Khallum had ordered a sizable retinue to welcome Yesenia home. They would meet her at the border to escort her to Warwicktown in a manner worthy of a lady of the Southerlands. This alone wouldn’t surprise her, even if she’d scold him later for the unnecessary pageantry.
What would surprise her—and, he hoped, lift her spirits—was who he’d sent to greet her.
He’d hear about it soon, along with the other stories she brought with her. Stories he was certain would bring him to fresh rage all over again. Yesenia had known her life in Whitechurch would be dangerous for her, and Khallum had dismissed her fears.
He leaned into the broad open window overlooking the sea from the Hall of Warring as he awaited her arrival. How this view had changed for him, since the death of his father. He’d sat at this table for years with Khoulter’s men, pretending to be one of them. He thought he’d have so much more time before he had to be.
Yesenia had come too late to attend Khoulter’s dead-given rites, but the raven Corin had sent ahead of their arrival explained why. Khallum would kill Aiden Quinlanden one day. The man would suffer. He’d scatter the bootlicker’s parts across the kingdom so he’d never find peace.
But Yesenia needed a lord more than a brother. The comfort she required—the stalwart salt and sand strength of their land and people—was what awaited her. To speak of Khallum’s vengeance would be to spark her own.
He turned at the shuffling of feet and saw Gwyn hovering in the doorway. She wrapped one arm lovingly around her belly, the other propped against the frame. Her red hair flamed wild around her rosy cheeks, flush with the throes of pregnancy.
Khallum wasn’t supposed to enjoy this. Yesenia had all but called him a traitor for taking so easily to his beautiful Northerland wife. But what of it? He’d done well. He already had an heir on the way, and Gwyn was as eager to give him more as he was to help her do it. The Southerlands would not want for stability, least not where he was concerned.
If he’d done nothing else right, he’d done this.
Was it a crime to enjoy it? To enjoy her?
“Aye?” he asked. “They’re here then?”
Gwyn nodded. She wrapped her shawl tighter at the chill drafting off the sea. “They’ve just entered Warwicktown.”
“Is he with her?”
“Is who with her?”
“The Quinlanden lad.”
Gwyn eyed him strangely. “I should think so, Khallum, seeing as it was his signature on the raven. He is the one who rescued her from that terrible prison.”
“And another thing...” Khallum tapped his fist against the window’s natural plaster, an amalgamation of bird shit and barnacles as old as the keep itself. “Why would she let him send the raven? That’s not Yesenia’s way. Does he have her under some kind of charm? Some spell?”
Gwyn shrugged. She didn’t know Yesenia. He didn’t know why he’d said it at all, to her.
“Will you tell her? The truth about Lord Khoulter?”
Khallum paled. He turned his eyes back toward the crested waves rolling in on the tide. “I donnae ken I will, no.”
“You don’t think she deserves to know?”
“Deserves to know? That the king probably killed our father for lying about what she was doing in the cove, with Rutland?”
Gwyn sighed into a slow nod. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You suppose?”
“If what Corin said in his vellum was true, Yesenia’s honor must be defended.”
Khallum bristled. He inhaled a lungful of briny air through his nose, welcoming the burn. “You’d have me start a war, when I’ve only just become lord?”
“Is that what you’ll tell her?” Gwyn asked, pressing gently. “When she arrives, seeking the succor of her brother, her lord, her protector?”
“The Quinlanden lad kens himself her protector now.” Khallum gruffed. “I cannae decide what grinds me worse, her trying to rebel, or her falling in line.”
“Will you turn her away?”
Khallum scoffed. He passed his fist over his nose and again looked at the sea. “Nay. Of course not.” He flexed the hand he’d cut a little too deep into. He could only now turn it to a fist, all these months later. “I made a vow. Even if I hadnae...” He coughed and spat. “She’s my sister. She’s our Yesenia. And she’s come home to us.”
Gwyn shifted in place. Her judgment lived in the air between them. Desire surged through him, along with the full weight of her disapproval. Even when she was cross with him, he wanted to fuck her. Especially when she was cross with him.
“Aunt Korah has gone to greet them. We should be there as well.”
“Has she?” Khallum shook his head. “Aye. All right.” He rolled his neck back and forth, transferring the stress of the past months into the open air. “Let’s go.”
Yesenia dropped onto the sandy path with a satisfying thud. She ground the heels of her boots into the land—her land. Home.
She wrapped Kheerai’s reins around her hand and led her the rest of the way. The soft impact Corin created when he followed her lead was the only foreign thing left in her sphere. If he had something to say as he took in a world opposite his, he kept it to himself.
