Chapter 12: The Strength of Leafs
Echoes of Dust and Blood
From the outside, Thornleaf Manor was pristine. A picture perfect monument to – not quite wealth, but – something great. It looked well-kept, and it was clear the city respected it.
By the reactions from the guards and their captain, I had expected something more extravagant. Fifteen levels, covering enough land to hold seven of Powell's Square. Something regal. What I got was far simpler. One level. Big enough to house probably eight people, but it'd be a stretch.
What made it particularly special, though, wasn't its size or any particularly elaborate adornments. The house simply had gravitas that I couldn't quite put a pin on. Everything about it – and the surrounding area, if I were honest – was simply more elegant than a girl from the second district could describe.
The thing that got to me above all else as we trekked through town, though, was how much attention we were pulling as we did so.
People whispered and stared even without someone calling out that I was, apparently, Lady Thornleaf. The guards and other officials stopped and saluted as we passed. I wasn't certain if it was for me or the guard captain at first, but eventually one of them had the boldness to kneel at me.
Kneel to me? Kneel for me? I didn't know, and I still don't, what the proper preposition would be for that particular phrase, but I didn't want anyone to be doing it, no matter if it was at, to, for, on, behind, or anything else.
When whoever it was made it to their knee, the guard captain paused our procession, and I really began to understand just how little I knew about my mother's family.
"Lady Thornleaf," the person said as they held the deferential position. "It is a joy and a treasure to have one of your house return to Blue Stone."
They didn't wait for my reply, opting to stand and retreat into the crowd that was slowly gathering.
With every new and awkward exchange, Jasmin pulled me closer, held my hand a bit tighter. She wanted to protect me. To help me hide. That's why we took different names. And now here we were with every pair of eyes the port district of Blue Stone could offer.
When we finally arrived at our destination, the guard captain turned to face me. She took in the crowd at a rapid glance and returned her gaze to my, I assume, shoulders.
"Lady Roisin Thornleaf," her words boomed. They weren't for me, but the crowd. Confirmation of their hushed speculations. I mentally noted she'd foregone Afina in favour of my presumed goddess name. "It is my honour to have delivered you safely to your family's home. If you need any assistance whatsoever, ask any of the city guard for Captain Rubra Aster Thornleaf." She paused for effect before continuing. "I swear no harm of any kind will come to you or your family."
"Thank you, Captain," I didn't bother to project my voice, speaking only for her and Jasmin. "I would love to have a chat with you at your leisure." That drew a smile to her lips.
Jasmin, Vanara, and I moved to the door of the house as the captain – Aster, I supposed – worked to disperse the crowd. The moment the door closed behind us, I wheeled on Jasmin, not quite angry, but certainly perturbed.
"By the goddesses around us, darling wife, you have an immense amount of explaining to do." Her expression wasn't contrite. It was almost playful. "Why in all of Lafleur are you smiling, princess?"
I thought that would be enough to shake her, but she seemed about to burst from joy. "First. I wasn't entirely certain they'd buy that you were a long lost Thornleaf. I had been holding my breath waiting for it all to collapse. Second. How was I to know you were a noblewoman? A highly respected one at that."
"You clearly knew something, little miss Liatris, because you were hinting at it all the way until we got to the gate." The use of her mother's family name was enough to shake her mirthful mood. I realised it was a step too far and backpedalled. "Sorry. I'm a bit shaken, and you didn't deserve that, darling."
"I did know something," she said, her lips trembling. "I knew we'd be safe here. No matter how they took your name. Because you have all the telltale signs of the Thornleafs who have protected this district since before it was even a district."
"Jasmin. I need you to be clear, concise, and complete with your answer." My words were stone. I needed the truth. My hands found a loose bit of her shirt, and I pulled her toward me. "What. Do. You Mean. By. That?"
She didn't meet my gaze, instead taking in the room. It wasn't an attempt at avoidance. She was looking for something to make a point. I could tell, somehow.
