Chapter Two – Part 2 – Rhayd’s Arm
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Trying to draw the conversation away from her, away from Kintere, away from this whole damned ship. Hauling herself up, hissing softly between her teeth at the pain in her ribs. Trying to find some common ground.
Rhayd wrung his hands, pressing right thumb to left palm in a massaging motion. “When my family was leaving Keen Rimmor, I was about… Two seasons old. A wall fell on me, last one standing in my parents’ estate. Killed my mother, who was carrying me. Broke my shoulder in a dozen places. It’s never been as strong as my right arm. Never will be, either.”
“I don’t remember my mother…” She didn’t even know her name. “My wrist was broken when I was small…Well, I was a clumsy child…But then, I’m sorry for the pain it must cause you. That arm.”
Rhayd visibly worked up a half dozen responses. It’s nothing. Never mind. This doesn’t make us the same. But none of them seemed to fit, so he settled for a simple “Thanks,” instead, as lame as it sounds. “I don’t hate you, you know. That wouldn’t make any sense; I don’t even know you. I just get so frustrated with Kintere sometimes, and I don’t want to see him dive off into tribal life again. It was bad for him, Porphigaul made it bad for him. In a way I’m glad we’re all getting away from Penance. I think we all need it very badly.”
“I’ve got an unguent for pain and swelling in my bags if you’d like me to fetch it for your arm.” Watching him with her large shadowed eyes, set so fey in her ethereal face – no wonder Auss had trouble claiming her, she looked so alien to the peninsula folks. Shivering in her skin, she wrapped her cloak tighter around her body – the thing threadbare like most of her clothing. “You shouldn’t worry about Kintere and I, there will never be anything in it…I’m not in the market for anything. Besides, I am not the girl he thinks and he doesn’t love anything but his idea of what I could be, he wants to save me and I’m saving myself.”
In later hours she’d curse herself for being so open with this pompous prig of a noble, a man who’d scorned her, cursed her and watched her like she was dirt under his heel. For now though, it was a chance just to talk – to be heard “I don’t care if you hate me, if you loathe my face and curse my body – you’d not be the first, nor the last I’m sure. But you’re right, I’m glad I’m leaving, the only other way out of here was in a wooden box. Now I’m gone, I’m never, ever, ever, going back – I’d die first.”
“Vehement denial is a powerful force,” Rhayd muttered, shying a glance at Mireya with a rueful smile. “All going well at Jinda, we may be field mages or even Regulators someday. Don’t be surprised if you’re stuck going back to Ckuien Penance eventually. Just as I’m likely to see Keen Rimmor, despite my family’s reputation there. There are some things we just can’t avoid, much as we’d like to.”
Even as he pained to glance at her, the girl faced away from him, eyes distant and out to the dark seas – watching the stars cast desiccated reflections that dimple at the waves catch.
The young noble grunted, closing his eyes and lowering his head.
“Such as our reliance on others. Yes. I think I’d appreciate that salve, thank you. Stiff and useless is a bad combination for travel.”
“There isn’t just a place though is it, ‘there’ is an emotion, a place in time and the person we were then.” She found she was reminding herself that she didn’t like him, that he wasn’t her friend.
Reminding herself, as his eyes closed and his head dropped, that she didn’t care for another that was suffering, even as she watched his closed expression and the way the wind buffeted his hair and cloak.
“Reliance isn’t the same as dependence, Sire.” A mark of respect, no different than she gave to any patron of her Grandfather’s inn.
“No titles,” the young noble corrects, narrowing his eyes slightly as he watches his erstwhile companion stand and turn away. “When we were in Rimmor, father was Duke Khalenn. Now, he’s just a mercer. And I am even less.”
“The salve isn’t anything like you’re used I’d believe, it was a…” Fighting for the word “…Tip, I suppose, from one of the…” She shouldn’t have even started to speak, cheeks stained prominent pink, usually she’d be able to say all manner of things without such a silly colour rising, but she was rapidly learning the true tally of her shame.
“I’ll fetch it.” Turning away suddenly to hide her embarrassment, to cover the unexpected sheen of tears, Mireya folded her arms close in a defensive posture, stooped a little.
A sigh kept her still, rather than running to the safe hole of the cabin, such a soft sound. There was no violent reaction, no reaching for her, no pawing hands or raised voices. Controlling her emotions in that pause, forcing them back into the iron-clad chest they’ve been designated too.
“Penance wasn’t been the first place my family settled after Keen Rimmor,” Rhayd offered in a seeming non-sequitur. “After we left Keen, we tried to settle in Absolution. There was no place for a displaced Duke there. So we continued North. Rhayd and I weren’t even walking yet – it was just my parents and my elder brother. Mother told me they spent ten years on the run before settling in Penance. And even then, all father had left was one small chest. He set himself up as a mercer, managed to scrape up a few contacts. It wasn’t until brother came of age that the business took flight. He and Porphigaul and Auss made my family prosperous again. Rhayd and I remember nothing else. Mother was content. And father drank himself to death.”
There’s a pause, the young man lost in history, staring across the mirror smooth water, the storm having passed far enough away that it’s influence was on memory only.
“Sometimes moving on is the best thing. We’re lucky to be doing so now. It’s necessary for all three of us. But sometimes staying on the move is even worse. And it’s often hard to tell the difference.”
The story, his voice so lovingly buffeted her way by the wind, giving her time to re-gather her composure, the winding tale he seemed to be speaking to himself drawing her back to his side until she’s looking out at the same waves he is, watching the receding storm even though she hears the same distant thunder in his voice. In the pause between the shock of his admittance about his father and the hope of the future her fingers grip the rail just a little tighter.
When she finally turned her face to him with the aurora of her hair wild from the storm framing eyes that seem to glow with the memory of tears, there’s a small rare, almost there, smile on her lips. The beautiful bow like a flower on the most winter of days.
“Thank you for sharing…” For sharing the advice, his story, the evening, the journey, she didn’t clarify.
Leaning to touch her lips to his cheek in an unexpected gesture, before leaning back down and turning towards her cabin “I don’t think I ever realized that I’m not all alone, we all are, in so many different ways….” Again she trailed off, giving him a searching look over her shoulder. “Unexpected.” Before moving off, swaying hips and flowing hair, only the slightest limp in her step.
The young noble stayed pressed to the rails for a moment after Mireya’s sweet gesture, uncertain what to think. She wasn’t at all what he expected. Then again, he wasn’t exactly as he’d like either.
“Any time,” he whispered to no one, glaring at the portal to below decks with almost feverish confusion. What was he missing? Before she had gone three years ago, Rhayd had told him to watch out for someone, but she hadn’t been certain who. Someone close, she had said. Someone he would come to care for. At the time he had thought it to be Kintere – the bumbling oaf he found himself custodian over. It had fit for a while, with the two of them relying on no others but themselves. But now, their ship dancing over the waves toward Jinda, Rhayd wasn’t so sure.
Could it be Mireya? Rhayd couldn’t fathom that – the details of his sister’s prophecy suggested defined masculine energy. But then again…
No. No, Mireya didn’t fit. He was worried about her. He’d have to watch her closely. But for now, he’d have to find some way to put himself to sleep.
He recalled a large bottle of wine hiding in the bottom of his locker in his cabin, and for once the world began to look like a better place.