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When the silence isn't quiet
And it feels like it's getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying
But I promise we'll take the world to its feet
And move mountains
Bring it to its feet
And move mountains
And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
- Rise Up, Andra Day
The day was perfect.
Until it was not.
Birdsong provided a sweet backdrop to the trickle of water over rocks and the drone of dragonflies settling on the water. Laughter there was, too. A girl gowned in white with crystals in her hair, her skirt pulled up to her knees, giggled each time a persistent fish came to nibble at her bare toes as she dangled them in the water. She was not known for giggling. Indeed, her usual serene smile and low laugh often made her seem older than she was. But she did have very ticklish feet.
A dear friend at her side was seated in the same way with skirt lifted and feet in the water, but she was paying no heed to the activities of fish or dragonflies or birds. One hand rested lightly in the lush grass as she turned her face skywards with a smile, but the other was buried in the midnight hair of the ellon who lay with eyes closed and head pillowed in her lap. Every so often she gently ran her fingers through his hair, down the side of his neck and then back up over his pointed ear to rest in his hair again. Her touch made him shiver and stretch languidly, like a cat enjoying a fuss.
Yes, it was perfect. But then the messenger came.
“Faelind?”
“No.”
The hand that had been stroking Faelind’s hair landed a reproving slap to his chest. “Forgive him, Dirnaith,” Midhaearien said pointedly. “You would hardly believe how lazy he’s being.”
“No, I would. But it is his free day and I suppose that he has earned it after the week that he’s just had.” Protector Dirnaith looked down at his own green and grey uniform with a rueful smile. “I would be doing the same were I not on duty.”
“I have earned it.” Opening one eye, Faelind squinted at his friend standing a short distance away. “What do you want?”
“Charming as always. Message for you,” Dirnaith said, holding up a sealed scroll. “I was asked to deliver it as soon as possible.”
Faelind sat up ever so slightly, braced himself on one hand, and held the other out expectantly. “Thank you.”
“Oh, that’s going too far,” Dirnaith complained.
“You said that I had earned the right to be lazy on my free day,” Faelind retorted.
“Not that lazy,” Dirnaith said with a roll of his eyes as he stepped forward to place the scroll into the waiting hand. “Some of us have work to be doing so I’d best get back to it. Unless you need me to guide your hand to open the message.”
A lazy half smile flickered across Faelind’s face. He lay back down with the scroll resting lightly against his chest as Dirnaith shook his head fondly and disappeared through the trees. Above Faelind, a long look passed between Midhaearien and Aermanis. “Are you going to open that letter or not?” Midhaearien asked finally.
“Not.”
“It might be terribly important.”
Faelind had closed his eyes with a contented sigh, but he opened them again and looked up at her. “As important as what we are doing now?”
“Well…let me open it then,” she said, and as she reached for the scroll he swept his arm away and out over the pool.
Aermanis reached over and plucked it from his hand. “I will open it if you’re not going to…Faelind, this is closed with your family seal.”
“So my mother has probably invited me to dinner,” Faelind replied. “Don’t worry about it, Aermaneth.”
“Your mother isn’t so formal as to send you dinner invitations like this,” Aermanis said doubtfully. “And I keep telling you. You mustn’t call me by my girlhood name now that I have dedicated to the Temple.”
“You will always be Aermaneth to me. But very well; if it is so important to you both then I shall open it.” Faelind reached out his hand, and once Aermanis had given the scroll back he sat up and brushed strands of hair from his face. Resting one arm on his knee, he slit the wax seal with a fingernail and unrolled the letter. That was being generous, actually, and he wasn’t sure if the words on the paper were worthy of being called a note either. A brief missive, perhaps. The very briefest of missives. “I have to go,” he said, his words as clipped as those on the paper.
The girls pulled their feet out of the pool and watched him uncertainly as he got up. “Is everything all right?” Midhaearien asked softly.