At length, she pointed past me at something. "Look!" Jasmin's expression went through several different emotions before settling on an odd hunger. "These paintings."
She dragged me easily to a wall where hung something like forty paintings in various stages of decay and fading. All of them women. All of them not too faded to see had similar deep brown hair and grey eyes until the last two. One of them wore a head covering, obscuring her hair, but her eyes shone like silver. The most recent one's eyes were brown.
Judging by their looks, most of them seemed to have been painted around the time the subjects were twenty. Except the one with the head covering. She had a timeless beauty about her that I couldn't place.
My mind raced as I took it all in, moving my eyes from one painting to the next. Each and every one of them was so similar. My stomach sank when I realised with a start that all of them looked like me. Any one of them could be a sister or a cousin.
Or my mother.
I marvelled at the gallery of family history for a long time. "That doesn't prove anything, Jasmin." My eyes barely managed to wrench themselves away from those two newest paintings long enough to scold her. "I look like the women in these paintings. Don't you think that might have been a risk?"
Her soft smile told me there was more. "It was a risk, my dear. One that I had to let you take. If you hadn't, they would have seen through any other lie you told."
"And why not that one? Hmm?" I glared at her as intensely as possible.
She pulled me close and whispered softly. "Because it's the only one that was true."
Jasmin moved closer, bringing her face closer than necessary. She paused for a moment, her breath stiff. Her lips met mine, and I was drawn into her again, almost a perfect reprise of the passion in our first kiss. She kept me in her thrall for much longer than was necessary to distract me, evidenced by the fact that I was unable to put together a few words, let alone another attack at her secret keeping.
When she pulled back, Jasmin suddenly looked serious. "Now. We need to rest. I'll get the horse to whatever passes for a stable at this 'manor'," her derisive tone dripped condescension, which she caught and quickly corrected. "Sorry. Old habits of nobility in the first district. It's a bit dusty, but this place at least feels like a real home and not just a place where people sleep and eat."
She left the house, leaving me to properly take everything in.
The foyer we stood in was almost the size of Delia's whole house, telling me the house looked deceptively small from the street. Every surface was either polished wood or stone of some sort. There were three hallways visible from my position, each of which seemed to loop back around to that space.
Directly by the door were two small tables with dusty vases on them. As I kept looking about, I had to admit that Jasmin's observation was correct: the place was covered in twenty years worth of unswept dust.
"Big house, Afina Roisin," Vanara's sudden words startled me.
"Indeed," my reply was stunted, but they didn't seem to notice. "Do you know anything about this place?"
"The world? The nation? The city? The house? The room?" Of course I wasn't getting anything out of them.
"Never mind, Va," they smiled at the shortened version of their name. "Have you remembered anything else? Flowers? People?"
"Afina built this house," they were looking around, wide-eyed. "With her own hands and the soulfire of her Lady."
Recognising a moment of lucidity, I acted quickly. "Soulfire? Sounds risky with all the wood around."
Vanara took my hand with a severe expression and placed the palm to my chest. "Soulfire. It makes us all one."
"You mean like cold-flame?"
"It may burn cold, yes." Unhelpful. "And it may burn hot. But in all forms, it creates change." Somewhat helpful.
"And you can build things with it?"
"With what?" I saw the light leave their eyes, and I knew they were back to their normal state. Vanara was ever the enigma. When I didn't answer, they sort of wandered off.
Following Vanara's lead, I began to explore, believing Jasmin would come find me when she was ready. Each hall did exactly as I presumed, running parallel to the foyer and rejoining it at its opposite end.
The hallway directly opposite the door led to a kitchen, a dining hall – not a room, but a space nearly as big as the foyer – and a well-furnished small room with a bed fit for two. I noticed that all three rooms had connecting doors, telling me this was likely a servant's quarters.
Returning to the foyer from the kitchen hallway, I turned to my right and explored that side of the house. Two grand bedrooms with equally grand closets. There were clothes in one room's closet for both men and women, but the other only had clothes for women. Between them, a washing room with a large basin for bathing. Attached to the basin were two levers, which caught my curiosity.
