“Forgiveness is not weak. It takes courage to face and overcome powerful emotions.”

Desmond Tutu

“How are you feeling old man?” I commiserated. We were all feeling a little raw after Arawn’s confession and I sat with him as he drank in the darkness. Our sensory skills allowed us to know where everything was even if we could not strictly speaking see them. His actions were not the wisest of remedies but understandable and with his level and stats, it was not likely to affect him any time soon. Still not a great habit to pick up, and again with his stats a very expensive one.

“Like I lost my only daughter. The wedding was bad enough what with her moving to Wester Town but this . . . I don’t know if she will ever forgive me.” He shuddered as he took another shot of rum. From what I could smell, it was not the best of spirits. The problem with high stats and skills meant that you could sense everything in so much more detail including poor cooking and cheap spirits.

“Forgiveness is a funny business.” I finally answered his unasked question, “It is sometimes easier to forgive strangers than it is our friends. It hurts so much because they are bound so much closer to us.” I paused trying to find the right words to say. Despite everything I knew, I did not know how she would decide to react. The problem was that I still knew so much more than she did. Our original heart-to-heart had come at the end of a coerced conversation but it had got a lot of the secrets out of the way. She had not heard everything; he still held a secret that changed everything.

“You’ve been her father for so long and now she is no longer sure who you are to her,” I explained. “It will take time, but if she will let you, you have to explain why. All you told her was the bare facts. You haven’t explained how you were compelled. You are literally bound to obey by your own blood. She does not know about your last order. You had no choice. And in the end, she will have to see that. Whether or not she can forgive you only time will tell.” I did not know the answer but I knew he was still only halfway there to giving her a true understanding of the actual situation.

“Look at me taking advice from a five-year-old.” He said sardonically taking another shot. In the short time, I had sat with him he had already had three. I didn’t know how many he had taken before I arrived and stats or not, if he continued, he would be hurting later in more ways than one.

“Hey now, out of the mouths of babes, words of wisdom.” I shrugged, quick to quip. Some idioms translated just fine others I ended up having to explain though not this one.

“Be honest you were hardly ever a babe even if you looked like one.” He deflected deliberately picking up the wrong end of the stick.

“These are my pearls of wisdom, take them or leave them.” I bantered back and forth. The more we were talking the less he was drinking and eventually he would face up to the fact that he had to talk with his daughter by adoption if not blood once more. Hopefully, the time apart would allow them to talk with slightly less raw feelings involved.

“You know, I loved your grandmother by the end.” Or maybe not, he interrupted my musings.

“Nothing happened between us but we had been running for so long and in the end, it was only the two of us. We had both lost everything. All we had left was each other and your mother.” He reminisced. Maybe the spirits were stronger than I realised.

“It seems somehow wrong that I survived and she didn’t. But I’ve done my best. I’ve done my best.” He repeated to himself.

“It will be alright.” I gave up on the logic and humour and gave the man a hug. He didn’t cry but I got the feeling that if he could, he would have.

. . .

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Isle, Kaius was sitting holding Aliyah. “How could he never tell me?” She asked hurt.

“He has always been a private man.” He responded knowing there was no correct answer only circumstances to describe the situation.

“He always refused to talk about my mother, but never, not once did he imply that I was a Silverwood. Only that we had served the family and fled with its fall.” She repeated the facts that he already knew.

“Fled with good reason if the house no longer exists according to Acacia.” He reasoned.

“But why not tell me?” she repeated her earlier question still upset that she had not been trusted with the full truth of where she came from.

“You kept your magic a secret from me to remember.” He prompted her to recall that Arawn was not the only one who had kept secrets.

“He taught me not to stand out. To hide my magic.” She replied refusing to take full responsibility for the secrets she had kept, another lie he had asked her to tell.

“Again, for good reason. You were always magical to me. But if keeping your magic secret meant I got to keep you all to myself then I have nothing to complain about.” He smiled sadly. The secret had hurt his heart too but he understood why she had done so. Their new nobility was what protected Aleera and Kai from conscription into another noble family and by extension their mother. Without it what could have happened no one could tell.

“Does it really change anything?” He asked.

“I’m just so cross, I feel betrayed.” She tried to explain how she felt.

“If you had known, would it have helped anything?” he asked. “The two of you would have known but you wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone else. It would have added another degree of fear to your hiding.”

“It might have given me a level of awareness, a wider knowledge of who I am and where I came from.” She struggled to admit that it would not have changed much in the greater scheme of things. They would still have hidden here on Wester Ponente. They would have still hidden her magic and her daughters.

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“None of us are perfect, he has done the best he could by you, and without him, I would never have met you.” Kaius squeezed her tight. The man had and still did on occasion terrify him but if he was to be believed he was also responsible for her safe arrival on the island and he had always been bewitched by her long before she let him love her.

“And that is enough for you.” She asked still unsure about how she truly felt.

“You have always been magical to me with or without your mana. I still remember the first time I ever saw you standing on the shore of this isle. My father had me out sailing on the lagoon as a boy he was keen for each son to take up something new. The morning mist was just clearing when you and the shore emerged. When I sailed home to say there was a girl on the isle everyone thought I was seeing things. They knew about the man on the isle, a hermit who had mysteriously arrived on the island in the middle of the night but no one knew he had a daughter too.”

“I remember you too.” She smiled in remembrance, “He was so cross, that I had been seen. But after that, he started bringing me into town for the weekly market days."

