“I think I have intruded upon your hospitality long enough,” Brynn said quietly. Was it unusual to depart so soon after a wedding? Yes. Would she be leaving behind everything she knew? Also, yes. But she’d stayed here wallowing in her loss for months. She didn’t know what came next, but it was outside these four walls and outside this city.
“Aelgar should make you two spend at least your first few days here. I can’t believe he’s endangering your safety like this.”
Brynn smiled softly. Eadburh seemed to forget Brynn had accompanied her sister in the war. “Thank you, aunt.”
“You have endured the worst possible pain a woman could know.” Eadburh squeezed Brynn’s hands. “I can’t imagine if one of my own children…”
Brynn stood, pulling her hand from Eadburh’s. She didn’t want to hear this again. Her child’s death was like a disfiguring scar or the loss of a limb. People responded first with pity and then horror at the thought of experiencing it themselves. Sometimes, Brynn felt she had to hide her own pain so as not to upset Eadburh.
Maybe leaving Ungamot wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
“Esa, do you know where everything goes?”
“Yes, lady.”
“Good.” Brynn looked to Eadburh. “Does anyone know the name of Cenric’s ship and where I can find it?”
Eadburh nodded to one of her girls and the handmaiden scurried away.
“You are taking this all quite well,” Eadburh said. “Last night, you seemed devastated.”
Brynn shook her head. “I think…I think I can make this one work.” She turned away.
Cenric seemed like a rough man. He was probably capable of terrible cruelty. By his own admission, he had been a raider. Men who raided had to be at least a little cruel. Despite that, he had treated Brynn well so far.
Her mind flashed back to this morning. He’d gotten angry with Snapper, but the dog hadn’t been afraid. Hadn’t even seemed to care. If Cenric was so terrible, surely his dog would have learned to fear his wrath by now.
Cenric might not be a good man, but Brynn didn’t think he was as bad as Eadburh thought.
He’d asked for her son’s name.
The boys Esa had called appeared, ruddy young men in their mid-teens. They tumbled into the room, awkward and fidgeting.
“Do any of you know where Alderman Cenric’s ship is?” Brynn asked.
One of the boys nodded. “It’s called theWolf Star,lady. Docked outside the gates.”
“Good. Carry these to it.” Brynn waved to the trunks around her room.
She let herself focus on packing and arranging everything into the smallest bundles possible. Her cedar chest was the most valuable. It had been darkened to nearly black by years of treatments of oil and spells to keep it intact. Combs, ribbons, dresses, bracelets, and a few gold and silver torques wedged to one side. On the other side were neat stacks of parchments and diagrams she’d written over the years. Some of them were her grandmother, mother, and sister’s spells, but by now most of them were her own, annotated in the margins with her own notes and reminders.
She knew her most common spells by heart, but the less common ones she needed to keep the instructions written down.Kahad many purposes, but its more complicated uses required weaving it into patterns and the correct designs.
Ever since the war, Brynn had made sure she practiced her use of magic daily, even if it was for minor spells. Like any ability, some people were born gifted, but innate talent could only take one so far. There came a point when honing one’s craft was more important than natural talent.
“In the early days of my own marriage, I found it helpful to contemplate on the psalms of the goddess Lumë.” Eadburh still sat on the bed with her hands folded before her. She stared at something across the room and Brynn realized it was Cenric’s coat. She would have to make sure and bring that to him.
“I noticed you have shrines to her in a number of places around the fortress.” Brynn picked up Cenric’s coat, carefully draping it over her arm.
She would try. She would try to fit into this new life she’d been forced into. She didn’t want to make Cenric, Esa, and Cenric’s people suffer because of her pain.
They needed a sorceress in the north, and that’s exactly what she’d be.
“Meditating on her faithfulness to Teshner helped me greatly.”
Brynn bit her lip. Seeing as how Lumë had eventually left Teshner and sworn eternal celibacy, that might not be the best goddess to emulate.
“Eponine has watched over me my entire life.” And Brynn related to the goddess now more than ever. She understood why the death of the moon goddess’s firstborn had made the goddess tear the sky in two, dividing it into night and day.
