The man took a step back, lips hanging open, gaze lifting from Luca’s tattoo to his face. The woman clung to her husband’s elbow, her own eyes wide. They exchanged a long look and then the man addressed Luca with a voice glazed in shock.
“My Otsakumea, we have been waiting for you.”
CHAPTER7
SEVENTEENyears they had been waiting.
Mannah and Erfu were their names, and both had been within the Otxazulo when Luca was born. They were among the few in the resistance who had personally seen him—alive and tattooed—before the Warlord’s attack left the castle in ash, the royal family’s heads on pikes, and the Otxoa’s supporters fleeing in every direction.
Luca hadn’t expected this. A lifetime of hiding out without knowing he was doing so, only to find the truth and, in short order, people like these, who’d kept memories and hope for seventeen years. Even after Ula’s admission—which they still had barely discussed—it was stunning.
Luca’s mind spun with all he wanted to ask them—about their hardships, the resistance, castle life. His parents, too—he’d been too young to remember what his mother had been like when she passed.
Instead, because they’d asked, he’d quickly told them where he’d been all this time—at the Itspi, raised by castle staff after his mother’s death from a lung infection—and how he’d come to know of his identity. And then Erfu had to leave before the darkness lifted, and it was necessary that Mannah spent the day exactly as she would any other to throw anyone watching off the scent.
And so, the Otsakumea was left with his questions, his crew, and the weight of his name for the daylight hours. By nightfall, the cabin felt even smaller as the stars crowded in, too.
“Time to clean your wounds, Luca,” Ula announced, pushing away from the table after supper. She’d made it clear he should be on a schedule—an infection in his chest from Taillefer’s work or in his leg from the Harea Asp ordeal would surely put a damper on any chances of rebellion.
Luca followed without complaint, pushing away from the table too, as Osana and Urtzi remained, sipping nettle tea. Sinking to hisbedroll, he discarded his tunic and began removing the dressing as Ula gathered the jug of sagardon she’d procured at the market along with a new length of linen gauze.
The sting of the process was one of a thousand bees under the skin, but the pain was minor in comparison with what he’d felt in the past week. And the wound looked only a little better, the skin bruised and raw with inflammation that ran down the whole hand-length gash in the middle of his chest, just beside his wolf tattoo. The flat black sutures were tight, straining to keep the swollen edges of flesh together. In time, his skin and muscles would heal. Just not soon enough.
Across the room, Mannah inhaled sharply. Luca’s head snapped up to find her staring at him, her body frozen over her kettle, where water was boiling yet again, for another round of tea.
Mannah had not heard the story of Taillefer’s torture chamber. She knew he had injuries but not what they were or how he received them. Or why.
The curse of being in love with a princess.
Actually, the old woman hadn’t heard much of anything—spending the day doing chores as if she had no guests at all, as was the ruse. He’d yet to ask her the questions building within him—not wanting to burden her further.
The old woman put down the kettle and came toward Luca, fingers bent with work pressed against her gaping mouth. Her face was pale, but she did not shy away from directly examining the wound. “But what has happened to your heart, my Otsakumea?”
Luca swallowed back a shuddering breath as Ula pressed another round of sagardon to the mess of stitches. “My heart is well, thank you.” And it was, though he knew that was not exactly what this woman meant. “It’s a long story, but what is important is that Ula has been better than the best medikua at nursing me back to health.”
The woman looked to Ula, who had applied another liberal amount of the sagardon to a scrap of linen. “You did these sutures yourself, child?”
“Yes,” she answered, pressing the sagardon to Luca’s snakebit leg—still flat black, but no longer swollen.
Mannah nodded. “Ula—Ulara Vidal, yes?”
Luca’s breath hitched as Ula’s golden eyes crept to the woman’s face. Ula hadn’t mentioned her parents’ names or their positions atthe castle, but it was clear that Mannah had been thinking back, paging through the names and faces she’d known all day. “Yes.”
“I thought so when I first heard your name this morning.” Something about Mannah’s coloring changed, a flush flooding her cheeks. “Your mother was handy with a needle—Lygia would be proud, Ula.”
Luca’s heart stuttered. It almost felt as if it were on the outside of his body, beating raw and red. “Lygia?” He touched Ula’s shoulder—mostly because it was what he could reach and remain relatively still. “Your mother’s name was Lygia?”
“Yes…” she replied, unsure.
“That was my mother’s name—or what she went by at the Itspi. She could not walk around as Queen Elixane, so she went by Lygia.” The color drained from Ula’s face, and Luca’s next words rushed out under their own volition. “My mother must have adored yours to use her name.”
Luca turned to Mannah, whose dark gold eyes ran between them as if reading the pages in a book. “What can you tell us about Ula’s Lygia? Would she have known my mother?”
A strange expression flickered across Mannah’s face. Ula, for her part, was still and silent, used linen clutched in her swordswoman’s grip. Luca placed a kind hand on her wrist. “I’ve thought the past few days that perhaps Ula and I were destined to meet and become friends and… if our mothers were that way? That—two orphans could not hope for more, perhaps.”
“I don’t know,” Urtzi deadpanned from the table, where he sat with his fourth cup of tea, “I’m an orphan who has spent a lifetime hoping for my parents.”
Osana shoved him on the shoulder. “Well, stop hoping because our parents aren’t coming back. But theydolive on in memories, so shut up and let the woman talk.”
