The General’s eyes went wide. “You see? Rebellion!”
Michael’s gaze wavered between his mother and grandfather. “I’m the man of the house now, and I’m staying to take care of Mother. Ronny too.”
“I’ll take care of her. Now, go pack.” The General pointed forcefully at the door.
Michael swallowed, but shook his head. “No.”
Lydia touched her chest. Not many had the courage to stand up to her father, let alone a thirteen-year-old boy.
“You will do as I say!” The General’s voice rang through the room.
The boys flinched, but neither moved. Their grandfather took a step closer, but Lydia intercepted. She couldn’t trust her father with any of her children. How could she after what he’d done to Liam and how he’d threatened the others? What a terrible thing to fear one’s own father. And all these years she’d ignorantly looked the other way.
“Boys, go upstairs.” She tried to speak calmly, but her voice wobbled. They looked wide-eyed at her, crushing her heart with their fear and desperation. “I’m going to speak with your grandfather.”
With sagging shoulders, her two sons left the room, their faces bleak. They knew as well as she did the unlikelihood of changing the General’s mind. But Lydia would not give up without a fight. She was her father’s daughter, after all.
“We’re leaving in half an hour,” he called after them. “Make sure you have what you need.”
With each step they took, Lydia’s fury grew hotter. When the sound died away, she finally erupted.
“How dare you come here like this, into my home and order around my children as if they were your own.” Her father’s brows shot up, but she pressed on. “First you threatened to kill my children right outside their own home, and now you’re trying to take away the only two I have left here. Do you want to drive me away?”
His surprise at her outburst faded quickly as his eyes darkened. “I’m making sure they don’t become traitors too.”
“You don’t trust me to raise them?”
“This situation is beyond you. One day you’ll be glad of this.”
Lydia shook her head. “I’m not glad Kyrin and Kaden went. Not anymore. I’m not glad of the time it took away from us or the distance it created. And, in case you haven’t noticed, my children who have, according to you, turned traitor are those I’ve had the least amount of influence on. Seems to me you should examine yourself and the men you serve for why that is.”
“This is ridiculous,” her father growled.
“Is it?” A rush of tears pooled in Lydia’s eyes. “The emperor has already stolen my husband—I will not let you steal my sons on his behalf.”
Her father stiffened, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “You’re emotional and distraught, so I’ll overlook your words, but do not speak of the emperor in such a way again.”
“Or what? You’ll have me arrested for treason?” It was absurd, but then Lydia caught the pitiless hardening in his expression. “You would,” she gasped. She stepped back with a hand to her throat, but her anger returned. “It’s no wonder Marcus and Liam ran from you.”
“This is exactly why I’m taking Michael and Ronan. They’re in grave danger of following after their siblings, and you’re in no frame of mind to prevent it.”
The conversation ended as her father spun on his heel and stormed out of the room. Lydia sagged against the table. Tears rolled down her face, and her shoulders shuddered. In desperation, words gasped past her lips that she never imagined speaking.
“Elôm, help us.”
Within half an hour, Michael and Ronny’s belongings were packed onto two extra horses that waited with the General’s men. Lydia stood with an aching heart as her sons said goodbye to Ethel and Carl. Michael kept a blank face, hardened by his anger, but poor Ronny couldn’t hold back tears, especially when it came time to say goodbye to his mother. She gathered him into her arms and rocked gently as he buried his face in her shoulder. Her eyes burned, and she bit her lip at his quiet cries. She stroked his hair.
“It’ll be all right,” she forced through her clogged throat. “You’ll be all right.”
She held him for a long moment before parting and cupping his face in her hands. “Be strong. I love you.” She kissed his forehead, and then turned to her older son. Now tears glimmered in his eyes. She grasped his shoulders. “Take care of your brother, all right?”
Michael nodded.
“I want you both to take care of each other.” She pulled him into her arms, and they embraced tightly. No mother should have her children forcibly taken from her. She sent her father a hard look and then whispered in her son’s ear, “I won’t forget you two. I’ll do everything in my power to get you back.”
As they parted, Michael looked at her with wide, but hopeful, eyes. She nodded, cementing her promise. This wasn’t over. She hadn’t surrendered yet.
When it came time to leave, she helped them mount, and then turned to her father, her voice and heart cold. “All my life I’ve loved you, followed you, and chosen to ignore all the countless questionable things you’ve done, but this?” She shook her head. “After what you did to Liam, and how you’ve driven away four of my children only to come and steal away my last two . . . I don’t think I can forgive you for this.”
If he felt any remorse at all, he hid it behind his stubbornness. “I’m more concerned with Michael and Ronan’s futures than your forgiveness.”
With that, he mounted his horse, and the company moved out. Michael and Ronny looked back at her with longing that tore her apart, but strengthened her resolve. She’d overlooked her father’s actions for the last time.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than earth, So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Kyrin sat back to contemplate these words. Never were they more true than in the situations they’d faced just recently. She glanced at Timothy, who sat across from her working on a new letter he planned to share with everyone. With Trask’s cabin usually full, Timothy had asked to take advantage of the quietness of Lenae’s cabin occasionally to study. He’d gladly accepted Kyrin’s request to join him and read the verses he’d copied from the Scrolls, something that benefited all of them. With her abilities, she would have all the words permanently committed to memory, even if they somehow lost the copies.
