Yesenia unrolled the squashed letter that had been read by an untold number of eyes before finally being delivered to their apartments. She expected another weak-minded gushing from Khallum about his newly wedded bliss, or a to-the-point hello from her father.
Instead, she finally got what she’d wanted all along.
A letter from Byrne.
Dearest Sister,
I know you are cross with me for my failure to write. It’s not for any lack of thinking about you, which I do often and with great fondness. There are many things I miss about the Southerlands, but none so much as you.
Do not let my delay speak in place of my words. Though, I cannot help but point out that you have not written to me either, Sen.
It has taken me this long to find the words that you will not wish to hear, no matter how I choose to say them. But here they are, just the same. I am happy in the Westerlands. It’s very different from what we know, but Asherley is kind, and the people of Longwood Rush, and the Reach, are loyal and passionate. They love lord and land equally and have welcomed me beyond what I could have ever imagined.
All you have ever wanted for me is to be well. While this may not be the way you saw this happening, that I am happy should be enough. I hope that it is. There has never been anyone whose opinion ever held more weight for me than yours. Fear of it has been the cause of my delay.
Despite all of that, I have not forgotten our last conversation before we both left for our new lives.
I have not forgotten all your sacrifices, for me.
I have not forgotten that I might not even be here, if not for you.
If you say the word, you know where my loyalty lies.
My greatest hope for you is that you’ve reached a place of contentment of your own. That the urge to reach for your daggers has eased. That maybe, even, you have discovered happiness of your own.
If not, I am ever your most loyal brother, in all things, until the very end.
In salt and sand,
Byrne
Yesenia swung her head away from the letter, now stained with the tears she’d not been quick enough to stay. Of course she wanted him to be happy! How could he even suggest...
She rocked to her feet. Byrne, content with a life in the Westerlands? It wasn’t the Easterlands, true, and the alliance between the Southerlands and the Blackwoods of Longwood Rush was stronger than any other in the kingdom. Their greens and legumes kept disease away from the miners of the Southerland Peninsula. There was no enmity there.
But Byrne was a Southerlander—salt and sand through and through, even if he had been a late bloomer. Lovely that he had a wife he could stomach, but how could that ever compare to the life he should have had, with a bride of the Southern Reach? With a Rutland, or a Law, or, Guardians, even a Garrick would have been a better choice for a man born to a Warwick lord!
How was it that both of her brothers had fallen so easily into foreign marriages, and she, the only daughter, was the one still trying to preserve the sanctity of their Reach? The only one who hadn’t forgotten who she was... and that the man who had ordered these unions was the same one stealing from them and giving to their enemy. An enemy Yesenia was living with.
But that word... enemy. It no longer felt so potent when she thought of Corin. The Guardians were said to not make mistakes, but they had, in placing him with this family. He would have been more at home in the Westerlands, among the Blackwoods. He trusted too easily. Bowed even easier. In her experience, he was someone to watch, to be wary of, but he simply didn’t have the cunning his brother and father were born with. Who he showed himself to be was who he was.
In the beginning, this had made her cautious. Now, it only angered her. His flippant disregard for himself, for his life, had almost got him killed, and one day would. Yesenia wouldn’t always be there to save him from himself. And did she want to be? I want to go home. I want to be with my own people, she told herself, constantly, hourly, daily, but then she’d find herself thinking of the future here and her role in it.
She didn’t want to be married to Corin Quinlanden. She knew this was true. It must be.
But she didn’t want him to die either.
Yesenia tried to set her brother’s words aside as she waited in tense impatience for Corin to be escorted back to the apartments, safe.
They’d allowed Corin to choose his own guards. It was an empty gesture, as Yesenia had been quick to point out, for though they had some loyalty to him, it would never be as great as their loyalty to their lord.
Yesenia hadn’t wanted him to go to the meeting at all. Said he’d be walking into a trap. Corin couldn’t disagree. But since the day of the fight, Whitechurch had been buzzing about nothing else. Their prior desire to see the blood between brothers erupt had turned to concern for the one who’d almost died. They deified the benevolent, loving lord who had cried mercy on his son’s behalf, showing that fatherhood could be both a strength and a weakness.
The people didn’t know what to think of Yesenia. The reception was mixed. She was either a wildling saltlicker requiring a firm hand or a loyal wife who had risked everything for the man she loved.
The Easterlanders, above all, loved a good story.
All these things conspired to help Corin, which was such an unusual phenomenon for him that he didn’t know how to use it to his advantage. He was the Prince Who Had Prospered, the son half of them had forgotten existed at all until standing witness to his near death at the hands of the more important one.
All this bought his safety. For now.
“Thank you for coming,” Chasten said. They sat outside in the courtyard, where they could be seen. Even a private call for peace was theater for a Quinlanden.
Aiden wore a wrap around his neck to hide the purplish-black bruise left by Yesenia’s boot. The healer sent to both brothers’ chambers had perhaps forgotten to tend to it, but Corin thought it more likely that Aiden wanted it left alone, so everyone would remember Yesenia’s crimes against the Easterland heir.
