, the wind has been strong lately and it’s bad luck to keep a whore’s words in the house.”
The other servant nodded. “Sounds about right. Every whore wishes for her daughter not to be one.”
Judice's fingers tightened around the paper before she tucked it in her breast and let the other woman walk ahead. Then she pulled me close and said “If only she knew, little one.”
That was why the Baron hated me. Because his sister had died reaching for me.
The memory dissolved.
I lay in the dark of the guest chamber and did not move for a long time.
My mother had not abandoned me. She had placed me in the only hands she trusted and those hands had not made it.
And even then, she had written me a letter and somehow made sure that one day the Witchward would find a way to get it to me.