Yesenia paused to absorb the roar of the sea, letting it roll over her like a tide in transition. She pressed her hand to her chest, trapping her grief. She’d missed the dead-given rites and the pyre. Chasten had taken these sacred moments from her. Byrne told her they’d called a celebration tomorrow, to remember Khoulter properly and welcome her home, but it was hardly consolation for what had been lost.
Byrne wrapped an arm around her waist and winked at her from the side. Who was this young man guiding her with such confident airs? The command in his step as he led her toward the keep caused her to question if this was her brother, and not some changeling sent by the Westerland witches.
He hadn’t brought his wife though. He’d been back in Warwicktown over a week and planned to stay a few days longer now that Yesenia had returned. All this and more he’d revealed on their somber approach to Warwicktown, as the sand drifted from the black of Iron Hill to the tan of Goldthorpe and then the golden shore of home.
Yesenia had listened to her brother speak—so freely, so charmingly—about his life in Longwood Rush, but she’d heard little and would remember even less. Her father was dead. What else could matter? Not even Byrne’s strange transformation could distract her heart from such acute pain.
If it ever becomes unsafe for you in Whitechurch... unsafe, ye ken, for you, tough as ye are, hard as ye are... I willnae let even a king stand between me and my lass.
Yesenia turned her shudder of sorrow into shivers when a briny gust swept off the cliffs. Autumnwhile was their longest season in the Southerlands, and their most volatile. More ships would sink in these few months than in all the others combined. These were the storms that necessitated the rebuilding of keeps and the close tending of bairns and barns. Terrible as they were, there was a comfort in knowing what was. In knowing none of it was centered in grudges or politics. The sea and sky took indiscriminately.
The Widow’s gauzy black veils snapping on the wind pulled Yesenia into the moment. Her whole face was covered, as was the rest of her, as her reverent steps carried the respectful, funereal strides of mourning. Yesenia supposed Korah was mourning. She and Khoulter had no other siblings and had been close once. Khoulter hadn’t just been solving for his children’s needs when he’d invited his sister to live with them. He’d gained back his oldest friend.
“Yesenia. Darling.” The Widow clasped Yesenia’s cheeks in her palms. “I can see in your eyes what you’ve endured. You poor dear.”
“Aunt Korah.”
Kheerai snuffed at Yesenia’s side.
Korah’s inspection lingered a few more moments and then she shifted it to Corin. “And you, lad. Seeing ye up close like this, you’re not what I expected.”
Corin tried to smile. “What were you expecting?”
Korah knit her brows in study of him. Her answer never came. “Such crimes against a Warwick will not go unanswered, Yesenia. You can be sure of it.”
“Aye, Korah, Father might’ve let you speak for him, but I have my own words,” Khallum said, appearing in a break through the Widow’s retinue. His words were playful though, as was the soft squeeze he laid upon his aunt’s shoulder when he brushed by her.
Yesenia gulped a shuddering breath. Khallum. He’d changed too, though in less obvious ways. Lines around his eyes, and between them, betrayed the work Father had left for him. His youthful dress had been replaced by the heavier armor their father had enjoyed, but that was not all that was weighting him down.
His light way with the Widow revealed a happiness there too, between the spaces of the rest.
Beside him stood his wife, Gwyn, fiery and radiant, a child already on the way.
Yesenia went to address her brother as her lord, but Khallum had her in his arms, in a bear of a hug, before she could. Her face hidden in his massive shoulder, Yesenia buried a hard sob and let him hold her.
“You’re home,” he said low, a soft gleam in his eyes. “You’re home, Sen.”
Yesenia bit the inside of her mouth, nodding. It was her turn to say something—to, at the very least, introduce Corin. But speaking was impossible.
“Corin.” Khallum nodded at the man. The brief twist in his lips was the only sign of his discomfort of standing with a Quinlanden. “Thank you for escorting my sister home. You didnae have to do it, and I ken your father will make you pay for it. If there’s anything I can offer in gratitude, say the word.”
“I... I don’t require anything in return, Lord Warwick.” Corin’s confusion became Yesenia’s understanding.
Khallum was dismissing him.
“Quinlandens do nothing for free,” the Widow replied, her more familiar air of wisdom returned to her. “I ken not even this pretty one comes without a cost.”
“He’s staying,” Yesenia asserted. “Corin will be staying here, in Warwicktown. With me.”
Khallum cocked his head at the same time the Widow gasped. “Aye? With you?”
“Aye. With me.”
“With you, with you?”
Yesenia nodded.
Khallum passed a wide-eyed look to Byrne. “Ye certain? Dinnae need to put on airs here, sister. This isnae the Easterlands. You’re free to do as ye please.”