Pausing in brushing a stray blade of grass from his tunic, Faelind leaned down to kiss her. He kept the kiss chaste, mindful of Aermanis next to them. “Yes. I just have something to take care of. You two stay here and enjoy the rest of the day. I’ll see you later.” His gaze travelled to his friend and heart-sister. “Bye, Aermaneth.”
“It’s Aermanis!”
Faelind waved over his shoulder. His smile faded as he left the glade, his jaw clenching and his fists too. Slowly relaxing them, he folded the note in half and then quarters, and shoved it into his pocket. He was halfway along the path back to the garrison when he heard his name being called. He turned to see Midhaearien racing after him with flushed cheeks and windswept hair. She had left her shoes at the pool, he realised, and bits of leaves and grass were clinging to her damp feet.
“I was calling for you to stop!” she said breathlessly. “Why did you run off like that?”
“I walked.”
Midhaearien flicked his chest in annoyance. “What is in that letter? Tell me or I’ll read it myself. I’ll search you all over to find it if I must.”
“That doesn’t sound terrible,” Faelind said with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows.
“Don’t be incorrigible. Tell me!” she insisted. “Is it your father?”
“Of course it is my father, Mithrien,” Faelind said quietly. “Do you know anyone else who can so spectacularly ruin my day and with such impeccable timing?”
Midhaearien slipped her hand into Faelind’s and pulled him off the path and behind a tall oak tree. She pressed her hands to his chest, and for a moment as they stood there still and silent, he could feel the thrum of his own heart beneath her fingers. “Don’t go to him,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”
“You know I can’t,” Faelind protested.
“Yes. You can. All you have to do is nothing.” Midhaearien stepped nearer to him so that his back was against the tree, and she pressed herself close, nuzzling his neck with gentle kisses. “This power that he has over you…it can’t last forever, Faelind. One day he will realise it. That day could be today if you do nothing, if you stay.”
“I am not brave enough,” Faelind whispered.
Midhaearien looked up with a flash of beautiful blue eyes. “Don’t you ever say that! How could you think that when you have the courage to face him?”
“But that is the strangest thing. I am brave enough to face him. I am not brave enough to notface him.” Faelind ran his fingers through Midhaearien’s hair before bringing them around to gently tilt her chin up for a kiss. “Not today, Mithrien-nín,” he said softly. “Just let it be for today.”
“Fine. But after today we should run away together,” Midhaearien declared. “We will leave the south and go north. Or east. Or west, or even further south, as south as south goes. We will run away and leave this behind and start new lives that are all our own.”
Faelind loved her for that, but he couldn’t help laughing. “With what money?”
“We only need each other. And don’t you insist that we need money, too,” Midhaearien added, pointing a finger at him. “You will sound like a privileged rich boy.”
“But I am a privileged rich boy. I am also sensible and practical.” A smirk pulled at Faelind’s lips and mischief sparkled in his eyes. “And handsome. Devastatingly handsome. Funny. Clever. Talented.”
“Humble,” Midhaearien suggested.
“So humble,” Faelind agreed. He drew her close and kissed her again, and for a beautiful and blissful moment there was nothing else that mattered but his hand on her waist and the taste of summer on her lips and the dream of a future that for now was out of reach. He pulled back with a reluctant sigh. “I have to go.”
“Go then,” Midhaearien said softly. “I love you.”
“I love you,” Faelind replied.
An hour later he was standing outside his childhood home with a familiar feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It had not been a happy home. His mother had done her best to infuse it with love and joy, but only in the absence of his father had the storm cloud above the house ever truly retreated. Those absences had never lasted long. The relief that came with being apart from Elrain had always been tinged with anxiety and a rippling undercurrent of fear, because both Faelind and his mother Thureneth had known that it was nothing more than a reprieve, that Elrain would return and the storms with him.
There was nothing for it. Faelind took a deep breath and went inside. He knew immediately that his mother wasn’t home because he could feel none of her warmth. The wood panelled hallway that led to Elder Elrain’s study was long. Faelind had often wondered if that was a deliberate design choice. Every step brought with it another frightened tremble of hands, another inch that his heart sank. As a little boy he had hated that hallway and the towering walls that had seemed to close in on him. Now as a young warrior with a sword at his hip, he hated it still.