Throwing the levers, I was startled by a deep clunking sound that grew more and more rapid until spurts of dirty brown water began pouring from a spout between the levers. After a few moments, the water cleared, and steam rose from it. Terrified I'd broken something, I returned both levers to their previous positions and left the washing room to continue my exploration.
Across the foyer in the next hall were two more bedrooms and another washing room, equally as grand, but outfitted much differently than the first two. Their closets were full of children's clothes, all tailored for girls – a fact I didn't fully realise until I saw some outfits designed for young women in both closets.
As I re-entered the foyer, my attention was yet again captured by the paintings. This time, it wasn't their subjects that caught my eye, but their frames.
Each frame from the oldest to the newest had two small holes in it centred along the bottom frame board. Like small placards had been attached to them. It was curious, but I had very little time to consider it because I heard the door open and shut.
It wasn't Jasmin who entered, but the guard captain.
Sand and Blood
"Before we begin," the guard captain didn't smile as she delivered her opening, "I want to state unequivocally that you will not be in trouble no matter how you answer my question."
She stood by the door staring me down all the way across the foyer. Awkward as it was, I felt it necessary to cross the space close enough it wouldn't feel quite so disconnected. She didn't seem to mind either way.
"Before you ask," I spoke more confidently than I had earlier at the gate, "you should know that I may not be a great warrior, but my wife would have you skewered before you could say 'how dare you', so tread lightly."
The guard captain smiled openly at the threat. "Good. I would expect nothing less of a woman married to a Thornleaf."
She stepped over and extended her hand to me. It wasn't open like a standard greeting, but cupped slightly. When I didn't move to respond, she took my left arm by the elbow, pulled it forward, and set my forearm in her hand, indicating I should mimic the action. When both our hands held the forearm of the other, she moved up then back down with a solid jerk before releasing the hold.
"I knew you hadn't been raised around here, but I would have thought your mother would teach you properly," she shook her head, then smiled at me again. "I suppose I have yet one more thing to teach you, Roisin."
"Question," I raised a hand, to which she nodded. "Why do you call me Roisin instead of Afina?"
Her hand was impressively fast as it moved to cover her whole face. "You must have been raised by an outsider," she was simmering.
"My mother was taken." The words were flat, but the reaction they drew from the guard captain would've been well suited to a melodrama. "My father raised me. He's from deep phobward."
"Well, I don't know how they do things phobward of here, but members of the Thornleaf family inherit their given name from their mother. Our goddess name distinguishes us. You are Roisin. I am Aster. That is the way."
"Why does everyone in town treat me like royalty, Aster?" She smiled at my deliberate use of her name.
"Your father is a fool if he didn't teach you the histories, Afina Roisin Thornleaf." Her head hung low. "Well, I suppose it's good I came here to ask my question. You need much more instruction in the world than I thought."
"Oh! Right!" I had forgotten that she'd had a question of her own. A heat flushed my skin. "Apologies!"
"Pay it no mind. I was simply planning to ask. Are you the daughter of Omela Thornleaf? She left so long ago now." I could see a measure of nostalgia sweep across her face. "We used to cause such trouble here in The Stone."
I gasped. "You knew my mother?"
"I was worried that was the case," her expression went dark as she raked her hands through her sandy hair. "Omela and I were dear friends, Roisin. Were we not kin, I might have let her take me for a wife. She left because of me, you know. Which means she was taken from you because of me. And for that, Roisin, I am immensely sorry."
"Don't be. Had she not been taken," I placed a gentle hand on Aster's shoulder, "I might not be here now and instead following the footsteps she never took." Maybe it wasn't what she needed, but I offered her another peace offering. "Goddesses around us, she might have left even without you fussing over her."
"I didn't say I fussed," She met my gaze, again only for a second. "She was my favourite cousin," a mirthless smile crept into her face. "My only cousin. I was worried the Rubra Thornleafs might become the last house when she left." She let out a long sigh. "And it's looking like I'll be the last of us."