Yesenia detected Corin’s stiff panic at the thought of being banished to a guest’s chambers, left to fend for himself in a foreign land hostile toward anyone bearing his name. But he’d done this for her. He’d done more for her than he should have. She could do this for him.
“With me,” she affirmed. Her eyes caught Corin’s from the side, and she read his relief. “He’s to be welcomed into our keep and Warwicktown with the honor due a guest of the Warwicks. No one will trouble him for his name, nor any other cause.”
“As ye wish, then,” Khallum said with another brow raise. “Shall we?”
Several grooms rushed forward to take their horses. Yesenia gave Kheerai one last loving pat and sent her off.
Corin fell in next to her as they followed the procession. An urgency of unsaid words draped over him, spreading to her. If he thanked her... if he even dared suggest, however unintentional, that she was being soft, especially after the way Khallum had looked at her...
“It will be all right,” he said instead. “You’re home now.”
Yesenia retired to the corner of the room with her ale. She kicked the chair back against the wall and propped her feet up on the old card table no one used anymore. Her brothers sat at the larger table, nursing their own mugs and each, in their own ways, appraising her choice to sit away from them. That they didn’t understand was a sign, as much as any, of how much had changed in the tumultuous months since the Epoch of the Accordant.
“It was a proper send-off,” Khallum was saying through disjointed nods. “Not a single Great House of the Southerlands wasnae represented. They flowed up into the hills, so many of them. They all loved him. Wasnae like our grandfather, was he?”
“I donnae ken it, Khallum. An illness? Father?” Yesenia said, shaking her head. “What did the physician say?”
“There wasnae a physician, Sen,” Byrne answered. “It was that quick.”
Assured though he spoke, he wasn’t so much changed that Yesenia didn’t catch the lie in his words. But what was the lie? What did he, and apparently Khallum, wish to keep from her?
“Nothing is that quick. Warwicks are tougher than that.”
“Aye, but it was that quick,” Khallum replied. “Sen, I know ye feel like ye missed out on the rites, but the celebration tomorrow? Aye, that’s how we honor Father. We take the piss with each other, we drink until all we can see is the sky and stars, and we remember who we are.”
“We have our share of anger,” Byrne said, “more than we know what to do with. But we’re together now. Father would have wanted this.”
“Father would have wanted this?” Yesenia asked. “Tell me, what about ‘this’ would’ve whet the happiness of Khoulter Warwick?” She polished off her ale, and Byrne gingerly approached to refill it. She blinked her thanks.
“Now what?” Byrne asked, looking between them both.
Yesenia trained her gaze on Khallum, as the only one with the power to answer.
“I mean, now what do we do about the situation in the Easterlands?”
“Aye, eh...” Khallum sighed. “I’ve sent my own raven to Lord Quinlanden. Advised him t’would be unwise to bring men down here, looking to retrieve ye. Told him I ken what his son did, and what he did. That unless he wants the whole of the kingdom to know it, and the ratsbane besides, he’ll stand down.”
Yesenia dropped one foot to the floor. “You sent that to Chasten Quinlanden?”
“Aye.” Khallum held his palms in a shrug.
“When?” Panic settled in. Chasten knew she and Corin were in Warwicktown.
“Same night Corin’s raven reached me. So, eh, what was that, Byrne? Two nights ago?”
“Aye. Two nights ago.”
“And?” Dread burned in her chest. “Any response?”
“Nay.” Khallum quaffed his ale. It foamed around his beard, also new, and Byrne mimed the need to clean it. Khallum grunted, passing his forearm over his face.
“Nay? Nay?”
“It means no, Sen—”
“I ken what it means. It’s the silence from the Easterlands I cannae interpret!”
“Ask your husband,” he said, then chortled. “Aye, didnae even flinch when I called him that? Still making a bid to get yourself out of the marriage?”
“Apparently I’m the only one,” she replied, her tone flat.
“Isnae an answer. Why is he here? Why not send him back?”
Yesenia stiffened. “Ye said it yourself. He’d be punished. I saw with my own eyes how far Lord Quinlanden will go against his own blood. Willnae have Corin’s on my conscience.”
Khallum grinned. “Plenty of apartments here. Could’ve had his own. Aye, could’ve sent him to the gatehouse. To one of the inns in town...”
Yesenia dropped her gaze into her mug. “He didnae leave me to suffer in Whitechurch. I’ll nay leave him to suffer here.”
“Charitable,” Khallum said. “He’ll brook no trouble from us, but I ken taking him beyond the keep would be a mistake.”
“Are you staying forever?” Byrne once more sounded as she remembered him.
“She just got home, Byrne. Let her get her feet under her, a night of rest first.”