He must have noticed she’d ceased reading and looked up. “Did you find something?”
“I was just considering these verses here.” She slid the parchment around and pointed them out.
Timothy nodded as he scanned the words. “They’re some of my favorites, especially when my father died.”
“I was thinking about my father too.” The ache she couldn’t yet quell when she spoke of him overtook her chest and throat. “I really believe now that it was, at least partly, for Marcus, but when I first received the news, I couldn’t imagine why it had happened. There are still many other things I just don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Timothy said, which offered Kyrin a surprising amount of comfort. “But some things I don’t think we’re meant to. Not here anyway. That’s where trust comes in.”
Kyrin shook her head. “How do you do it? How can you be so dedicated and faithful?”
Timothy ducked his chin self-consciously. “I’m not always.” Kyrin had a hard time believing that, but didn’t cut in. “But I try. It’s how my father taught me. I don’t remember a time when he didn’t read to me from the Scrolls every night. I’m sure he started well before I was even old enough to understand it. He always used to tell Aaron and me that, as long as we have faith and Elôm’s love, we’re richer than any king. It didn’t matter what else we had or didn’t have. I’ve never forgotten that.”
Kyrin gave him a sad smile in a shared sense of loss. “He sounds like he was a very wise man and good father.”
“He was.”
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They both fell silent a moment, claimed by thoughts and memories. Kyrin understood how important Marcus’s soul was, but she couldn’t help but wonder why Elôm hadn’t chosen a different way. And why had a righteous man like Timothy’s father died in such a tragic, seemingly meaningless way as a mine accident? As Timothy said, these were probably questions they would never know the answer to until they joined their lost loved ones in Elôm’s presence.
A knock startled them. Kyrin looked over her shoulder as Lenae opened the door. Kaden appeared first with his arm around another person. Kyrin’s mouth fell open. “Mother!”
She jumped up from her seat as her mother and Kaden entered, followed by Marcus and Liam. “What happened?” She looked to the door Marcus had just closed. “Where are Michael and Ronny?”
Her mother grimaced and answered in a surprisingly bitter tone, “Your grandfather came and took them away to Tarvin Hall.”
Kyrin stiffened. Memories rushed, unwelcome, into her mind of when the emperor’s officials had come for her and Kaden—of the night they’d spent on the road on the way to Valcré. Kyrin had cried herself to sleep. Kaden had tried to tell her it would be all right, but she still saw the tears he shed when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She pulled in a hard breath against the heaviness in her chest. “When?”
“Three days ago. I tried to stop him, but you know how impossible that is.” Lydia’s shoulders sagged, and she closed her eyes as she touched her forehead. Her face was white, except for her flushed cheeks and nose and the dark shadows under her eyes. She must have ridden all the way from Mernin on her own.
Kyrin took her gently by the arm. “You need to sit down.”
She helped her mother slip out of her coat and then guided her to the table, where Lenae set a cup of coffee in front of her. Lydia wrapped her reddened fingers around it and took a long drink.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
As Kyrin and her brothers crowded around the table, Marcus asked, “Why did the General take them?”
“He was afraid they’d follow after you four. He didn’t trust me to prevent that.” Lydia shook her head, her delicate face lined with remorse. “I should’ve let them come with you.”
Kyrin raised her brows at the admission. She had never seen her mother like this. “Why did you come to us?”
Lydia lifted her tired, but determined eyes. “I want them back. You’re the only ones who can help me.”
Kyrin exchanged looks with her brothers. What their mother was asking was tantamount to treason. Kyrin and her brothers had nothing more to lose, but their mother had everything. Yet, she was apparently willing to risk it all to get Michael and Ronny back. She’d changed. Kyrin didn’t know how or when it had happened, but her mother was not the same woman she’d known as a child.
Kyrin looked at Kaden. “Go get Trask, Rayad, and Warin.”
He nodded and hurried out of the cabin.
Once more, Kyrin focused on her mother. “If we get them out, Michael and Ronny won’t be able to go back home.”
“I know,” Lydia said.
Kyrin watched her closely. She needed to make sure that, even in her distress, her mother truly understood what was at stake. “And Grandfather will, no doubt, suspect you came to us, especially if he knows you left Mernin . . . and you won’t be able to go back, either.”
With a slow nod and quiet voice, her mother repeated, “I know.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. It was difficult for Kyrin to reconcile her memories with her mother’s current actions. “So you’re willing to stay here with us . . . as fugitives?”
“If it means getting Michael and Ronny back, and having you all safe and together, then yes.”
Kyrin searched her eyes, but found no uncertainty. Regret that it had to be this way, yes, but not doubt. A love she hadn’t felt in a long time rekindled in Kyrin’s heart, demolishing the last traces of the walls she’d built, and the words she’d just discussed with Timothy echoed in her mind. Her eyes prickled, but she blinked it away as Kaden returned with their camp leaders. They all gathered at the table, where Kyrin and her brothers explained the situation.
