It was dark inside the room and even more so when Tif closed the door behind her so they could reunite in privacy before they left. Her fa’s snores told her which direction to head, so she padded closer on her bare feet, thankful that the floor was smoother in the cell than it had been in the tunnel. She soon reached a wooden lip, and kneeling down to feel with her hands, Tif touched straw, which she guessed was the innards of a sleeping pallet.
“Ma? Fa?” she said, “It’s me.”
“Tif!” her ma said, and Tif almost thought she saw something move in the dark. “Tif is that you?”
Her fa’s snoring stopped, quickly replaced by a knick, knick, and then a small candle was lit, haloing her parent’s faces. Just the sight of them, whole and healthy, sent relief flooding through Tif, more powerful than any stolen energy. Her fa put the flint aside, as Tif and her ma scrambled toward each other to embrace. Though Tif had been missing her Blood ris, she reveled in not needing to worry about her skin touching her ma when they met, and held on longer than she had since she had been a little girl, which her ma didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
They finally let each other go, and leaning back, Tif got a glimpse of the rest of the room. The pallet they all were on was big enough for four people to share and had an enormous quilt to match. Some water ran in the corner like what Tif had seen in the pit barracks, and there was even a table and chair set off to one side with some knitting on it and Tif’s das board of all things. Mostly though, it was a relief to see that her parents hadn’t been stuck in some cold, moldy hole this entire time.
Her fa was the first to break the silence. “Had to give ‘em back what was theirs, eh? Too bad.” He pointed at her right hand. “That’s new though.”
Her ma’s eyes followed her fa’s finger and widened when they reached Tif’s spidery Death ris. “Awt said you had left Lercel,” she said in a high voice, “but I couldn’t believe it, and now this…”
Out of the many experiences Tif wanted to share with her parents that one would definitely be last, if at all. “It’s okay, ma, I’m fine, and I’m glad you are, too. I’m so sorry that this all happened because of me.”
“This?” her fa said, raising an eyebrow and looking around. “Roof over our head, privacy, and two meals a day? Don’t be.”
Tif hadn’t expected her parents, and especially not her fa, to take their imprisonment lightly. “But weren’t you worried that they were going to hurt you?”
Her fa waved the question away like he had the one before. “Awt came and saw us our first day here and said that he wouldn’t let anything happen to us, and nothing did.”
“He’s become such a fine man,” her ma said with a smile.
Begrudgingly, Tif appreciated what Awt had done for her parents, but she also wondered if her ma would think the same when she saw him covered in Blood ris. “Guess I didn’t need to be as worried about you as I was.”
“It’s our job to worry about you, not the other way around. And trust me when I tell you that we were.” Her ma peered at her closely. “You look sad, dear. What happened?”
Tif didn’t know where to begin, but if her ma was seeing something, it was probably what she had learned from talking to Vak-Lav. “I found out that I was wrong about some things I believed and that I almost hurt people, a lot of people, by not knowing the truth.”
“Could you have known?” her ma asked, simply and solemnly.
“I…” Tif started, prepared to answer that if she hadn’t been so single-minded she could have, but then she remembered how Vak-Lav had said that not even Torgath had been aware of what the crest really was and also how good the Archon had been at hiding her involvement in the Life Trade. Was she being too hard on herself, thinking she should know things when others hadn’t?
As if reading her thoughts, her ma said, “Guilt is a good teacher, Tif, but should never be allowed to live with you.”
Tif’s fa snorted. “You been running off to read the virtues at the Grand Library when I wasn’t looking, Lil?”
Her ma sniffed in reply. “My own fa used to say that, and you know he’s right, Heb, don’t act like he’s not.”
“Wouldn’t dare,” her fa said, with a grin. “Just saying that if you have any more gems like that, we could start selling them on the street for a flat each.”
Her ma smiled at him, and to Tif’s surprise, they kissed. Maybe their time here hadn’t been all bad.
“Thanks, ma,” Tif said. “That helps.” And it did. Tif certainly didn’t want to find herself in such an ignorant position again, and she vowed that she wouldn’t, but she could also see now that beating herself up over such well hidden secrets wasn’t right either. She brightened, feeling some of the last few hours sliding off of her. Tif was still sad about the Archon of course, but that she could tell would be a long time in leaving. “We should go.”
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“Go?” her fa said. “That door is as thick as me and sturdier built. I don’t know much about your new ris, but I never heard of Death tribe knocking anything down with their power. No, waiting is the name of this game, and we’ll do it as long as we need. I’m sure Awt will convince them eventually to let us go, especially now that they’ve got back what was taken.”
“I already did that,” Tif said. “We’re free to leave.” The sewers would probably be best, what with the knights looking for her, but she could explain that to her parents on the way.
“Huh,” her fa said with a grunt, scratching at his beard.
“You…don’t sound happy.”
