I lean back at the table, patting my full stomach. That was delightful.

“Jenny, you are a wonder,” I say unabashedly, unable to contain how much I enjoyed the simple wonder of food.

Jack grins across from me at Jenny, meat stuck between his teeth. Jill glowers at our brother, but he takes no heed.

Jenny graces us with a glowing smile. “I’m happy it was enjoyable. You know why I cooked it for you, correct?” Her eyes twinkle as Sir Hans groans.

I grin. “Of course. Someone had to win, and who better than the underdog?”

Hans grumbles under his breath.

“Language, dear,” Jenny says, laughter hiding in her soft voice and the gentle curve of her plump lips. She has golden hair piled on her head in ringlets and tiny diamonds in a tiara on top. Her pristine white with gold filigreed dress complements the gentle curve of her shoulders and neck, but her shoulders are not quite as straight as usual and there is a darkness about her that worries me. It's not in what there as in what is missing. Her cheeks are a little too pale and her eyes don't crease when she smiles, as if it's too exhausting.

“Yes, light of my life,” he replies, not looking up from his food.

I hide a grin by biting into a pastry that bursts fruity sweetness on my tongue with a hint of peppermint.

“How’d ya learn ta shoot like that, anywho? Me thinks you a right prodigy for being so gifted at your age.” I turn to Sir Han’s son, who returned to the family home yesterday.

Tomorrow my family will be moving to the estate I’ve been given by the king. I’m a noble now, with a place a few homes across from the Hans’ estate. As Sir Rinaldo instead of the truth. But that is a worry for another day. Today is a day to celebrate and forget the pain of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow.

I bow my head to Hans’ son. “Thank you. My Father taught me everything I know, but was still much better than I. He was the best archer I’ve ever seen, could split his own arrow from a hundred yards.” The first time I saw that my jaw dropped. I never have become so efficient. But someday, perhaps, I will be. I just wish he was still here to teach me how to be all I need to be. He made responsibility and wisdom look so easy.

But he is, Aria. He’s never left you. He lives on through the words he spoke and through the love he shared. He lives on through you, his legacy and prodigy.

My lip trembles at my bonded sister’s words. I excuse myself abruptly from the table.

