Chapter Twenty #2
Tor nodded. “We Tendrilled once, and we were distinctly incompatible.” He sighed and admitted, “I also had no intention of bonding to anyone. I was resentful that you were ordering me around like a subject. Also, I was drinking too much, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I can see now that you were trying to fix that, but it felt like you were treating me like a pawn on a chessboard.”
“I got impatient,” Var admitted ruefully. “I knew you were capable of so much, and it felt like you were squandering that. I was neither patient nor understanding, and I apologize.”
Tor wondered if this was the moment to announce everything. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get his brother in a better mood.
He opened his mouth, but the door opened. They all turned, the guards with their swords out already, but it was Rin—carrying Pamuna in his arms.
Terila and Nawila were following him. Nawila looked wrecked.
“What happened?” Tor demanded at the same time as his brother.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that anyone else might be injured. He was a terrible friend.
Terila was wringing her hands, face distressed. “She collapsed all of a sudden and passed out. I didn’t know what to do. I knew we needed help, but I didn’t want to leave Pamuna on her own. Thank goodness Rin and Nawila came back.”
Tekilona directed Rin to set Pamuna carefully down on the floor. Nawila immediately knelt down beside her, looking like she was never going to leave Pamuna’s side again.
Tor was totally familiar with that feeling. If he and Pel could be tied together and spend the rest of their life only going places that were really, really safe, he would probably be much happier as a person.
The healer reached out and laid her hands on the side of Pamuna’s head just as she had done with Ada. Her eyes fluttered closed, but a second later, they snapped open again, and she snatched her hands back.
She was staring at Pamuna like she was the scariest thing that she’d ever seen, and that was… deeply disturbing.
“What’s wrong?” Nawila demanded anxiously.
Looking like she was steeling herself, the healer pressed her hands against the sides of Pamuna’s face once again, closing her eyes a second time.
Long moments passed in silence with Nawila looking increasingly worried, until Tekilona released Pamuna and opened her eyes once more.
“I think she’s simply exhausted,” Tekilona said carefully. “She’ll need some time to recover.”
“But why is she exhausted?” Nawila wanted to know. “She was just waiting at the trapdoor.” She glared at Terila. “She was just waiting, right?”
“Yes, we were just waiting,” Terila said, not even looking annoyed at the accusation.
Maybe whenever your loved ones were injured, the people around you recognized you might not behave in a fully rational manner?
“So what happened?” Nawila asked more forcefully. “No one gets exhausted for no reason!”
It had been a really long day—night?—and Pamuna had been under a lot of pressure to sneak them into the castle… that she was strangely familiar with because her parents worked for King Nostex in an unspecified manner.
And now the healer looked as though she was struggling with how to tell them something…
A radical thought suddenly popped into Tor’s head, and he turned to look at his brother’s wife.
“Fernila, are you feeling any different?”
She looked at him in confusion. “Different from what?”
Her voice was hoarse, probably from all the crying, but it was devoid of the anger and upset that he was used to hearing directed at him.
Tor eyed the healer, who was looking at him like maybe Tor was going to save her from explaining something totally ridiculous. He looked down at the unconscious woman and then over at Fernila again.
It was a wild idea, but he thought… just maybe he could see a resemblance between the two of them.
“Uh, I realize I’m usually an ass when I’m talking to you, but this is actually a moment where I don’t mean to be,” he began.
She let out something that was almost a laugh. Her hair was a chaotic red tangle around her head. She looked terrible—but also way more human than he’d ever seen her, especially when they were talking to one another. “I’m willing to start over if you are.”
He nodded. “I’d like that. So I just want to observe that you seem totally normal, and, uh, not like you just inherited the Fealty from your father. Do you feel any different?”
She blinked, looking totally stunned, and then slowly shook her head. “I don’t feel different at all. I mean, I don’t think so.” She looked uncertainly at Var.