“Can you help us get them out?” Kyrin asked Trask. For her, it wasn’t a matter of if she and her brothers would do this, but a matter of whether or not they would have help. She wouldn’t let Michael and Ronny be trapped at Tarvin Hall like she and Kaden had been.
“We’ll do what we can,” Trask replied willingly. “We’ll have to contact Tane and Sam. Sam is the only one who can actually get them out. I’ll send a rider to Valcré right away.”
With memories of Tarvin Hall spinning around in Kyrin’s mind, a new thought dropped in as if placed there. She latched onto it with a growing warmth and hope in her heart. “There’s also a little girl at Tarvin Hall named Meredith. The emperor had her parents killed for worshiping Elôm. I’d like to try to get her out too.”
“I’ll include that in the message,” Trask said.
Kyrin thanked him, and he left with Rayad and Warin.
In the following silence, Marcus shook his head. “So he just came and took them?”
Their mother nodded. “I tried everything. I begged him, I argued, I even threatened to never forgive him . . . he just wouldn’t listen.”
Marcus sighed and rubbed his forehead. “How was I so blind for so long?”
Kyrin touched his arm sympathetically, but it was their mother who said, “You weren’t the only one.”
When Lenae brought a plate of food to the table for Lydia, Kyrin welcomed the distraction. All this talk of her grandfather fed the ire building inside her, and if she was angry, Kaden was doubly so, but it wouldn’t help them right now.
Leaving her brothers to talk with their mother, Kyrin rose and joined Lenae near the fireplace. So much was changing in her life that it made her head spin and threaten to bring on a headache. “After this, my mother will have to stay in camp, permanently. We’ll need to provide her with someplace to stay. Lodging is getting a little cramped . . .”
“She’ll stay here, of course,” Lenae cut in.
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. Besides, it hardly seems fair for you and me to have the whole cabin to ourselves when everyone else is sharing.”
Kyrin agreed. “Good, I’ll tell her.”
She turned back to the table, but hesitated. Though Lenae was more than happy to welcome her mother into their home, for Kyrin, it held more complications. While she’d forgiven her mother, and deeply regretted her own feelings and behavior, the awkwardness between them would still take time to heal. Living in such close quarters might be a challenge for a while. After all, for the last few months, Lenae had been more of a mother to her than Lydia had ever been. Who would she turn to now for parental advice? Lenae was her first choice for her spiritual wisdom alone, but would that cause friction between the three of them? Kyrin grew tired just thinking of it. Lord, please guide me and work this out.
As she resumed her seat beside Kaden, her mother surprised her with a question. “How is Jace?”
“He’s still in a lot of pain, though most wouldn’t notice. But he is healing.” After a week since the confrontation with the General, Jace’s wounds were well on their way to closing up, thanks in part to his strong ryrik blood, but the pain in his ribs would still take more time to fade. Kyrin offered a grateful smile for her mother’s concern. “Thank you for asking.”
“You can sleep up here with me until we make better arrangements.” Kyrin led her mother up to her small loft bedroom, setting her pack next to the dresser. “Maybe we can make a quick trip back home soon for more of your things.”
She turned. It was a couple of hours after supper, and she’d sent her brothers off to their own quarters so their mother could get some rest. She’d slept very little on her cold journey from Mernin. Kyrin could still hardly believe she’d done it alone.
“You can have my bed.” A pang passed
through her middle at the modest offering, and she smoothed her fingers along her dress. Her mother had always lived in luxury, never wanting for anything. The General had seen to that. Their primitive camp living was nothing compared to it. After all, Lenae’s entire cabin wasn’t much larger than the dining room back home.
“Where will you sleep?” Her mother’s question broke Kyrin from her misgivings.
“I’ll just lay out some blankets on the floor.”
Her mother’s forehead scrunched. “No, I couldn’t make you do that.”
“Please,” Kyrin insisted gently. “I really don’t mind.”
She pulled out her dresser drawers and rearranged her things to make room. “You can put what you can in here. Trask can probably get another dresser from the village.”
“Thank you.” Her mother gave her a timid smile as they switched places. They’d traded these types of smiles all evening—genuine, yet reserved. A barrier still existed between them. Kyrin wanted to do her part to eliminate it, but uncertainty held her back. She just couldn’t find the right words.
In silence, she watched her mother unpack. She hadn’t fit much into the one bag she’d brought with her. When she neared the bottom, her mother pulled out a shirt and stopped. Kyrin took in the faded blue material, and a chokehold gripped her throat.
“Is that Father’s?”
Her mother looked at her. The candlelight shimmered in her moist eyes, and she nodded. “It was one of his favorites.”
She held it out, and Kyrin took it, sinking her fingers into the worn linen. It was warm from sitting near the fireplace—almost as if he’d just taken it off. Don’t cry. But to hold back was impossibly difficult. Images of her father flashed through her mind, and all her emotions boiled to the surface. Her eyes filled to the brim as she looked at her mother, and her lips trembled.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how I treated you. I was wrong.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I was scared and angry, but I’m so sorry. Forgive me?”