“Sometimes,” Alyss said softly. “But I’ve been in the South for so long… Here or in Solarin, either way I’m not with my family in the North.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Noelle murmured.
“Aren’t your parents some Western nobles? Don’t they still live out West?” Eira asked. Many nobles had relocated to Solarin, where the true court met.
“Yes, they are and they do.” Noelle puffed her chest a little that Eira would remember such a detail. “But they do come to Solarin often to attend court. So I see them regularly.” Her attention shifted to Eira. “What about your parents?”
It was Eira’s turn to look out the windows.
Her mind wandered as far from that room as she could get. But doing so betrayed her. It wandered right back to the small home she’d grown up in. She remembered the smell of the hearth, the way everything was perpetually covered in soot in the winter months. There was the feeling of the salt air in her hair, tamped down by the weight of her father’s hand when he patted her head and told her she’d done a good job on their first fishing trip together.
Every memory was so fragile that even thinking them made them shatter. The pieces were coated in a thick, grimy film, making them impossible to recall perfectly once more. Even her happiest days as a child had been tainted. The more time that passed, the more Eira wondered if any of them had even been real. Perhaps she’d just fabricated those pleasant hours to fill in the gaps of things she hadn’t wanted to see as a child.
“Eira—” Alyss started, painfully gentle.
“My parents don’t care I’m gone. They don’t care about me at all,” Eira said softly.
“That’s not true,” Alyss protested.
“Because of me, their son died.”
“Marcus’s death wasn’t because of you.”
Eira was too tired to argue the point. It didn’t matter anymore. Marcus was gone, and she’d come to terms with it in her own way. “Even if that were the case…I went against their wishes by competing. They didn’t come and visit me when Marcus died.”
“Weren’t you in jail?” Noelle asked, cringing as she did, as though she realized how terrible a thing it was to point out.
Eira glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “They didn’t even leave a note for me with my uncle.”
A heavy silence settled between them. Alyss’s hands had stilled on Noelle’s shoulders. Eira sighed. She’d blow away the tension if she could.
“It’s all right. I’m bad luck for people to be around. This just frees my parents of having to deal with me.”
“I don’t think they want that,” Alyss said firmly.
The conversation ended abruptly when Cullen emerged from his room.
“Ah, good morning, everyone.”
They all greeted him as he approached.
“How are you all this fine day?” He flashed Eira a dazzling smile, one she forced herself to return.
“We’re good.”
“I was just working on Eira’s and Noelle’s muscles. Would you like some help?” Alyss asked, wiggling her fingers.
“I’d never refuse that.” Cullen took Noelle’s place and Eira returned to staring out the window as the three struck up a conversation without her.
The mention of her parents had stirred up all the thoughts she’d been trying to bury. She might have found a tentative peace with herself when it came to Marcus’s death. But the relationship between her and her living family was something else entirely.
Then, there was the mystery of her birth mother. Could her mother really be Adela? Was there any way Eira would ever find out? If anywhere had the information, it was the Archives. Eira kept coming back to that. But when would she have time?
“Good morning, Solaris competitors!” the perpetually cheerful Mister Levit chimed as he opened the door to his room. “Good to see you’re all up and dressed.”
“We’re up and dressed every day.” Noelle gave him a dumb look that just slid right off Levit’s cheer.
“But today you’re going to get undressed!”