“But if you do stay forever,” Byrne said. “What will Corin do?”
“I donnae...” Yesenia shrugged. “We’ve not discussed it.”
“Would you like him to stay?”
“Byrne! Guardian’s cock, can ye take a hint? Does she look like she kens the future right now? Cannae even hold her ale properly, look at her.”
Yesenia slammed her chair down on all fours to refute the low slight, but the ground rushed up; an unsteady wave passed behind her glossy eyes.
“See?” Khallum looked at Byrne, pointed his arm at Yesenia.
“It is late,” Byrne replied. “Sen, I’ll walk ye to your room.”
She waved him away. “Nay. I’ll go alone.”
Hurt sank into Byrne’s expression. “You’re angry with me. For what I said in my raven.”
“Angry with you? For being happy?” Yesenia snorted. “Well that wouldnae be very charitable of me, would it?”
“Drunk.” Khallum emphasized with a rap of his knuckles on the table.
“I can take your anger,” Byrne said softly. “I want to see my sister happy. I want to see her accept that she can be and that she deserves to be. That love can be so much more than protection.”
Khallum made a retching sound in his mug. “We done?”
Yesenia’s eyes swelled with abhorrent tears. “Aye. We’ll talk more... tomorrow.”
“Oh, the celebration,” Khallum stated, interjecting before she could leave. “Ye should know, Sen. The Rutlands will be there. Erran, I ken, will keep his distance, but his father, his sister...”
Yesenia froze. Of course they’d be there. The Rutlands were favorites. Friends. “Aye... and?”
“Does your husband know?” Khallum failed to hide his mischievous grin.
“He knows there’s nothing to know,” Yesenia retorted. “And unlike my brothers, he listens when I say it.”
Khallum burst into laughter. “So he’s a fool is what you’re saying?”
Yesenia directed scathing gazes on them both and slid her mug onto the larger table. “Good night then.”
Yesenia yawned into her elbow, weaving down the hall of her childhood. She passed Khallum’s chambers, which were cold and dark, only to realize he’d probably moved into Khoulter’s. She wasn’t ready to see her brother coming in and out of that room. He already looked too much like their father.
She neared her own, where Corin would probably be asleep, but her attention was snared by a warm yellow light coming from the cracked door to the Widow’s apartments. Just beyond was the soft, unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Yesenia sagged with her guilt. She should go to her aunt, offer comfort. It was the right thing to do. It was what her father would want. But where would she find comfort to give when she had none for herself?
It was the addition of Corin’s voice that made her turn away from her chambers and keep moving toward Korah’s.
She pressed her face near the gap in the door. Corin sat next to Korah on her lounger, one hand over hers, the other bracing across her shoulders.
“They don’t exclude you out of ill intention,” Corin assured her. His hand moved in soft strokes along the thin black fabric. “They’re all in pain, and they’re fortunate to share a closeness that brings comfort to each other.”
“They’ve never wanted my comfort.”
“I don’t know your nephews, but I do know Yesenia. She’s not likely to ask for it.”
“Aye. Just the same.”
“I’m sorry I never had the privilege of knowing your brother, Stewardess Holton, but he must have been some man to have left such an impact on so many.”
The Widow wheezed into her handkerchief. “You’re kind, to comfort an old woman in her grief, even if ye are wrong.”
“You are not old,” he said lightly. “And you have lost someone irreplaceable.”
“Aye.” Her warbled voice returned. “I know how Khoulter’s children see me. How they always have. I’m not their mother. I never said I was, but I did my best, aye? I did my best for them.”
“A mother is duty bound to her children,” Corin said. “An aunt gives because she has chosen to. They know that.”
“Do they?” The Widow laughed. “No, I donnae ken they do. But you’re a sweet lad for saying so. For sitting with me.”
“I’ll stay as long as you like,” Corin said, smiling at her. “And tomorrow, you’ll be at the celebration? Yesenia asked me to go, and I could use a friend.”
“Nooo...” She patted his knee. “I ken that’s for the young ones. Not for knotty widows like me.”
“Come with me,” he said, insisting. “I’ll easily overshadow you on the list of the unwanted. They’ll pay no mind to a knotty widow when a bootlicking Quinlanden walks in.”
The Widow laughed. “You’re brave, coming here. I’ll give you that.”
Yesenia rolled away from the gap in the door. Her pulse quickened and she pressed a hand to her chest, to quell it. What was happening to her? She could hardly breathe, her words tonight had not been her own, and now this? How would she manage at a celebration if she couldn’t even assert control over her own emotions?
She stretched to the tips of her toes and quietly returned the way she’d come.