Chapter 17 The Girl Who Opened the Skies #2
“I’ll explain. Will you please sit?” Nara asked calmly.
It took Caterina’s forlorn, tearful “please” to gain his compliance.
Jesstin pulled the chair about ten feet from the table and sat.
“We’re here because our magic compels us to solve our family’s greatest mystery,” Nara said. “Which has, unexpectedly, enlightened us to a truth unavailable to others.”
“Not me,” Clarissant said, interrupting. “I have no magic. But I believe.”
Tyreste shook his head.
“I manifested my first prophecies when I was nine,” Nara said.
“Around my seventeenth nameday, my father was in the foulest mood. He seemed more confused than angry, but anger has always been his way of dealing with things he can’t comprehend.
A few days later, both Cat and Tyr showed up at the citadel demanding to speak to me.
That’s when they told me about Sesto’s letters speaking of a man, Jesstin, a younger brother of our parents.
But according to them, Jesstin, you didn’t exist.”
“It was the oddest thing,” Tyreste said. “Because none of us remembered you either! But Cat and I...” He looked at his sister. “Do you remember Mother and Father, how their dreams took them to past and future?”
Jesstin nodded weakly.
“Cat and I inherited this from them. Wyat too, but that was later. We didn’t remember you, not the way we should, but you were still in our dreams—dreams of our childhood but also dreams of.
.. the future, when we were twice your age.
Something felt very wrong about all of it, and when we tried talking to Mother and Father, they wouldn’t entertain a conversation.
We asked Nara if she’d seen you in her visions, and she hadn’t, but she believed us.
” He shook his head. “Without question.”
“I tried, several times, to ask Mother and Father if they’d seen you too, but they wouldn’t even speak of it.
I’d never seen them so upset with us. I couldn’t even recall a time they’d yelled, unless we’d put ourselves in danger, but they yelled then,” Caterina said.
“It reminded me of visiting Aunt Finola’s grandmother in the infirmary.
She’d lost most of her memories by then, and it made her so unspeakably mad.
It was as though she knew how much she was missing, but her inability to grasp it was the ultimate insult. ”
“It was then my father told us a family secret. They’d all promised not to tell us, but...” Nara glanced at Caterina. “Our grandfather, Mathias, was not a good man. I expect this is no secret to you?”
“No secret,” Jesstin stated, cold and even. He turned back. “Where’s the boy, Sesto?”
Sesto shifted in surprise. “With Daire. They’ve gone to Riverchapel to watch the tents raised for Wintertide Jubilee.”
“Hm.” Jesstin frowned at the table.
Nara looked unsure whether to go on, so Sesto offered a swift nod of encouragement.
“It seems...” She looked at her cousins before continuing.
“He manipulated an old friend into a misuse of magic, stealing memories, the memories of his children. Father wouldn’t tell us why or say more at all, but Mr. Loken—that is, Sesto—has kindly helped us fill in most of what we don’t know.
We believe Aunt Rhiain and Uncle Asterin’s anger is a reaction to all they went through to recover from such a terrible betrayal. ”
“But like my grandparents, our dreams are memories.” Wyat spoke for the first time.
“My mother, Uncle Tyr, and I all dreamed of you. Theirs were from childhood, when they were left with you while Grandmother and Grandfather traveled on business. Mine were of the future, of—” He cast an uncertain glance at his mother.
“Of you as you are now. Younger than you should be but hardened like a man thrice your age.”
“Most in the kingdom hide our magic, so we aren’t shipped away to the Sepulchre, but I chose to go, on my own.
Mother and Father weren’t pleased, but they understood it was my choice.
” Nara smiled ruefully. “Less understanding, of course, of me taking the vow to serve. But it’s all right.
Anduin has already made them grandparents. ”
“She went because of you, Uncle Jesstin!” Clarissant exclaimed. She could hardly sit still in her seat. “Aunt Nara, Aunt Cat, and Father knew they couldn’t ignore what had happened, but until they had proof, there was nothing they could do.”
“Clarissa,” Tyreste warned with a weary, long-suffering sigh. “Now that she’s betrothed, we all pray manners will follow... despite her choice of beau.”
Clarissant rolled her eyes.
“A man of the Westerlands, right?” Jesstin looked directly at Clarissant. Sesto and the others watched in rapt silence. “A steward?”