Jenny glances at me in concern and Mom rises with me, following me through the halls and into the back garden.

~~~

Mom threads her hand through my elbow, lending her strength and support without words. We walk between well-manicured hedges in the shapes of swans and dragons. But since the servants have been absent from the grounds, the hedges are starting to grow little fingers of leaves and branches outside their original shapes.

Branching out, if you will.

Flowers sprout along the cobblestone path, summer bringing her bounty to the world in gorgeous petals of golden and red splendor on the deep green leaves. Even the weeds that haven’t been plucked are adding a measure of beauty in tiny white, red,and purple flowers.

“Are you alright, hon?” I jerk my eyes from inanely studying the ground to find my mother’s eyes fixed on me.

I sigh. “Am I? I should be,” I say, hedging as I try to define what I’m feeling.

“And yet, days ago you were almost killed,” Mom says, her voice brooking no argument and her sharply arched eyebrow warning me to speak only truth and stop hedging.

“Yeah.” I scuff my foot on the cobblestone. She tugs me to a seat at a hedge that slightly hides us from any guards. “Is something wrong with me?” I whisper. “Shouldn’t I be more... distraught?”

Fearful? Angry? But I don’t feel any of that. Instead it’s almost like I’ve been overwhelmed so much that I don’t feel anything at all. A numbness that I try to ignore but seeps deep into my soul.

“Oh, honey,” she says, tipping my head so my face is leaned against her.

I take a shaky breath, trying to be strong. Mom is the one who was held captive. I can still feel her bones through Jenny’s borrowed dress that softens her hard edges. But I have yet to find out what happened to them, what they went through. I’m almost scared to know.

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She kisses my hair, squeezing me tight. Then she lifts up my head to look at her, and her eyes shimmer with tears even as her blue eyes burn like blue fire. “Everything about you is beautiful, baby girl. You hear me? Everything.”

I look back and forth between her eyes, and see only complete sincerity. I give a tiny nod, not finding my voice past my throat. She kisses my forehead then lets me lean against her.

“How are you?” I ask, slightly hesitant.

She leans her head back, a slight smile pulling at her lips as she gazes at the clouds in the darkening sky. “You deserve the truth.” Her fingers tighten where they rest on my arm. “It was hard, hon. I knew you would come for us, but I hardly saw Jack or Jill. They kept us separated.” The last word warbles and her lips tremble.

I tighten my hold around her waist and lay my head on her chest, hearing the sharp pattering of her heart that begins to race despite the calm she exudes.

“Most of the time is a fog. Much is fragments of memory I can hardly recall. But what I do...” she trails off, looking to the sunset as a tear trails her cheek to splash against my nose.

She glances down at me and meets my gaze where I’ve twisted my head at an odd angle so I can see her face. A haunted look in her eye matches what I feel pounding in my breast.

“It feels like a dream, doesn’t it? The farther away we get, even by mere hours, it feels like a nightmare that I woke from and struggle to remember,” I say, my voice soft and near reverent.

Her breath hitches in her chest. “Yes, hon. That’s exactly what it feels like. I believe it’s The King’s mercy granted for those times one cannot handle alone.”

I nod, letting my eyes drop shut and relaxing my neck so it’s not craned around like an owl. “He was with us, wasn’t he?”

She strokes my hair, and I relax against her embrace. This feels like home. “He never left us. Do you remember the tale of Yosef?”

I smile, nodding. I stay silent, knowing she’ll tell the story passed down from Grandma whether I like it or not. But I secretly enjoy these tales. Perhaps they remind me of happier times.

Her voice takes a time-old cadence as she begins the tale, “Yosef was a farm boy. He helped care for his father’s land with many brothers and sisters. He was not entirely normal, for he had a Gift. The King spoke to him through visions, and he foretold that Yosef would rise above his family, but before such a time, tragedy would come.”

Yosef was sold as a slave by his very own kin. The King knew what Yosef did not, and would use him to save his entire people and the emperor’s nation.

He worked hard and rose until he was over the emperor’s household. It was then everything once again turned for the worse. He was accused of assaulting the emperor’s wife and cast into prison for many years.

But The King had not abandoned him. He saw to his release… and through that saw to Yoseph being in a position to save his family and his people and they were given positions of prestige inside the emperor’s own house and lived the rest of their lives in peace.

“The King was faithful to keep his promise and used tragedy for good, but it was not in Yosef’s timing, but his own,” Mom says softly, her voice tender.

Her voice fades and the chirping of night creatures reach my ears as I open my eyes from the steady cadence of her tale to the stars shimmering above.

“Do you think Yosef ever thought himself crazy for holding on as he did? Through so many betrayals and years being imprisoned?”

Mom chuckles. “Of course. He grew a tree while he was in prison, sharing his miniscule amount of water to give it life. If that isn’t the definition of a crazy person, I don’t know what is. But he trusted The King regardless and knew, someday, somehow, and someway he would come through.”

“The waiting is the hardest part. Action is easy, fighting is easy, killing... is easy. It’s knowing they’ll come back and not knowing when or how that’s driving me insane.”

“That, baby girl, is where you have to trust that The King will put us exactly where he needs us and give us the strength and courage to do what needs done.”

“But what if I’m not strong enough?” I whisper, my voice a mere puff in the night air.

“Hon, no one is strong enough for this. But our hope is higher than our strength and our help larger than any enemy. Let him be your strength and your help, and although tragedy will come, he will be faithful.”

“I’m just so afraid. What if I mess up? What if I do something wrong? What if I kill the wrong person, make the wrong choice, or get someone killed?” I choke on the emotions bubbling within as the men and woman whose blood spilt beneath that cavern still stains my hands. As I remember sightless eyes. The one who gave his life at the hand of the Bamshee that I might live. The others I was too slow to save. So, so many.

Mom kisses my head, and I feel warm liquid seep into my hair. “That was my fear, hon. It seems it’s one I’ve passed to you. I feared I wouldn’t be able to provide for you and your siblings. That I would make the wrong choice and Jill would die. That I would not be strong enough and you would be forced to take up my failures.” She sucks in a breath, her voice strangely tight as her chest heaves beneath me. “In some ways… I did, and I’m so sorry you were forced to take on so much at such a young age. You should be out with friends and looking for a match and be giving me grandbabies, not be fearful of… all—” she chokes off, but I silently finish the sentence for her. Fearful of all this.

I look up to find silent tears streaming from her eyes and her face tightening with the strain of her silent suffering. I wrap my arms around her neck and pull myself into her lap to better hold her as my tears also fall on her shoulder.

“We’re a right pair, aren’t we?” I ask through a tight throat, realizing that I’m more like my mother than I ever thought.

She chokes on a laughing sob. She pulls back, setting her hands on my cheeks and wiping away my tears with her thumbs. With a shake of her head, she stills, a smile tugs at her lips despite the tear streaks glistening silver in the moonlight. “We are just who we ought to be, child. I never realized I’d have a worlds-saving vigilante as my daughter.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “What, you thought I’d grow up to be a perfectly normal, spoon welding housewife chasing a rabble of children?”

She raises a brow, a look coming into her eyes that reminds me of Jack. It terrifies me. “Mhmm.”

“What?” I ask, drawing the word out and climbing out of her lap and my cheeks going slightly hot. I avoid her too-knowing gaze.

“Nothing. It just seems you may be more normal than you suspect.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, side-eying her.

She winks and gets up and sashays back to the manor without another word.