Esra (22 page)

       “If ye need anything, please come get me,” Nadia assured her.  “Otherwise I will leave ye to get some rest, and I daresay I am in need of some myself.”

       “Thank ye,” Esra placed her hand sincerely on her friends arm, “fer everything.”

       “Well, after all they are paying me to be nice to ye,” Nadia teased, exiting the room in shimmering, stealth-like fashion.  The door shut softly behind her, leaving its occupant alone for the first time in many, many days.

       Esra sighed and sat down on the bed, folding her hands in her lap.  Now that she was alone, the infinite questions came swirling back into her mind.  She decided, against the weakness in her bones, to unpack a little to clear her head.  Groaning as she lifted herself up, Esra reached for the nearest bag and dumped it on the bed.  There wasn’t much there, as she had obviously left Sorley in a bit of a hurry.  The things she had bought at Trader’s Day comprised the majority of her possessions, along with three generously donated tunics and one thin cotton skirt from Nadia.  She would need to find some clothes of her own, maybe tomorrow, since her friend’s small Elvish frame was not meant to be covering Esra’s tall, lean one.

After sorting everything into piles and moving it into the dresser, she reached for the next satchel and placed the bread beater on the nightstand next to her bed.  Examining the beautiful Unni furniture, she discovered a small hidden chamber in the desk, where she hid a few of her more private items, including her coin purse and Baelin’s knife.  A soft knock at the door pulled her from her preoccupation with the desk and she went to see what Nadia wanted.     

Opening the door briskly, Esra began to explain her discovery, “I really like the secret compartment in the desk!  I think that once I get a chance to explore this place, I’m going to really…”

       Looking up at the shadow in her doorway, Esra noticed with a jolt of shock that the figure was not Nadia’s small, slight frame but rather a tall, slender woman.  She wore a formal gown of pale lavender, with her auburn hair twisted up in an intricate knot with glimmering gems.  The lady was looking at her with eyes wide as if she too was surprised at what she found when the door had opened.  A smile crept over her kind looking face, revealing two straight rows of white teeth.  Maybe this was Nadia’s old roommate that had just moved out, coming to say hello. 

       “The desk was always one of my favorites as well,” the lady said in low tones, stepping a little further into the light.  Although she physically appeared to be in her late thirties, there was something about her eyes that suggested she was much older than that.  “Esra, welcome to the Jade Gardens, the Stronghold of the Keepers.  I hope that I am not disturbing you, and I know you are absolutely exhausted, but you see I could not wait another moment to come see you for myself.”

       “Oh,” Esra was a little leery of the thought that everyone in this place would approach her like this.  Then again this woman seemed very genuine and warm in her welcome.  “I certainly am very tired, but I’m pleased to meet ye and very grateful that I made it here.”

       “And I am immensely grateful as well.”

       There was something in the woman’s countenance that reminded Esra of a Queen.  She spoke very formally, not like the casual dialect Esra was used to nor the rougher accent of Fynn and Baelin.  They both stood for a moment as the woman stared at her with unhidden admiration.

       Esra finally broke the silence. “Do ye live here as a Keeper too?  Are ye a friend of Nadia’s?”

       “Yes, I do live here.  I have been here for quite a while.  And a friend of Nadia I am as well.  Most of the people here know me as Talitha, or the Great Keeper of Destiny.  But to you, Esra, I am your mother.”

XVIII

       Esra, for yet another time in the last chaotic week, had been stunned into silence.  She nervously gestured for the woman, her mother, to come into the room.  A million thoughts swept through her brain like a stampede of anxiety, and she tried not to let her disquiet show. Talitha swept in with a graceful fluidity that almost hid the apprehension in her slightly furrowed brow.  She took a seat at the chair in front of the desk, leaving Esra to plop down onto the bed.