Reaching the study, Faelind lifted his arm to knock. The knock didn’t come. He slowly lowered his arm and stared at the door. I don’t want this, he thought bleakly. A beautiful and foolish image came into his mind; himself, returning to Midhaearien and falling in line with her ridiculous suggestion that they run away together. It no longer seemed so ridiculous. But the thought that Elrain was on the other side of the door, smiling knowingly at his fear, gave Faelind the courage to lift his arm again. He knocked, waited a second, and stepped inside.
The room was empty.
Suspicion warred with relief until a voice spoke from behind him. “I expected you sooner.”
Faelind spun around to see his father standing at the high bookcase that ran along the wall. The door had obscured him as he stood there slowly running his fingers along the books. Elder Elrain reached out and negligently flicked the door shut, and Faelind flinched as it clicked loudly. The waiting was torture. No sound but the flutter of paper as Elrain idly leafed through a book. Faelind refused to break the silence. Refused to show that he was afraid, that his fear was outweighed only by his desperation for it to start just so that it could be over.
Finally, Elrain returned the book to the shelf. He paced languorously towards Faelind like a night cat stalking the woods and stood so close to him that every one of Faelind’s instincts screamed at him to flee. But he held himself still and stared at the silver embroidery on his father’s tunic until Elrain gripped his chin and forced him to look up. “You were just a little boy when I taught you to never make me wait,” Elrain said quietly. “You seem to have forgotten that lesson, so let me remind you of it now. When I order you to come to me, you come to me at once. Do you understand?”
Faelind looked into eyes so alike to his own and nodded silently. His father released him, and those piercing green eyes ran over him and narrowed as if they were taking his measure and finding him unworthy. He had changed into his green and grey uniform before answering Elrain’s summons, and freshly brushed and braided his hair, thinking that his father would prefer him to look smart, but his efforts went unappreciated. Elrain pulled loose the knotted clasp at Faelind’s throat so that his cloak fell to the floor. Then he slipped his fingers into Faelind’s sword belt, pulling him even closer before unbuckling it.
“I summoned Faelind my son, not Protector Faelind,” Elrain said, as he tossed the belt and sword onto a low couch at the side of the room. “Did you think to impress me by arriving in your meticulously pressed uniform with your sword at your hip and your warrior braids on display? You haven’t. You haven’t impressed me because you don’t impress me. Nor will you until you start conducting yourself in the manner that I have attempted to teach you.”
“It would be a pity to break the habit of a lifetime,” Faelind said flatly.
Elrain snorted contemptuously and leaned back against his desk with his hands braced on the edge of it. “I met Commander Orondil today to discuss your progress. Your unit leader may not have thought it necessary to involve me in your most recent disobedience, and perhaps you thought that you had escaped with it, but Orondil told me everything. I know what you did, Faelind.”
“So I assumed,” Faelind replied. “I suppose there was always a slim chance that you were inviting me for tea and cake, but on the whole that seemed unlikely.”
“That you have the audacity, the arrogance, to stand before me and make jokes when not three days ago Captain Belthamdir strapped you for fighting tells me only too plainly what you need, boy, and you will get it today,” Elrain said coldly. Pushing away from the desk, he strode around it and opened the top drawer. He took out a knife and threw it onto the desk. “Get outside. Cut a switch. Now.”
“Do you not care why I was fighting?” Faelind asked.
“Make me tell you again,” Elrain replied softly.
Faelind picked up the knife, but at the door that led from the study into the garden he paused and looked back. “If I was on trial you would hear my side of the story so that you could judge me fairly. Isn’t that important to you? Fairness? Because it should be important to you as Elder of Forest Law even if you don’t care about it as my father.”
“When you are Elder of Forest Law and when you have a son, you will earn the right to an opinion on fairness,” Elrain retorted.