“I sailed the lagoon as much as I did to catch a sight of you as much as it was to catch the fish.” He grinned in recollection. “As dark as your beginning may have been in the depths of the lodestone it has led to something light for all of us.”

“I love you.” She said and finally relaxed into his hug sitting on the slope of the mountain soaking up the rays of the sun somewhat closer to being at peace with the situation.

. . . .

In her room, Lady Acacia poured over the genealogies of various houses until she found the right one. The Silverwood family tree had ended in Elora Silverwood but now that was no longer true.

She searched through their genealogy searching for an explanation. Any explanation for her student's strength. But she couldn’t find one. They were only human even if he himself no longer was. She had been so sure that there would have been some mixing of the races to provide the traits he had managed to collect.

Was there truly no physical reason for his development was it truly mind over matter? The fact that he had been able to access his status from birth was all that had allowed him to reach the heights he had at such a young age. Mind over matter.

. . .

“Come on, old man,” I said to my Grandfather after we had held each other. We didn’t comment on what had happened. “Stop killing time,” I added as I reached the hidden door to the tunnel.

With a rueful chuckle, he stood and followed after me. It didn’t take us long to work our way through our home quickly realising mother was nowhere to be found within it. Neither of us was interested in intruding on Lady Acacia as she worked in her rooms. It looked like Aleera had gone up to the garden without me to help with picking the pearls to harvest.

“Come on little Lord.” He said as he strode through the hall to face his daughter. I had to run to keep up on my little legs. No longer leading the way now that he had decided to face her response head-on.

We checked our dock to make sure that the boats were still there and after that, we started making our way around the island. There were few places left that mother could be other than the garden caldera so we were not surprised when we finally found my parents sitting in our new amphitheatre father’s arms wrapped around her looking out over the lagoon toward the south.

We cautiously approached warily wondering what our mother’s reaction would be to our approach. Grandfather no longer led the way and it was up to me to pull him behind me by his hand. The effort was no more than he let me but it was needed to keep him moving.

“Kaius, Aliyah.” He finally started the conversation once we had arrived and after standing behind me in silence long enough for it to grow awkward once more.

“Arawn,” Kaius answered for the two of them with a nod. He knew that he was not the one that he had come to talk to.

“Grandfather has one more thing to add to his story.” I finally prompted him to start aware that he might stand there silently forever.

“What else could you have left to say?” Mother asked quietly looking up toward us from where they sat together on the stone benches of the amphitheatre.

“An apology and an explanation why.” Each word pulled like blood out of a stone.

We all waited for him to add more.

“Maybe it is better if I show you.” He finally said as he opened his shirt baring his chest. There on his chest above his right pectoral was a dark red tattoo carved into his skin in the shape of a tree. “I’m sorry I never told you the truth about your past. I had no choice in how I raised you.”

“What does that even mean?” Kaius asked confused as he stared at his father-in-law.

“He’s bound,” Aliyah whispered.

“Bound by what?” Kaius asked.

“Bound by blood. Oathbound to obey the Silverwood family.” She said gaining confidence in her speculation as she stared at his tattoo and he failed to correct her. “What were your final orders?” She asked her voice almost trembling to hear the words that had defined her fate.

“Hurry, take the child. Run as far west as you can. Protect her and raise her strong.” He answered resolved. “Your mother wished for you to be raised strong and free from the trappings of politics and power, far from the fall of your house.” He seemed relieved to finally come clean of everything.

We stood together in silence as everyone reprocessed everything that had happened before. Understood what had happened and why in a different light. This secret reframed her narrative as she understood it. Explained choices he had made and behaviour that had seemed unreasonable at the time.

“But for three words, my life would have been different.” She said thinking out loud before focusing once more on Grandfather. “Had she but said ‘Keep her safe’ instead of ‘raise her strong’ it would have made a world of difference. But so would have knowing why. Why not tell me why?” she asked once more.

“It would have made no difference and it would not have changed how I was forced to act.” He answered calmly once more now that things had finally come to a head.

“But I would have understood why. It would have dampened the resentment,” she argued.

“Would it? Or would it have just created more? Would it not have created some fantasy in your head of what things could have been like if only your house had not fallen? Of what life might be like if you could make your way back? They were words that could not be taken back if uttered. It was too risky to try. Better you hate me for being too hard than risk you running away for a past that no longer existed.” He explained his reasoning.

“Always with the secrets. Just tell me the truth and then at least I can understand.” She said.

“I will,” he promised fiercely.

“I hesitate to ask this and I might be misunderstanding things but if you are blood bound to obey House Silverwood and Aliyah is effectively the last lady of the house Aliyah Silverwood. Then how come you never obey her?” Kaius quizzed.

“I am blood bound to obey the Lords of House Silverwood, not the Ladies,” Arawn answered honestly.

“Then that would make Kai your master, not Aliyah your mistress?” Kaius questioned carefully feeling his way toward the answer.

“Would you look at the time!” I jumped in here. “We need to go and see Aleera. Pick me up and let's go see how she is doing.” I shouted to Arawn. We didn’t need my parents digging any deeper into my secrets.

Quick as a flash he scooped me up and started sprinting up the mountain. I felt slightly guilty at the command but happy that they seemed to have reached a new stable equilibrium between the two of them. Even if running away was a little hypocritical of me.

“Kai!” shouted mother after us. “Get back here.” She hollered as Grandfather continued to flee up the mountain with me in his arms.