We stood in a companionable silence for a long moment. Both Aster and I had lost my mother in our own ways, even if I couldn't fully appreciate what they'd had together. More than that, if she was to be believed, we might've been the last two Thornleaf women – even if I wasn't technically a Thornleaf proper.
I was suddenly aware I still didn't know what might've happened to Delia.
"My mother had two daughters," the words poured out emptily, "but my sister was taken just like our parents."
Aster's grave expression said all I needed, but she said the words anyway. "Then you must assume her lost and live like the right and proper Thornleaf woman you are." Suddenly, her whole demeanour lightened. "If she returns, which is highly unlikely, then she will be proud of who you've become."
I tried to picture Delia, returned from whatever hells she endured as part of being taken in my place, proud of me. The image wouldn't materialise for all I could muster. Delia returning to call me a difficult truant whose only redeeming quality was a decent hand in the kitchen? Easy.
My heart ached at the thought. "I hope so, Aster."
Our conversation continued long enough for her to schedule times in the evenings to come and 're-educate' me in 'the ways of being a proper lady'. I grimaced at the thought. It was something I'd avoided desperately my entire life, and now it would be required for survival.
Aster left around the time it began to get too dark to properly function in the house, with still no sign of Jasmin. Worse than that, I could find no lamps or other light sources in any part of the place. And Vanara, who I knew could produce a cold-flame, was notably absent as well.
So I did what any rational person would do and carefully tripped, crawled, stumbled, and bumped my way to the servant's quarters, where I lay in the bed amidst the smells of dust and decay, alone for the first time since the larabrin attack just before the harvest festival.
Everything had changed. I'd gone from a lonesome, lonely lily to a socialite debutante in a little over a season. Home was a far journey from Blue Stone, and my heart ached for its absence. My travelling companions were a princess and an invalid. And I was suddenly a married noblewoman? Who could believe such drivel?
What was to be next? A war general?
My thoughts continued drifting for a long while, and sleep must have taken me at some point, because dreams came before Jasmin. They were the first ordinary dreams I'd had since meeting Vanara. If you can call dreaming that you are a prawn mouse ordinary, anyway.
Prawn Mouse Roisin was a good girl, never causing trouble for nobody. All she did was squeak, eat, and sleep. Her mother and father did what prawn mice do and raised her till she was old enough to scurry, then they left her to be her own prawn mouse. None of her siblings stuck around. They had very serious prawn mouse things to do, apparently. The last thing I recalled from the dream was that Prawn Mouse Roisin wanted only one thing in her very simple life, and that was love.
It was still terribly dark when I awoke. A gentle lullaby hummed behind me as a strong arm pulled me close. If I hadn't felt her cloth wrapped arms rubbing against my skin, I might have been worried I'd been accosted by a villain of some sort. Instead, I allowed myself to be pulled in and gently lulled into a soft and dreamless sleep.
Prawn Mouse Roisin would've been pleased.
A Truth In Silver
Morning arrived to the sound of Jasmin's stomach announcing loudly that we'd not eaten since our mid-sun meal on account of the scene we made at the town gate. She wasn't squirming just yet, even though her stomach insisted she should be.
It gave me time to prepare for whatever the sun would bring. Three deep breaths, sort of centring action, hoping for peace, begging for quiet, desperate for even an ounce of normalcy. I rolled to face Jasmin. Her arms were just loose enough for me to manage it without grunting or griping.
Jasmin's face embodied a perfect serenity. My heart warmed at the thought. She was finding peace, even while everything was getting too big for me to track.
I took a deep breath through my nose and noticed two things at once. The first was that the familiar scent of Queen's Heart on Jasmin was stronger than normal. It was intoxicating, or it would've been if not for the second thing. Jasmin didn't smell like long moons of travel and sleeping out-of-doors.
Well at least one of us managed to bathe last night.
