‘Something that exists in all of us, Ris: potential. If only we had the power and the opportunity to wield it.’
‘Do you think she’d be better on the Winter Isle?’
Narra sighs. ‘I can’t tell her what she should do. Nor can I tell you. Everything worth its salt has a cost; you just have to decide if it’s worth it for you.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. There’s not much for us to go back to. I love my town, but I’ve seen the land is dying. How can we make a living?’
Narra swears, and it takes me aback. ‘The royals try to make the land yield under their strength, reshape it to serve them. That’s what’s got us into this mess.’
Biba furrows her brow. ‘Like my otter-cat. I wanted to play with it.’
Narra looks at me. ‘What does she mean?’
I feel my stomach lurch and pull away. ‘It was nothing.’
‘It was dead,’ Biba insists. ‘You said so, Mama. It came back, but it wasn’t all right. Better not to mess with it.’
‘Necromancy?’ Narra asks quietly. Her face is all curiosity, no fear there, more an academic study of my daughter’s words. ‘You know that we are not to make those decisions about Life and Death?’
Biba nods. ‘Buttheydo. They are in charge of everything.’
Narra stares hard at Biba, taking her shoulders gently. ‘No. No one is above nature’s order. Not even the Bastion. We must respect the balance.’
‘It is a curse,’ I say, running my fingers through my hair.
‘Blessings, curses, smuggler, sailor – all a matter of perspective.’
Biba twists her skirts, and Narra smiles at her. ‘You did well, my love. Your mother is very proud of you.’
She looks at me, and I smile hesitantly. ‘Yes, you did well. My reaction – that wasn’t about you.’
‘Is it about Papa?’ she asks.
Narra shoots me a look. ‘Should I leave you?’
‘No,’ I say, beckoning her to stay. ‘She needs to hear this, and so do you.’
Narra nods and moves to light a candle, wafting a sweet-smelling herb above the flame. ‘To soothe everyone,’ she says in a low murmur.
I explain as best I can, but my head is full and my heart is sore. The words are so scant and incomparable.
‘There was so much love,’ I tell Biba, and she smiles. ‘And so much hope.’
When I had first courted my husband, he weaved stories with a fool’s golden glint. An honest sailor, but he could never shake the notion that one event, one adventure, could change a fortune. We chased it, but it was ever out of reach, like the sun on the horizon. So many Bastion quests, small gains slowly mounting. We would buy our way out of our futures.
I had mistaken it for seasickness, despite never suffering before. We had spoken of our mutual desire to start a family, but not yet. Once we were back on land, we festered in the revelation, arguing until we went back to Alev, and I saw the joy in my fathers’ eyes when we told them. We were buoyed by the idea of stability, of home, of someone to anchor our little family and give us a line to venture further out.
‘You were the best surprise, Biba. We all loved you so much and I’ve never seen my fathers so happy.’ I smile, and she beams back at me. ‘But then the farm began to fail, and my fathers got sick. Time ran away from us, like so much sand between the fingers. They were buried before they could barely know you, my girl.’
‘I wish grandpapas were here.’
‘As do I. You would have been their sun and stars.’ I squeeze Biba’s cheeks, and she squeals away.
Then it was only the three of us, and Larkin was my anchor. The steward blamed us for the decrease in our tithes, and we got desperate. I would catch Larkin looking at the golden wool I sheared and spun, eking out what we could. He would take on any commissions that came our way, sailing out to Umasa more and more as the work dried up. It was a gleam in his eye, his heart longing for the Bastion in the distance. I began to feel like coming home was a moment of reckoning for us both, each looking at the meagre offerings in our hands and our hearts. We wanted to believe things would get better. I never believed he would sacrifice everything to climb higher, no matter the cost.
‘I never thought he would leave us,’ I tell her. ‘I have to believe he thought he was doing the right thing – that he thought he would be able to come back with something to help the farm.’
He went to pursue the quest we’d had to abandon. The same map and quest that haunt me now. When I look at my marriage talisman,I can only think of how he left in the night with no explanation. He owed us that much. But to disappear, a shadow under cover of darkness, leaving us with rotting land and mountains of debt...