“Well,” her fa said, looking at her ma who appeared equally unenthusiastic, “that puts a crimp in things is all.”
Tif couldn’t imagine what he was referring to. “What sort of things?”
Her parents exchanged another look, and something about it must have put her ma in charge this time. “As your fa told you, we’ve been…doing well, so it’s just rather abrupt to say we have to leave is all. Perhaps if we just had a bit more time--”
“You want to stay?” Tif interrupted.
“Best place we’ve had in years,” her fa said without hesitation and then followed it up with a sly grin, “and free always makes it better.”
Tif rolled her eyes. Of course her fa would love that. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know, so I didn’t ask. I thought you’d want out, so that’s what I got Vak-Lav to agree to.”
“We have to stay for breakfast at least,” her fa said, sounding like he was trying to claw his way out of a losing trade. “It can’t be that long til morning.”
“Oh, the porridge is good,” her ma said, turning to Tif hopefully. “Do you think they’d mind?”
“I guess I can check…” Tif said, getting up and heading back to the door on disbelieving feet.
“You’ll love it,” her fa called after her. “Thick as tar and just as filling.”
Tif didn’t know how she was going to explain this to Ssuran, but when she cracked the prison door she discovered that the old warrior wasn’t alone. Standing beside him was a human woman who cut off talking as soon as she saw Tif. Tif recognized her right away as one of the guards with a crossbow who she had put down on her way to Vak-Lav. Tif wondered if the woman would try to exact some sort of vengeance now that Tif was without her Blood ris, but Ssuran raised a hand, and the woman spun around, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel.
When Tif looked back at Ssuran he was staring at her in that silent way of his.
“Is it alright if my family and I stay a bit longer,” Tif asked, feeling doubly awkward about the request considering the type of conversation she’d likely interrupted. “I’m tired is all, and we can find our own way out when we’re done,” she added, hoping it will help convince him.
“It seems you weren’t lying about the guards,” he said instead, and Tif was surprised to hear him speak so many words together. Perhaps he was more vocal when Vak-Lav wasn’t around?
“...does that mean we can stay?” she asked again.
“As long as you like,” he said, “we rarely use these rooms.” His mouth closed after that, but he continued to stare at her.
“Is there something else?” she finally asked.
“You reacted well in our exchange,” he answered, sounding as if he was choosing each word as he said it. “And put down some of my best. Come see me when you wake. Ask anyone you come across, and they will tell you where to find me.” With that, he left just as quickly as the woman had, before Tif could even thank him.
No one else seemed to be around, neither from the tunnel in front nor where it curved past the door she stood in to the left. To be safe though, Tif retrieved the wooden board that locked the room and brought it inside, closing the door behind her.
“Well?” her fa asked from where he sat.
“He says we can stay as long as we like,” Tif answered.
Her ma frowned, seeming as astounded by the news as Tif felt. “Did Awt put in another good word for us?”
“Nah, look at her face,” her fa said, standing and heading Tif’s way. He had been the one to teach her das to start and how to watch for more than people said. “She did this. Just like she stole a fortune out from under the most notorious person in Lercel and got off free and clean. Better than that, with the rarest ris in the land on her hand.” He looked Tif straight in the eye, all confidence. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Tif hadn’t really thought of it like that and wanted to say that Vak-Lav was actually much nicer than people thought, but what came out of her mouth was, “And I got to do so much more.”
“I bet you did,” he said with a wide grin and then pulled her close for a hug. He squeezed her. “Proud of you, girl,” he said into her hair
Tif accepted the hug but had a much harder time with the compliment. She had been waiting to hear the like from her fa for so long that the words couldn’t have been more beautiful to her if someone with Gold ris had said them, but they felt completely unearned: she wasn’t any closer to being a knight of Lercel yet and definitely not the Archon. However, seeing her fa pull back with a grin, patting her one last time on the shoulder before returning to his seat on the pallet, Tif realized something: just because she hadn’t made it to her dream yet, that didn’t mean she hadn’t reached his for her, and likely her ma’s, too. They just wanted to see her succeed, after all, and despite everything that had been thrown at Tif…she had, even landing a bit ahead, like her fa had said.
Tif took a deep breath as it all hit her, a profound sense of gratitude welling in her, warmer than any Blood ris. “Thanks, fa,” she said, pulling Udaru’s sah out of the top of her shirt to brush away the wetness weighing down her eyes--she wanted to save these tears.
“Is that part of the ‘more’ you mentioned,” her ma asked, pointing at the yellow cloth.
“It is,” Tif said with a grin of her own, dropping onto the ground in front of them cross-legged. She had so much to tell them, and seeing them safe and happy, sitting next to each other with expressions eager to hear what she had to say, there wasn’t anywhere else in all the land Tif would rather be or anyone else she’d rather be with.
And Pep, Tif knew, felt exactly the same.