The sound of the door slamming shut felt satisfying to Faelind as he stalked into the garden, though he knew that he would pay for it. He went around the fishpond with a fountain at its centre and out to the small stand of birch trees. Elrain had had the birches planted for this very purpose. As a little boy, when Elrain had shown him the saplings and said, “Look, my heir, these are all yours,” Faelind had felt special and he had beamed to think of his father planting trees just for him. It had taken him a few more years to understand why the trees were for him, but that moment of crushing realisation was a memory too painful to keep and so his mind had locked it away. All he could do now was wonder at the sort of person who looked at their little elfling and decided to order a birch grove planted so that the trees would grow along with their child and be ready for when that child needed to have a switch taken to them.
Faelind realised that his fist was clenched around the knife. He let out a slow breath and uncurled his fingers, and began methodically cutting a switch. It was a task that he could have done with his eyes shut. The switch was not Elrain’s favourite implement, but he kept it in the rotation of disciplinary tools that he used on his son. Faelind knew why. Walking to the birch grove and cutting a switch, trimming it of leaves and twigs as he was doing right then, carrying it back to the study and offering it for inspection, waiting to hear if it had passed or if he must try again…every step required him to submit, to bow to the control and power that his father had over him. Elrain liked that. He took perverse pleasure in the power play between them, him the master and father whose word was law and Faelind the unwilling participant in a game that he had never wanted to play.
When the switch was smooth, Faelind made his way back through the gardens. His feet felt heavier with every step as he walked that familiar path, his stomach an empty pit. When he stepped into the study, Elrain fixed cold eyes on him and held out one hand. Faelind wordlessly gave his father both knife and switch. Elrain tucked the knife into his belt and took his time examining the switch before using it to gesture to the desk. Still Faelind said nothing, for what could he say? Sliding down his leggings, he bent over the desk and stared at the surface as he felt his father stand behind him and lift the back of his tunic.
The first stroke fell immediately. Faelind didn’t react. He had schooled himself not to. Braced on his forearms, he locked the fingers of both hands together and slowly rolled his thumbs over one another in repetitive circles. They were something to focus on that was not the whistle of the switch through the air or the searing sting of a perfect line painted on his bare skin. Stroke after stroke landed and he took each one like that, silently, a statue who could not feel pain or even understand it. So he tried to convince himself, because imagining himself soaking in a hot bath helped ease the chill on cold days. The trick did not work so well for pain, the exquisite and inescapable pain that his father had mastered the art of. Faelind did not count the strokes that landed or the time that passed. They didn’t matter. Only when he felt the switch snap in half against his thighs did he flinch.
“Get up.”
Faelind straightened and pulled his clothing back into place. As he turned, his eyes fell on the knife that Elrain was holding out. His lips parted slightly and he took a breath but no words came out. He looked up slowly. Elrain returned his gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “Get another one.”
“I fought because the older warriors tried forcing the new recruits to get drunk for their initiation when they didn’t want to,” Faelind said before he could stop himself. He could hear desperation in his voice. “Most backed off but Protector Amathlogon pinched a boy’s nose so that he would have to open his mouth to take a breath, and when he did, Amathlogon poured the wine in. The boy was crying. I tackled Amathlogon and we went to the floor. He swung for me and I hit him. That’s what happened.”
“Get another one,” Elrain repeated. “I know that you heard me the first time.”
Faelind stared at his father for a long moment before asking softly, “Did you speak to Commander Orondil because you were interested in my progress and you thought that you might hear something that would make you proud? Or were you looking for a reason to do this?”
“I need no reason. That I have one is irrelevant,” Elrain replied. “Now go, Faelind, before you test my patience.”
That time, Faelind did not slam the door. He just let it fall shut behind him. Quietly letting out a breath, he passed a hand over his face and returned to the stand of birch trees. There he stood, eyes closed, resting his hand against the tree that would provide him with the instrument of his own pain, pain that he must take until perhaps he could take no more. In that moment of quiet and stillness, fire blazed in distinct lines beneath his leggings, and he gritted his teeth against it. No tears, he reminded himself. No weakness.