It was Var who assured her, “It’s immediately noticeable. It’s a huge rush of magic that was nearly enough to—”
His eyes flew to Tor’s as realization set in, and then they dropped to Pamuna.
“Really?”
Tor shrugged. “A little bit in the shape of the mouth and nose, don’t you think? Although she doesn’t have the hair.”
Fernila’s eyes widened comically large. “Are you saying you think Pama is my half-sister?”
Everyone’s eyes seemed to be darting between Pamuna and Fernila and then back up to Tor. He shrugged.
“I don’t know anything for certain, of course.
I’m just saying the situation is suggestive.
She didn’t specify how her parents worked for Nostex—and I’m not going to say anything more about that—but she knew about what seems to be a very secret entrance.
Mostly, honestly, it just occurred to me that there’s only one of us who’s exhibiting any unusual symptoms.”
Tekilona cleared her throat. “Prince Torex is correct. She possesses the Fealty of a people, and under the circumstances, I assume it’s of Filon.”
Even Tor was a little taken aback to have this firm confirmation of his guess. No one seemed to know what to say, and then Fernila sagged against Var.
“Thank goodness.”
He looked at her with surprise. “I thought you might be upset.”
“Upset that I’m not supposed to be ruling one of the realms when I want to be with you in Alossa? Of course I’m not upset!”
She really wasn’t anything like her father. Tor wondered now how much of their animosity had been engineered. He certainly wasn’t blameless, but maybe they’d had a bit more “help” than he’d realized to reach their former impasse.
Fernila looked down at Pamuna. “I always wanted a big family. It was just me and Father, and he always said that he could never forget Mother.” Her face twisted. “I always thought that it meant he loved her too much to let her go, to think of anyone else. I should have realized.”
Var stroked her hair. “None of us realized.”
“None of you lived with him your whole life!” Fernila almost shrieked.
Cala stirred in sleepy protest, and Fernila shushed her and looked embarrassed.
“He hid it from everyone,” Var said firmly.
It probably was worse when it was your own father plotting against you, but he’d definitely pulled the wool over all their eyes.
There was a tap at the door, and it opened to show that Beluna was there with… a tray of food?
Tor stared at her a little incredulously, but she and then Cavun came in bearing loaded trays and set them down beside the people who were still clustered on the floor. She also had sets of dry clothes for Tor’s brother and Rin.
“Figured you could use these,” she said, before she headed back outside.
Tor stared after her incredulously—and then watched while Var and Stronex piled food on plates for Fernila and Ada, and they both worked their way through it.
Var and Rin stepped into the corner of the room, and everyone else looked away while they changed.
Then a much dryer Var sat down to eat with the rest of them, while Rin also settled on the floor and pulled Terila into his arms.
Tor vaguely remembered from childhood that the longer he was in a shield, the hungrier he was when he came out of it. He hadn’t been trapped in one for long—apart from up the mountain before the landslide, but he’d dealt with that by collapsing into a magical coma.
Even though everyone was clearly still at least somewhat emotionally distraught, they consumed everything avidly.
Pel grabbed two apples and gave one to Tor, who happily ate it.
Tor was really glad that Beluna had already pledged her Fealty to him, because he definitely wanted to keep her.
After they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes, Fernila resumed the topic, sounding calmer now, though still horrified.
“He confessed that during the final battle, he was pulling too much magic. He thought he needed just a little bit more to defeat your mother.” She looked at Var and Tor and blew out a breath.
Her eyes were glassy with tears. “My older brother was four when I was born. Father always said he lost everyone but me to that war. It made me think that he wanted this peace, but he was just angry that he’d been beaten.
He was pulling too much magic, trying to hold out against Queen Ralexa, and I think—” Fernila cut herself off, sucking in a ragged breath.
“He pulled so much I think he killed my brother, and it was killing my mother, too—and me, because I was in her womb. Rather than letting me die, she killed herself.”
She couldn’t go on for a moment, and Var pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.