Vi looked over to her brother to find him staring back at her. Romulin looked away quickly, turning to Jax once more. She briefly wondered if Vhalla and Jax had coordinated for this investigation. Perhaps her uncle was asking her brother the same set of questions right now.
She wouldn’t put it past them.
“Over what?”
That gave Vi pause. Did she tell her mother of her visions? Surely her mother would want to know. But there were too many ears too close by now for her to divulge that particular secret yet. After Romulin’s reaction, she didn’t know how her mother would handle it, and putting her on the spot in the public eye seemed a poor choice.
“Our family,” Vi said simply.
Vhalla sighed and the sun glinted off her crown with the small motion. It was far more ornate than Vi’s and looked impossibly heavy.
“You know, we neverwantedto send you away…” Vhalla said softly. “It was simply how fate had aligned. There was little else we could do at the time. We desperately needed to know the North wouldn’t flank us at the first opportunity when we were weak from the Mad King.”
“I know, you’ve said time and again.” Vi wished they weren’t on horseback and she could reach out to her mother. She’d have to make due by injecting as much tenderness as possible in her voice. “I don’t blame you.” Vi dropped her words to a hush. “Sehra told me everything, mother.”
“Did she?” Vhalla’s brown eyes, flecked with gold, looked at her in surprise. “Everything?”
“I believe so.” Vi gave a firm nod. “She taught me a good deal about my magic, and the world.”
“Thank the Mother,” Vhalla whispered in relief. “I was unsure if she ever would.”
The reaction affirmed everything Sehra said as truth. Her parents had known of this supposed mysterious traveler. They had known of the premonition of her Lightspinning, and had kept it all from her. Vi wanted to feel hurt by it… but the hurt was gone.
She merely felt tired. Tired of secrets and half-truths. Which was ironic, given the fact that she currently bore the burden of the greatest ones.
* * *
A full day of marching later, they finally broke for camp.
Vi spent most of it wallowing in silence and guilt. She wanted to reach out to Romulin, but didn’t know where to begin and knew the road wasn’t the place for the talk that needed to happen between them. Her conversation with her mother had continued, but about simple topics and matters of state. Merely speaking with her mother should’ve brought her joy, but it didn’t, and that was yet another thing Vi felt guilty for.
As soon as they came to a stop, Vi was eager to dismount. She hunted out Jayme, looking for the familiar tent structure she’d stayed in the night before. As expected, Vi found her friend helping delegate tasks.
“Your highness,” Jayme said with a bow of her head as Vi approached. “One more moment and we shall have everything ready for you.”
“May I assist at all?”
“That is most generous, but we would not want to burden you,” Jayme said loudly, clearly for the benefit of the soldiers in earshot.
“You didn’t mind burdening me with your pack for a good hour on our last hunting trip,” Vi said under her breath, barely moving her lips.
“Really? You’re hung up on an hour?” Jayme was clearly fighting rolling her eyes, and Vi was fighting laughter. “After I carried your pack for how long because you were allegedly ‘hunting’?”
“I was hunting.”
“Until you fell in a hole.”
Vi turned her eyes from Jayme, knowing she was at risk of cracking a smile that would be far too wide. Her gaze landed on the man from the day before—Fallor, he’d said his name was. He was carrying the same crate with her personal effects and Vi was all the more relieved she’d thought to burn the journal. Just the sight of his hands on her things, especially something that precious, made her skin crawl.
“Jayme,” Vi said softly, keeping her eyes on him.
“Yes?” Her friend clearly heard the shift in Vi’s tone.
“I don’t want him carrying my personal effects any longer.”
“Who?” Jayme looked to her tent and the soldiers hastily working around it.
“Wait, he’s inside… there,him, the man who just left, the big one, he calls himself Fallor. Do you know him?”