“Faelind?”
The love and delight infused in his name seemed out of place. He looked up, confused, and saw his mother crossing the garden with her arms outstretched and her laurel eyes sparkling. The hug that she enfolded him in momentarily took him aback. It was a few seconds before he managed to slowly return it. “I didn’t know that you were coming home today,” Lady Thureneth said, drawing back with a warm smile. “You should have sent word! I would have arranged all your favourites for dinner. Oh, but never mind. There is still time.”
“I’m not here for dinner,” Faelind said.
“Then why…” Thureneth stopped. A look of resignation settled on her face as she noticed the knife in his hand. “Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Fighting.”
“I see,” Thureneth said with a soft sigh. “Why were you fighting? That doesn’t sound like something that you would do without reason.”
That his mother immediately understood that, when his father hadn’t cared, brought an ache to Faelind’s throat. He swallowed painfully and managed to get the words out. “I was trying to stop an initiation. The new recruits didn’t want it. They were afraid and it wasn’t fair.”
“That was very brave of you,” Thureneth said gently. “Does your father know?”
Faelind nodded silently.
“Then let me speak to him,” Thureneth began, but Faelind immediately protested.
“Don’t. He will only be angry with you.”
“That is nothing for you to worry about,” Thureneth said.
“But I do worry about you! I can’t stop worrying simply because you asked me to. That isn’t how worry works.” Exhaling sharply, Faelind turned his back on his mother and started to cut a switch. “I was caught fighting. Even Captain Belthamdir strapped me for it, so it was fairly earned. I deserve this and I earned it so I will take it. Just leave it at that, Nana.”
“If that is your wish,” Thureneth replied quietly.
“It is my wish.”
Thureneth placed her hand over Faelind’s and gently took the knife from him. “I hate that he has made you prepare this yourself.” She finished cutting the switch, and when she had trimmed it to smoothness she reluctantly pressed it and the knife back into Faelind’s hand. “Go then. But come to me after. I will prepare something for the pain.”
“He won’t let me have it,” Faelind said.
“He will be in his study and he won’t know,” Thureneth promised. “Do not suffer needlessly.”
Faelind managed not to laugh.
This time when he returned to the study, Elrain did not immediately order him over the desk. Instead his father stood with the switch clasped behind his back and regarded him with a dispassionate gaze. “Tell me why I should permit you to continue along your chosen path,” Elrain said, nodding to the sword that he had tossed aside. “You told me that you would do well, that you would be good, that you would make me proud, but on all counts you are failing. So give me a reason why I should not take out your warrior braids and tell Commander Orondil that you are done. One reason. That is all I need.”
“I’m not stupid,” Faelind said. “One reason or fifty, you would do whatever pleased you most. Forgive me for not playing your game.”
Elrain took a step closer and his hand jerked upwards before he quickly clenched his fist and lowered it back to his side. Faelind’s eyes lingered on his father’s hand. Sometimes, he liked to comfort himself with the thought that the only reason he had avoided a hit to the face was because Elrain feared being hit back. In his heart, Faelind did not think that was it at all; Elrain had never been above striking him, but a blow to the face was a risky thing – hard to explain the marks that it left. Slowly, Faelind looked up again and met his father’s eyes.
“Over,” Elrain said succinctly.
Faelind shoved his leggings down and placed himself back over the desk. So it began all over again. He knew that he had touched a nerve in daring to speak back because Elrain did not have the same level of control as before. The first switching had been long and slow, some strokes delivered in quick succession and others with long pauses in between so that Faelind could really feel each one before the next landed. This was not like that. No pauses were there now, just stroke after stroke after stroke, landing atop each other and overlapping and criss-crossing. Faelind pressed the back of one hand to his mouth and dug the nails of the other hand into the desk. There was no distraction from this. Not even thinking of Midhaearien could save him.
