He grumbled something about “respecting my elders” under his breath as he tucked into his own stew.
Reid laughed. “We’ll give you as much time as we can.”
Before I could respond, a light touch circled my waist. Stifling my immediate reaction to panic, I glanced over my shoulder. My mother’s hold was gentle. I should have known it was her, as Hart had barely tensed at my side.
“Hey, baby, we heard you were back.”
I turned to see Father standing just beyond her shoulder. He didn’t look happy, and that might have been an understatement. “You’re going into the mines? Have you lost all sense?” he hissed.
Hart stiffened at the tone, but I brushed my hand against his forearm. This wasn’t his fight. Father couldn’t possibly be angry about the path they’d set me on since birth. “I’m doing what is necessary. What you all wanted from me.”
Mother squeezed my hand lightly. “Don’t be too hard on him. He never truly accepted what Eris demanded of you.”
I guessed she had said that before. Before the Blessing Ceremony, when I’d confronted them both about the lies they’d told and the secrets they’d kept, she’d said that Father had his own way of dealing with everything. In Kavios, that had meant he let Rodric’s calming magic wash over him. He hadn’t taken youngleaf in the city as Mother did.
“My choices are my own,” he said, glancing between us.
“As are mine,” I replied.
“Do you really think your choices are your own with your mother and Alaric’s interference?”
I felt the words like a slap. It must have shown, because he sighed and rubbed his temples before he finally met my gaze. Something lingered there that I couldn’t remember ever seeing. Concern? Or was I just telling myself that?
When was the last time I’d thought my father cared what happened to me? Certainly not when he’d sent me to our jewelry shop to work by myself at age eight. Maybe momentarily, when I’d told him I was to become Jeweler to the Blessed with Alaric’s disappearance, but even that, he hadn’t fought hard. He’d quickly admitted he couldn’t handle the separation from Mother that the job would require.
Hadn’t I wanted him to care then?
Maybe the distance from Rodric’s calming magic was taking hold.
In the end, I had to believe these were my choices. Stories Alaric had hidden away told of seers like Mother. As with dragons, I’d previously considered them fiction. Eventually, those fictions had come to life before my eyes. But I believed that Mother’s foresight granted her the ability to see options—paths.
Clearly, Mother and Alaric had placed bets on certainpaths, but they couldn’t have been guaranteed. Every path was a choice. And those choices were mine.
“Mother and Alaric planned for many paths, it seems. Alaric’s note when he first disappeared had hoped that I’d still leave Kavios. He all but begged me to go to Linia on my own. Had I chosen that path, I wouldn’t have known Hart. He might have escorted me through the Oldwood, but nothing would have built between us.”
Hart took a step closer, behind me, as if to ensure his steady presence and the heat his proximity always brought were well within my reach. His own silent reassurance that he was with me.
“And that wasn’t even my first choice.” I looked up. The night was cloud-covered, and the stars were few. Each one I catalogued reminded me of another option Alaric had laid before me. “My first choice was leaving Kavios. He wasn’t going to stop me. He planned to let me walk away from everything if that’s what I wanted.”
I hadn’t wanted that. I hadn’t stayed only out of a duty to find my missing uncle, but to understand the true dangers that threatened my home.
“Then Ciril itself.” I swallowed as I realized where this was going. “The papers from the queen, they were only to be given to me if specific criteria were met.”
Hart cupped my waist with one hand. He’d never for a second believed the reason I gave him for the queen passing me the papers, but he hadn’t pressed. It was another instance where I knew he saw too much. Something sweet hit my tongue as I spoke.
“I can’t begin to explain to you the specific set of choices that had to be made—by me—for that threshold to be met. For the queen to share the knowledge Alaric left with her.”
Father opened his mouth to respond, but I continued.
“Each and every choice that brought me here has been my own. Life is a set of circumstances I choose how to navigate. You could argue that I didn’t choose to be born in Kavios. I didn’t choose to be a seemingly human subject under Rodric’s reign. Neither did most of the citizens. We can’t think of life in such a manner. It’s fruitless. All we can do is choose among the options presented to us. They are mine, and I have to live with the consequences of them.”
My breaths were heavy as I finished. Hart’s fingers gripped my side in that steady reassurance he often provided.
Father studied me. I wondered if he saw me truly for the first time. Something sparked in his gaze as he noted the adamas ring on my finger. “You wear their weapon against us?”
I didn’t have time to explain the trials, to explain the situation Hart and I found ourselves in. “I choose what I can live with, Father. I can live with wielding magic for this cause from those who give it willingly—who know the cost.”
His eyes gleamed with a challenge. “Then take my anger, Emberline. I won’t have you undefended.”