Aiden seemed to have something to say but held his silence.
“Did I have a choice?” Corin asked. “It didn’t seem so.” Despite Yesenia’s care of him, and the healer’s fastidious work, the trek down the Golden Stair had still been arduous.
“We are at an impasse, after what happened that day.”
“That day.” Corin coughed, following it with a short laugh. “As if it were years ago.”
“Much has happened since. Time has passed differently,” Chasten replied. “Tomorrow will be a week. Neither one of you has spoken to each other. Broken bread together. You have not left your apartments at the same times, nor have your wives. I had to cancel the Autumnwhile Jubilee for the first time in... I do not even know if it’s ever been canceled before. This cannot go on.”
“I agree, Father,” Aiden said. “Corin’s beast of a wife should be banished, so Arboriana can return to as it was.”
“That is not an option available to us,” Chasten said evenly. “The way forward is bricked with peace, and I would like both of your help to pave it.”
A scornful sound from Aiden carried across the table. “There can be no peace as long as that trollop lives in our trees.”
Corin cocked his head. “I didn’t realize we had any trollops living in our trees.”
“You have always been rather slow.”
“Perhaps,” Chasten stated, interjecting, “that may be a problem that will solve itself, once the king reads my raven. But for now—”
“What raven?” Corin demanded.
“I did tell you the king would be interested in hearing that Lord Warwick lied about his daughter’s history.”
“Why...” Corin scoffed. “Why does that even matter? Who cares if she was not a virgin? Aiden was not.”
“You were,” Aiden replied.
“I was,” Corin said, unashamed. “And I was proud to give that gift to Yesenia.”
“Do you listen to yourself? Do you ever think before you say stupid things?”
“The king had a goal. An intent. He would have married Yesenia into one of the houses no matter her past deeds or experiences.”
“That is rather beside the point though,” Chasten said. “Lord Warwick chose to lie about it. The king needs to know when his subjects are practicing deception.”
“Deception!” Corin exclaimed. “Maybe Lord Warwick didn’t know. I’d like to think he didn’t, for a man so invested in his own daughter’s sexual habits is unnatural.”
“I was well aware of every last thing Gretchen did, under this roof or no, and there was nothing unnatural about that interest.”
“Everything?” Corin countered with a hard glare at Aiden.
Aiden shifted his eyes away.
“Remember the fine line we discussed,” Chasten said after an uncomfortable silence, “between caring for your wife and serving your Reach. Be grateful you can do both with this revelation you’ve given me. It isn’t Yesenia who will be punished for lying to the king, after all.”
“Her father deserves no punishment,” Corin said. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
“That will be for King Khain to decide, won’t it?”
Corin threw out his arms. “You said you wanted to meet about peace. What peace can be found at this table?”
“Indeed,” Chasten said, nodding at both of his sons. “My idealism was misplaced, but I’ll not brook another outcome here, boys.” He pushed back from the table, sweeping his gaze over the people in the courtyard pretending to not listen. “I’m declaring this feud over. No calling challenges. No retaliation. Over.”
Chasten made a dramatic exit, slipping behind the platform and back toward the Golden Stair.
“Just remember, Corin,” Aiden said when their father was gone. “You were the one who wanted this. Who invited it.”
“I didn’t invite you to try to kill me. That you even tried—”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you, Corin.” Aiden’s jaw flexed as it clenched. “Father was supposed to step in. He was supposed to be the one to let me know when it had gone too far, so he could call it and be the hero, while you learned a valuable lesson. Ask yourself, why didn’t he?”
Corin glared at him. “Instead, my wife had to do it.”
“Ah, now her? I absolutely want her dead, as much for your sake as ours. No matter what Father says about it, I will never forget what she did. The wedge she’s put between all of us.” He flopped back with a heavy, drained sigh. “Guardians, brother. Is she really worth all this trouble?”
“How would you like me to answer that, Aiden?” Corin asked. “No matter what I say, you’ll find ways to sink your teeth in and tear me and my words apart.”
Aiden closed his eyes, rolling his head against the chaise. “We didn’t always fight like this, Corin.”
“Didn’t we?”
“Not like this.” Aiden rolled forward again. He plopped his elbows onto his knees. “I can... I can almost see what you like about her. She’s feisty. Smart, for a woman. But she uses neither of these traits to move our house forward.”
Corin laughed. “And why should she?”
Aiden blew out a breath and reached to clasp a hand on Corin’s knee. “Let’s... for once, for a spell... talk about other things. Like Father would want.”
Corin snorted, turning his head to the side. “Other things?”
“Actually, I had an idea... on how we might make up for the cancelation of Father’s Autumnwhile Jubilee. While we’re at it, maybe come up with a truce we can both live with?”
“You want to talk about celebrations?”
Aiden sheepishly grinned. “I have an idea, as I said. Wouldn’t it be nice for us to work together, for a change?”