“She’s over this way.”
A woman with sun-worn wrinkles guided us through knee-high grass on a trail that meandered away from the farmhouse. I stared at the braids that neatly circled the back of the woman’s head as I absorbed the certainty. Her eyes had given me my answer. I knew as soon as I asked, “Where is my mother?” She had looked down, confirming what I had always known. Jase walked beside me. He was quiet, unsettled by the truth even though he never knew my mother.
On a bluff that overlooked the valley far below, the woman stopped at a large, flat white stone.
Jase looked down at the plain marker. “This is it?” She nodded.
“How long ago did it happen?” I asked.
“Years ago. Before I came.” She estimated that it had been about ten years, not long after my mother had arrived. The old cook had told her the story and made her promise to keep the grave marked.
“How did she die?”
“A brief illness, but the old cook said it was really a broken heart that took her. She knew the girl was fiercely unhappy, but she didn’t speak the tongue of the land and no one on the farm spoke hers. She had fits of tears and rage. It wasn’t until years later, after the girl had died, that the cook learned the king had procured his new wife from a Previzi driver.”
“New wife?” Jase said.
“That’s why she was brought here. The old king was an awkward, quiet man, but he wanted more sons. He believed a farmer needed sons. His wife had died, and he was disappointed with the son he had.”
She told us that the younger Montegue had no interest in farming and had never even set foot on the highlands farm in all the years she had
worked there.
“Did he know what his father had done?” Jase asked.
She shook her head. “I think it was intended to remain a discreet arrangement until another heir was produced, but that never happened.”
That was why Zane had chosen my mother. He knew she already had one child and could likely have more.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the woman said and looked down at the stone. “I know it’s plain. Would you like me to mark it with her name? We have some dye we use to mark the sheep.”
I nodded. “I’ll do it.” She left to get a paint pot and brush. Jase left with her, saying he would give me some time alone.
I looked down at the mound of earth and plain stone. I never got to say good-bye. I never wept for her loss. Even if my gut said she was dead, I never knew for sure. Without facts, there was always doubt. Wondering. What if?
It was settled now.
I turned and looked out over the valley, the view from her final resting place. It was beautiful. Something she would have liked.
“But you never rested, did you, Mama?” I whispered to the wind.
I knelt beside the grave and brushed my palm over the small mound. She had fits of tears and rage. “It was you, wasn’t it? Not letting go.” I spoke as if she could hear me, because I was certain she could. “Did you make a bargain with Death? Rage against him? Twist his arm? Make him watch over me? Make him push me to stay alive?”
As much agony as I had suffered, how much more had she endured? Her life had been about protecting me, and then suddenly she couldn’t.
I picked some of the tall prairie grass and began weaving it together the way she had taught me.
Like this, Kazi, one strand over another. She leaned over me.
Let’s weave a wish stalk in too.
Do wishes really come true, Mama? Of course they do.
Make a wish now, Kazi, one for tomorrow, the next day, and the next.
One will always come true.
I tied off the grass, shaping it into a crown, and laid it on her grave. “I wish you rest, Mama.”
When Jase came back with the brush and dye, I marked her gravestone.
Mama My chiadrah My beloved
 |
It would be months before the temple was rebuilt. But Vairlyn insisted on another ceremony, just as Jase had said she would. Not because a Vendan ceremony wasn’t good enough, but because a celebration was due.
We had a ribbon.
We had a priest.
We had a town full of witnesses.
Even with all the rubble around us and a ceiling of sky, the temple altar still stood.
The priest had finished his part. Now it was our turn. “You remember the words?” I asked.
“Every single one.”
“You aren’t going to go getting all choked up again, are you?” Jase smiled. “Nah. I’m experienced at this now.”
But as he began wrapping the ribbon around my wrist and helping me tie it off, he swallowed hard, and when he began speaking, his voice broke just as it had the first time. I squeezed his hand. “We’ve got this, Patrei,” I whispered. “And remember, we have a hundred more times to go.”