Barely managing to wiggle free of Jasmin's grip, I left her to start my own sun early. We needed food – critically lacking from the kitchen's pantry, I noticed – I needed to get clean – had Jasmin bathed elsewhere? – and our sun needed to bring me answers.
I began by returning to the site of my defeat in the washing room and found – laid out as though she'd expected this – a towel, a robe, several small soap bars, shears, a hand mirror, and a small note.
I promise, my love, that the running water works as expected. Throw the lever on the left for hot water, the one on the right for cool. Your clothes need washing, so I gathered an outfit that seemed about your size from one of the bedrooms. Bathe, cut your hair, get dressed, and come back to bed.
Jas.
Beneath the towel and robe, I found what appeared to be men's clothes and women's undergarments neatly folded and awaiting me. If I hadn't been utterly flattered by the entirety of the gesture, I might have been irritated that she had known I would struggle – planned for it, even.
Hesitantly, I threw the lever for hot water, and to my shock it flowed free and clear immediately, steaming as though poured directly from the kettle. Raising the second lever, I set to removing my clothes. The effort of removing each piece was a loud echo of Jasmin's observation: all of our clothes needed laundering. Badly.
As I finally managed to unstick my shirt from my torso, and eventually my arms, I grimaced at the thought I'd tried to come onto Jasmin in this state.
My pants seemed to scratch at my legs all the way down, bringing my attention to one of the scars I had long since forgotten. I got it when I was only six. My first encounter with glass. And a disastrous one at that. The danger enhanced by the fact that, yet again, my father had left me alone. No one seemed to know how I survived the injury that left my right leg stitched together with scar tissue from hip to ankle.
It was her, of course. The blue-haired warrior. Whoever she was.
Once my clothes were fully removed, I tossed them across the room and stepped into the still filling wash basin. The water wasn't what I would call dangerously hot, but neither was it pleasant. It was almost enough to put me back to sleep.
As the water rose to full, I took one of the soaps and began obsessively scrubbing the muck and salt from my skin, darkening the water almost more quickly than it could flow into the basin. I adjusted the levers a bit, and the rate of draining seemed to level with the filling, helping to clean the mud from it all.
The soap smelled heavenly, not like Jasmin and Queen's Heart, but like something else I couldn't quite place. Something floral. Peaceful.
When at last my body and hair were properly cleaned, I realised I still had to manage my hair. Hesitation stayed my hand as I reached for the mirror. It wouldn't change anything, really, to see that my eyes had changed. I'd simply be learning a new detail about myself.
'You're a noblewoman's daughter', 'you're a fugitive accused of murder', 'your eyes, which you've always known were brown, are actually brilliant silver'.
My breath hitched as my fingers finally touched the mirror's handle. Did I really need to cut my hair? I could let it grow out, tie it back, look the distinguished —
No. I couldn't do that.
The mirror and shears both in my hand, I brought them to the edge of the basin, still not quite ready for what awaited me. It was fine. There wasn't anything to be afraid of. They were just eyes.
Silver. Almost radiant eyes. Bright as the moon on a cloudless night. Sparkling with all the brilliance of Deim and Phob.
The mirror and shears dropped into the basin as I saw my reflection. It was true. They weren't brown, but intensely, beautifully, captivatingly silver. And yet, they were mine. A fact I couldn't reconcile with anything I knew of the world. They shone brightly enough they might be visible in pitch darkness.
I recovered the mirror and shears hesitantly and set in to the task at hand. My stomach turned with each glance at my reflection. How could something like that even happen?
At the last, I finished cutting my hair and took a final opportunity to rinse myself properly before getting thoroughly wrapped in the robe Jasmin had set out.
The water and last of my hair circled the basin's drain, and a small fleck of something blue caught my eye, but it was gone before I had a chance to examine it.
The sunlight coming through the washing room's window told me I still had time before Jasmin would be waking. Rather than following her request to the letter, I decided it would be nice to surprise her with breakfast.