       “I had wanted to be here when you arrived, Esra.  I’m so sorry,” she apologized.  “You see, I could barely stand the waiting, and after making everyone crazy with my pacing, I had decided to take a long ride in The Gardens.  I was expecting that you were all staying away another night and would be here in the morning.”

       Esra nodded, still bewildered as she stared at the woman with the long face and dimpled chin that reassembled her own.  This was it.  The moment Esra had been waiting for her whole life.  And yet she wasn’t quite sure how she felt.  The tension of anticipation and the sudden release as the moment arrived had overwhelmed her.  She was ill-equipped to sort out her emotions for much smaller occasions, let alone something of this magnitude.  Esra noticed that Talitha sat with her back in a rigidly straight line, and wondered if she always had such impeccable posture of if she too were nervous at their meeting.  A brief look of uncertainty passed over her mother’s face as she continued.

       “Adonis, your father, wanted nothing more than to be here, you see, but he was sent away on a matter of the greatest importance.  It killed him that he had to go now, after almost twenty years of longing to see you.  But you know all about the state of LeVara.  Cane tells me you bring confirmation that Kiran Brae has been taken over by Tallen.  It is unfortunate that our meeting must be under such disastrous circumstances.  That is also why I was so upset that I was not here when you arrived.  You must forgive me again for that, and for coming to see you at such a late hour when you should be resting.”

       “No, it’s alright.” Esra sputtered, regaining some of her composure as she began to process the information.  So that was her father’s name, Adonis.  “To be honest, I was very nervous to meet ye and so tired I may have fainted.”

       “I’m glad at least Cane was there to greet you,” Talitha sighed.  “He is a wonderful man.  That is one of the reasons we felt it bearable to leave you in Sorley, knowing your grandparents and Cane would be right there.”

       “Why didn’t Tallen find me through Cane?”

       “Cane was actually not his name before he moved to Sorley, he was known as Zariq.  And he was able to maintain his secrecy with some cloaking and influence spells.  It also helped that he was pretending to be an eccentric, removed old man, which is not so far from the truth.”

       “How long has he been here at the Stronghold?  How old is he?  When did he become a Great Keeper?”

       Talitha laughed at the steady barrage of questions.  “Very long, very old, and also very long ago.  So how is Meshok?”

       “Ye know about Meshok?  Did Cane, I mean, Zariq tell ye about her?”  It was strange to think of Cane being anything except Cane. 

       “Not exactly.  And don’t worry, Cane prefers his current name, so you needn’t refer to him as Zariq.  Cane was the new name he chose for himself, which means “scholar”.  Very fitting.  Do you remember how you found Meshok on your eighteenth birthday?  It was your father and I who had arranged for you to find her, as a gift.  She was a pup from a Great Wolf that often stays near Adonis and I.”

       Her mother got up and began pacing the floor, twisting her hands into the folds of her skirt.  “We didn’t think we could do it, leave you like that.  But I knew that it was for the best, that the Kingdom was in danger, and that to keep you with us would put everything at risk.  Tallen would have stopped at nothing if he had found out there was a child.  It is amazing he did not find out sooner.  Only the last year has he had any suspicions.  Luckily you had not been using any sorcery and Baelin was able to watch over you.  All could have been forfeit, including your life.  But your father and I gave up twenty years of our only child’s life, forced you to give that up.  Please forgive me.”

       The woman buried her face in her hands and Esra sank lower into the bed.  The tension in the air was so distinct it seemed to reverberate throughout the room.

       Esra thought long and hard about all the times she had wished for her parents, of the pain it had caused her.  She was torn between accepting this woman and her sad tale and being angry that she was even being asked to consider accepting it.  There had been no time to digest this information.  Why couldn’t they have just tried harder?  Fought to keep her no matter what?  Who gives up their only daughter?  Hot tears gathered in her eyes as she tried to control her frustration.  Why couldn’t her childhood have been normal?  Great Keepers and secret armies, it was all ridiculous.  And they had lost so much time together.  Could they now go on living like a family when so many secrets were in their past?