She beamed at him. “Yes. A Tyndall of Wildwood Falls.”
“Ignore anyone who tells you how to live. How smooth unwelcome advice falls from the lips of those who aren’t required to follow it,” Jesstin said.
She snickered into her hand. “You and I are of like minds, as my father’s scowl, which I can feel from behind me, surely suggests. But how did you know about Griffath?”
Jesstin rubbed his face. A change came over him, as though he’d joined them at last. “Sesto.”
“You are a singular individual,” Caterina said softly.
“There is no one else like you, none in our records at the Reliquary. Tyr searched and searched. Our family still has full access to their library. Nara found nothing at the Sepulchre either. Examples of necromancers, yes, but not a single story or anecdote about men or women who had traveled to the netherworld.”
“I need someone to explain, in the simplest of terms, what the fuck this is, or I need you all to leave,” Jesstin said with another over-the-shoulder look at Sesto, who chastised him with his eyes.
He had a right to be overwhelmed, but Sesto had found him a real, honest way back to his family, and he was going to drive them away.
And if he did that... then Sesto was out of ideas for how to help him.
“Please,” Jesstin added quietly.
“We found Sesto’s letters that he’d sent over the years to our parents, and how quickly things changed,” Caterina said.
“As Wyat came of age, he confessed to his own strange dream memories. Nara’s searching, Tyr’s searching, nothing bore fruit.
Nothing offered us any proof we could take to Mother and Father to convince them something terrible had happened to their memories.
All of ours were lost too, Uncle.” She dabbed her eyes.
“All except the ones we had in our dreams. The three of us had spent years searching for answers, and I didn’t want Wyat to suffer from the same senselessness, so we’d all but given up.
Until Clarissa told us, two days ago, that she’d met Sesto at the Hermitage.
” Caterina laughed, sniffling. “Little nosy demon that she is, she asked him outright about you, and in credit to his honor, he told her the truth. She told him about us, called us the ‘Jesstin Believers.’” She shook her head at her niece.
“And that’s how we came to be sitting in your kitchen, Uncle Brother. ”
Jesstin kneaded his forehead with the heel of his hand.
Heavy silence made the room feel smaller than ever before, with a sadness running through it that only grew as the seconds passed.
But Sesto would not apologize, not for this.
He’d never thought much of fate before Jesstin had charged into the netherworld and brought Elloven back from the dead, but he’d been blind and was blind no longer.
Jesstin was meant to return to his people, in whatever way destiny would allow.
“I really have no idea what to say.” Jesstin sat up.
Sesto moved to stand beside Tyreste.
“Nara, Cat, Tyr... You cannot know...” Jesstin dug his teeth into his bottom lip.
“How much I have missed you. And these children, who are both older than you were when I left home... The things I’ve seen would drive most men mad, but somehow this is the hardest I’ve worked to believe in anything.
But I won’t be the lie that comes between you and the rest of your family.
I can’t. You’ve thought about it—I can see that—but lies are a blight on your soul.
They fester and fester until there’s no coming back from them.
I... I am truly moved by everything all of you have done, but please go home and forget me, like everyone else has. There’s nothing here for you.”
Sesto watched disappointment spread through the group with a sinking heart. They all looked like someone had died... all except Clarissant, whose grin suggested a delicious secret bursting within.
“I... might have talked to Papa Asterin about this already.” She raised her hands in a playful cower, but no one was smiling.
“You did what?” Tyreste sputtered, aghast. “Was this your idea, Nara?”
Nara flashed him a bewildered glare.
“Darling, why?” Caterina shook her head with a shrug of defeat. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“He’s a scholar,” Clarissant cried, passing a genuinely stunned expression among them. “He taught all of you to be scholars, taught his grandchildren. I knew if I could appeal to him—”
“We know you meant well, but you’ve really misunderstood things,” Caterina said.
“Mother, will you hear her out?” Wyat said.
Caterina recoiled. “And you? You knew too?”
“Grandpa’s mind is open!” Clarissa threw up her hands. “He didn’t brand me a liar. He...” She seemed to shrink. “He didn’t dismiss me. Not like everyone else does..”
“Clarissa...” Nara sighed.
“And he doesn’t devalue my voice simply because I lack the magic you all have,” Clarissa said, growing quieter with each word.