It took less time for the second switch to snap. Faelind didn’t realise that it was broken until Elrain ripped apart the bit that was hanging loose and flung the two pieces away. He pulled Faelind up and around to face him, and Faelind saw numbly that strands of black hair had come loose from the usually meticulous tail that Elrain wore and that his tunic was not sitting quite right. Faelind slowly pulled his leggings up. Elrain gave him a venomous stare before jerking his own tunic straight and running his hands back over his hair. Then, he took the knife from his belt and pushed it once more into Faelind’s hand.
“Get another.”
Faelind didn’t move, the knife dangling limply from his fingers as he stared at the rich fabric of his father’s tunic. He had supposed that the silver embroidery was a random pattern, but he thought now that it was meant to be falling leaves. The part of his mind that was doing all it could to protect him from the pain by pointing out every tiny distraction suggested that he reach out and trace the embroidery with his finger. He just about managed to ignore that. Slowly tightening his grip on the knife, he lifted his head with effort and met his father’s eyes once more.
“You will not have my tears.”
“I will,” Elrain replied softly.
Faelind stepped past him and went outside again. This time he stood still as the door fell shut. Eyes closed, he breathed slowly and deeply. His challenge to Elrain had been futile. A final attempt at proud defiance. They both knew it. There was only so much that Faelind could take. Elrain would have his tears whether it took three switches or thirty, and he would win, just like he always won.
Pushing himself away from the door, Faelind walked through the garden with slow and stiff steps. He could feel the fabric of his leggings almost snagging on his left thigh and he wondered if the breaking of the last switch had drawn blood. The appearance of blood would not have been a hint to Elrain that perhaps he should stop. After all, a drop of blood did not mean lasting damage. Cuts closed. Scars faded. In the eyes of the law that Elrain wrote and upheld, in Elrain’s own eyes, he had done nothing wrong.
It took some time for Faelind to cut the third switch because his hands were shaking. When he finally managed it, he leaned against the tree with the switch and the knife held loosely in his hand, and the tree rustled her slender branches in comfort and spoke his name. No, he thought distantly. The tree couldn’t speak his name. Not out loud. He lifted his head and watched through a painful haze as Thureneth appeared.
“What are you doing, Faelind?”
“I cut a switch,” he said distantly.
“You already had one.” Thureneth touched his cheek and turned his face so that their eyes met. “I helped you with the other switch and you took it inside. Why have you cut a second switch?”
Faelind laughed softly. “Third.”
“Third? What…” Thureneth went still. “Why? Did he not like the other ones?”
“No, he liked them,” Faelind said, laughing again. He didn’t know what was funny but he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t stop the bubble of hysteria rising within him. “He liked them so much that he used them until they broke.”
“Then when I helped you to cut a switch, you had already taken a switching? That is what you are telling me?” Thureneth stepped closer to Faelind and gave him a slight shake. “You didn’t tell me! I would have never…Faelind, you have to tell me! You must! I cannot help you if I don’t know!”
“You could never help me anyway,” he said, and looked away from the hurt that flickered across his mother’s face.
Thureneth plucked both knife and switch from Faelind’s hand, holding them behind her back as he reached for them. “Go inside,” she told him. “You have taken your punishment and it is done. I mean it, Faelind. Go inside.” There was no maternal authority in Thureneth’s voice. There never was. She had not mastered that skill. But her voice shook with anger and her cheeks were flushed with spots of colour.
Too tired to argue, too sore to make his body move enough to grab the switch, Faelind went inside - not through his father’s study but the front door. He went to his room, a place where he now only slept after being summoned home for punishment, and lay on the bed with his arms wrapped around the pillow. He knew that even then his mother must be confronting his father, though he couldn’t hear the distant sounds of raised voices. Thureneth had always done her best to protect Faelind from marital conflict. But not hearing it didn’t mean that he had never seen it in the glitter of Elrain’s eyes or the falseness of Thureneth’s smiles, nor felt it in the heavy oppressiveness of the air. As a little boy he had picked flowers for Thureneth and collected shiny rocks for Elrain to try and make it better, to make them happy, but while Thureneth had exclaimed in delight at her gifts and Elrain had glanced disinterestedly at his, ultimately neither flowers nor rocks had helped.