       But a part of Esra knew that Talitha spoke the truth, or that at least they had done their best with what life had dealt them, which was an unfair situation for a young couple in love.  She stared at the graceful woman who now stood in her room trembling with vulnerability.  Esra decided that even though she didn’t understand everything just yet, she was willing to meet her mother half way to try and forge a relationship.  She had many things to fight in the upcoming weeks.  She did not want this to be one more of them.

       “Even though it has been the most…shocking revelation of my life to know that ye are both alive, I can’t honestly say now that I regret the news.  It may take a while to get used to all this, but I am going to try.”

       Talitha stood for a moment longer as she wiped a tear from her cheek and kissed her daughter on the head.  “Thank you.  I had dared to hope you would not be entirely resentful, at least not for long.  And you must assure me that if you ever feel uncomfortable or if things become too much for you to handle, please just let us know.  Adonis and I cannot even begin to try to understand what you are feeling right now.”

       “I must admit, to say all this was a surprise would be a vast understatement.”

       “Yes, and I’m sorry we had to lie to you.  But if you knew we were alive, would you have tried to come find us?  Never given up until you had the truth?”

       Esra thought about that for a moment.  “Aye, I would have.  I would have wanted answers.  Besides, I’m not sure that thinking I was abandoned would have been much better than thinking ye were dead.”

       “True,” her mother agreed sadly, taking a seat at the desk again. “I am so proud of you.  You are in a new world now, one filled with magick and Keepers, Tallen, the Stronghold, the four races.  Learning these things cannot be easy.”

       “It hasn’t been,” Esra admitted. “I just worry that I will not be what ye need, that I will prove to be no more able at sorcery than Meshok.  I don’t know what ye think I have been doing fer the past twenty years, but it has not been sword fighting or casting spells.”

       “And that was just how we intended it to be,” Talitha leaned over to pat her hand reassuringly.  “Don’t worry.  You needn’t be anything besides yourself.  I know that people may look up to you or expect certain things, but I will love you even if you decide to become a cook for the Great Hall.  And we intend to defeat Tallen either way.”

       “Trust me, ye do not want me anywhere near a cooking Fire.”

       “Oh?”  Talitha raised her eyebrows questioningly.

       “Um…I’m a little clumsy,” Esra admitted shyly.  “Actually a lot clumsy.  And after seeing how gracefully ye carry yerself, I’m assuming I got this trait from my father?”

       Her mother’s high pitched laughter trickled throughout the room.  “Oh dear, I daresay you have.  He can barely mount a Horse without a mild disaster.”

       Esra pictured her own recent Skycatcher mounting encounters and smiled to herself in amusement. 

       “Well, I must let you get some rest,” Talitha declared, rising from her seat.  “Your father will be here tomorrow for the celebration feast and you could probably sleep until dinner.”

       Nervousness twitched again in Esra’s chest at the thought of her father.  She tried to gain courage from this brief but promising reunion with her mother.

       Pausing in the doorway, Talitha looked upon her daughter’s face for the first time in twenty years and tried to take every detail in.  The thick, dark blonde hair that fell in wild cascading waves down her back.  The pale skin and high cheeks, her thin lips which curved into an endearing smile, the soft blue eyes that would surely turn an incandescent color like the purest spring Water when they caught the light.  The Great Keeper of Destiny decided right then that of all the wondrous things she had seen in her lifetime, this was by far the best.

XIX

       As her mother predicted, Esra did not stir until well after noonmeal the next day.  She awoke momentarily confused by the strange smells and sights around her, then remembered that she had indeed made it to the Stronghold and was safe and sound in her new room.  She would have probably been able to sleep for longer was she not driven by an intense hunger that forced her out of bed.  After a quick visit to the washroom, she went to Nadia’s room to see if she was still there.  A note on the door greeted her before she had a chance to knock.