He nodded and leaned forward to kiss me, but Wren’s hand darted out and swatted him away. “That comes after,” she scolded. Our other witnesses who stood beside us, Synové and the entire Ballenger clan, rumbled agreement.
Jase’s eyes locked onto mine and he began again.
“Kazi of Brightmist … you are the love I didn’t know I needed.
You are the hand pulling me through the wilderness, The sun warming my face.
You make me stronger, smarter, wiser.
You are the compass that makes me a better man. With you by my side, no challenge will be too great.
I vow to honor you, Kazi, and do all I can to be worthy of your love.
I will never stumble in my devotion to you, and I vow to keep you safe always.
My family is now your family, and your family, mine. You have not stolen my heart, but I give it freely,
And in the presence of these witnesses, I take you to be my wife.”
He squeezed my hand. His brown eyes danced, just as they had the first time he spoke his vows to me. It was my turn now. I took a deep breath. Were any words enough? But I said the ones closest to my heart, the ones I had said in the wilderness and repeated almost daily when I lay in a dark cell, uncertain where he was but needing to believe I would see him again.
“I love you, Jase Ballenger, and I will for all of my days. You have brought me fullness where there was only hunger,
You have given me a universe of stars and stories, Where there was emptiness.
You’ve unlocked a part of me I was afraid to believe in, And made the magic of wish stalks come true.
I vow to care for you, to protect you and everything that is yours.
Your home is now my home, your family, my family. I will stand by you as a partner in all things.
With you by my side, I will never lack for joy.
I know life is full of twists and turns, and sometimes loss, but whatever paths we go down, I want every step to be with
you.
I want to grow old with you, Jase. Every one of my tomorrows is yours, And in the presence of these witnesses, I take you to be my husband.”
We turned, lifting our hands to the sky, the ribbon fluttering between us in the wind, our gazes meeting the cheers of witnesses. Synové sniffled, dabbing her eyes, and Lydia and Nash beamed beside Vairlyn. The rest of the Ballenger brood, including Paxton, clapped even as they conspired, exchanging whispers with one another, probably planning to dunk Jase in the plaza fountain, which I heard was a Hell’s Mouth tradition. We clearly wouldn’t be slipping into a quiet ruin of our own anytime soon. At least life with a large family would never be dull.
We looked out at the other witnesses who stood beyond the broken walls of the temple, still cheering, needing this celebration just as Vairlyn had said. I saw the butcher, the chandler, Beata, and Imara. And then I saw two other witnesses skirting the edge of the crowd, watching, witnesses I was sure no one else could see. The taller one pointed his bony finger at me and said, Not yet. Not today. He turned to the woman whose arm circled his. She wore a crown woven of prairie grass. She smiled, her own last good-bye. I memorized her face, the lines fanning from her amber eyes, her thick lashes, the warmth of her skin, the ease in her expression, rest, but mostly what I saw in her face was love. She nodded, and they both turned and were gone.
Good-bye, Mama. Good-bye.
The celebration continued with mountains of feastcake, just as Jase had promised. Everyone brought some, all of them different, with their own taste surprises, none quite like Vendan feastcake, but maybe that made it
better. We celebrated in a hundred different ways. And when the last cake was eaten and the last jig was danced, we each picked up a fallen stone and together began the work of rebuilding.
Me pile rocks where my grandfather died. His bones are long gone, maybe carried away by a beast. But this is where he pressed the map into my hands and drew his last breath.
Tor’s Watch. It is up to you now. Protect them.
So far I have kept my promise to him.
I stand back and look at the memorial. We will make sure it always stands.
When Fujiko says a prayer to honor my grandfather and his last act as commander—giving up his life to save ours— Emi tries to repeat the prayer but cannot say the long word president, and twists it into something else. She squeezes my hand and says it again. Miandre nods approval, and thereafter, as leader of Tor’s Watch, I am known as Patrei.