At some point sleep came and gently ushered Faelind away from the pain, and when he woke a while later it was to the soft click of the door. It was not a peaceful awakening but a sudden jolt, his instincts on high alert as he looked around to see who had come. Not that he would know what to do if it was Elrain. Not that he would be able to do anything at all. But it was Thureneth, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug. Faelind exhaled silently, and as he breathed out his fear, pain rushed in to replace it. If he had not known better, if he had not lived through his punishment, he would have thought that someone had taken a knife to his flesh.
“Healing tea,” Thureneth said, kneeling at his bedside. She looked at him with tears of love and fear and wordless apology in her eyes, though she managed a small encouraging smile when she noticed his hesitation. “Your father has gone out. He will not know. I promise.”
Faelind could smell calendula and honey rising with the steam as he accepted the cup. “I will return to the garrison before he gets home. If I am still allowed. He threatened to take out my braids and make me leave the Protectors. I don’t want that, Nana. I can’t lose that part of my life.”
“You will not lose it,” Thureneth replied. “I have handled Elrain. He will not punish you anymore for this and he is not pulling you out of the Protectors. He gave me his word.”
“What did you have to do to get that?” The question had been mostly rhetorical, but as Thureneth looked down with a slight shake of her head, Faelind stared at her. “What did you have to do?”
“Never mind about that,” Thureneth said. “The important thing is that it is over.”
For now. They were the words that they both knew had been left unspoken. Faelind looked down at the cup of medicinal tea and silently held it out. Accepting it with a sigh, Thureneth took a few slow sips before handing it back. For a while they said nothing, Thureneth kneeling and Faelind balanced on his side, and they passed the cup back and forth between them until it was empty. The dregs were overly sweet with honey. Faelind grimaced as he swallowed. Staring into the empty cup, he thought back to his private moment with Midhaearien that morning. Her silly suggestion no longer seemed so silly.
“Midhaearien said that she and I could run away together,” he ventured, glancing up at his mother from under his lashes.
“Yes,” Thureneth agreed softly. “I would not stop you.”
“Running away would mean leaving you alone here. I couldn’t do that,” Faelind said. “But staying would be easier if I knew that this was not forever. That he was not going to be forever.”
“He won’t be.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I can and I do,” Thureneth said quietly. Quieter still, she added, “But if I am wrong then this has all been for nothing and I should have taken you away long ago. Perhaps I should have done that anyway and damn the consequences.”
“What are you talking about?” Faelind whispered.
The smile that his mother gave him was tinged with sadness. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, pressing her fingers to his cheek in a tender touch. “We all make choices. Sometimes it is impossible to know if the choices that we make are right or wrong until life has played out as it must. I am not wise or even all that clever, but I think that what matters is that we make those choices in good faith and with the best of intentions. I have always tried to do that, Faelind. For myself but more importantly for you.”
“I know, Nana,” Faelind said uncertainly.
“Good.” Thureneth took a breath and summoned a brighter smile for him. “Stay there while I fetch cakes and sweets from the kitchen. We shall have a nice afternoon together before you leave.”
Faelind managed to return the smile, though it faded as he watched her rise carefully and leave the room. His thoughts turned once more to running away. Had that ever been an option for Thureneth? It sounded so, and he wished that she had taken it. There was still a chance for him and Midhaearien to run and never look back, and he knew that his mother would help them escape. But he could no more abandon Thureneth to Elrain than she could abandon him. No. They were tied together by an invisible yet unbreakable cord that tied them just as strongly to Elrain. And yet, if Thureneth believed that Elrain would not be forever…well. Perhaps there was something in that. Perhaps Faelind could believe it. And perhaps, if he believed hard enough, one day it might even come true.