Chapter Six #2
Pel exhaled slowly and then met his mother’s anxious eyes.
“I can only look back on that time with childish eyes and memories. I imagine you protected us from some of it. I’ve lived half my life without you, and I spent all that time thinking it was because you’d been taken from us against your will.
I missed you. A lot. I thought of you all the time, and I thought of what it would have been like if you were there when I Manifested as Unremarkable.
” Pel’s lips wobbled, but he sniffed and didn’t let himself cry.
“It was the first time I realized that Father’s love was finite and came with a lot of conditions.
Maybe you realized that a lot sooner than I did. ”
Pel would never want anyone to be forced to remain married to someone they no longer loved or who was harmful for them. That was easy to say when it was a theory. It got a lot harder when there were children and rulers and consequences that had to be lived with.
He cleared his throat. “Did you go to live with the exiles right away?”
It seemed he’d found his voice properly now, and he had so many questions.
She nodded. “I’d already made plans. I’d been trying for years to get your father to be more reasonable towards the exiles.
I knew I couldn’t stay in Tond, and I didn’t want to offer my Fealty to any other sovereign—or risk what might happen if your father caught word of me being in another realm.
The exiles supported a way of life that I admired, and I truly believed that their situation could be bettered.
Plus, this close, I could still get news of you from time to time. ”
Bav was glowering, and he ground out, “I’m surprised you bothered.”
“I’m truly sorry,” their mother repeated, looking at Bav with distress.
He sprang to his feet, all tightly leashed energy. “You didn’t have to listen to your little brother and sister cry every night because they thought their mother was dead!”
He stomped off, skirting past Cavun at the entrance to the cave without a word. Cavun had his back to them, observing the rain falling and probably trying to give them the illusion of privacy.
Pel remembered how Cavun had told them—when was it, yesterday? The day before?—that other families weren’t like theirs. Ha! If only he’d known the half of it.
Tama rose to her feet.
“He probably needs a few minutes,” Pel cautioned.
She nodded. “I know. But he shouldn’t be alone.”
Pel stared after her as she pulled up the hood of her cloak and disappeared into the rain. Just how well did she know his brother?
And now it was only Pel, his mother, and Tor sitting around the fire.
This was not, at all, what Pel had thought he might be dealing with today. He’d actually thought he’d gotten to the point where he expected the unexpected, given everything that had happened recently. But no, this was a step too far.
His mother was alive because renouncing her Fealty and going to live with the exiles had felt like a safer choice than remaining with her children and the man she’d been bonded to.
Pel wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get over it completely, but he also didn’t like the idea of Forex holding them hostage to ensure his wife’s behavior. Would he really have killed them to prevent their mother from taking them? Pel certainly hoped not, but when the man was in his blackest mood?
Well, Pel wouldn’t have wanted to put it to the test.
“Why now?” he asked. “Because Father is dead?”
“Tama brought the news.” She sighed. “I know nothing I did is enough. But I did try to approach him, just once. Five or six years ago. The weather had grown unpredictable, and some of us feared it was going to get worse. I’d hoped that the intervening years would have…
softened him a little.” She scoffed. “He was… immoderate in his rage. He thought I’d died when the bond broke, and he nearly—” She cut herself off.
“I had help, but even so, we barely made it out. I knew that I could never try again.”
“What about us?” Pel asked, hating how small his voice sounded. “You could have told us.”
She swallowed thickly. “Maybe I should have. You’ll never know how much I missed you. But I didn’t want to put you in the position of having to lie to him. I didn’t know what he’d do if he found out.”
Pel didn’t really want to think about it. He wanted to insist that this should have been their choice to make, but Lara was only twenty-one. Would they have made that decision for her when she was a child? Would their mother have told only him and Bav while they had to keep it from their sister?
Pel hated all of the choices.
“Father’s behavior towards the exiles got even worse. He wanted to stamp you out, to stamp all of you out.”
She nodded, lines furrowing her brow. “We represented his failure, the diminishing of his realm. More and more, he convinced himself that if he could bring all of us under his control, if he could take back the land and the people, it would somehow bring back a golden age. He chose to remember only the victories from before, not the failures or the blood or the death. He conveniently ignored squabbling with neighboring realms and the threat of war. He acted as though the exiles left to be petty and not because they felt it was their only choice to survive. Those were the parts I could never forget.”
Pel had mostly learned to tune out his father’s nostalgia rants, but maybe his mother hadn’t had that choice.
“I know Bav’s upset right now,” he acknowledged, “but I’m sure he’ll want to resolve things peaceably with the exiles.”
Emotions might be high, but Bav was nothing like their father. His mother was gazing off in the direction that her eldest son had gone.
“I hope so. Being at peace with Tond would mean a lot.” Her gaze shifted to Tor. “But the reason that I’m here right now, at this moment, is actually because of you, Prince Torex.”
Tor looked taken aback. “Me?”
She nodded. “You. Because we have a problem, and I think you could be our solution.”
“And what problem is that?” Tor asked warily.
“The weather and the land.”
He blinked at her, looking even more stunned. “The land? The weather?”
Her gaze was intent, never leaving Tor’s face.
“Twenty-five years ago, the land over the mountain was cut off from Tond and given to the exiles. No one who set foot there owed Fealty to any ruler. This was exactly what the exiles wanted, and for a time, they prospered. Back then, the land was much as it was on this side of the mountain. We had a similar growing season, not as long as you do in the south, but more than enough for our needs.”