Ether, Ch. 27

Ether, Ch. 27

Saia smiled. “So, you realize it at last.”

“But how. . .” fumbled Myk, completely at a loss. How could her father possibly be the Thaidlord? When had her mother even had a chance to meet him, let alone anything else?

Keir laughed, seeing her thoughts on her face. “Did she ever tell you about the time she tried to rob the palace?”

“Not really,” said Myk, puzzled. “I heard most of the story from other people. She usually liked to talk about her thefts, but not that one. I just assumed it was embarrassing for her. . .after all, she almost got caught.”

“She was caught,” Keir corrected. “I’d magically guarded all of my possessions so that I would be alerted in the event of an intruder. I came into the room just as she was going out the window.” He smiled at the memory. “I didn’t bother calling for the Guard. A slim, light woman, about half my size. . .I was sure I could handle it.”

Myk grinned, remembering her mother’s lessons. “Speed and stealth win over brute strength every time, Myk. Remember that,” she had coached as she was teaching Myk to fight. She eyed Keir, sizing him up. A big bear of a man, but Jianna still could have taken him without too much trouble.

He grinned ruefully. “The instant I grabbed her, I knew I was in trouble. She flipped me like I was nothing, then knelt over me with her knife at my throat, her eyes fixed on mine.

““One sound,” she told me, “one sound, and you’re dead.” But I wasn’t afraid: the instant our eyes locked, I knew she wouldn’t kill me. She had far too much style for that. I’d heard the stories of the famous Black Rose, and she’d never killed anyone, not in a single one of them.

“But I still didn’t want to call for the Guard. She was intriguing, and the thought of her moldering away in some dungeon upset me, for some reason. So I just shook my head, and in the next instant she was gone, climbing down the balcony railings, not minding that she was fifty feet above the ground. . .as surefooted as a monkey in a tree.”

Myk chuckled. It wasn’t the image she would have chosen. . .Jianna had always seemed more like a panther or some big jungle cat to her, but remembering her mother’s quick way of scrambling up walls, her love of heights. . .it fit, somehow.

“I knew I’d probably never see her again, but she fascinated me,” Keir went on. “She seemed to embody everything that I wasn’t: daring, courageous, strong-willed. My father had died when I was very young, so my uncle had ruled as regent until I came of age. He was a good man and a good Thaidlord, but the consequence was that I never really learned my own mind.” He leaned back, propping himself up with his elbows. “Jianna taught me that.”

“But if you never saw her again-” Myk began.
“I didn’t say that,” Keir pointed out, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. “I said I thought I wouldn’t. Then, with all the idiocy of a young man--I was about twenty-five at the time--I decided that I had to see her again. It was more than just infatuation with her beauty or grace or intelligence, although she had all those in abundance. I had caught a glimpse of something behind those implacable green eyes, something far more human than any of the stories had talked of. That’s the downside to tales, you know: you don’t see the humanity of the people involved, just what they did, and how they did it. Very rarely do you see why. With Jianna,” he continued, “I wanted to know why.”

“So, one night, I snuck out of the palace and down to the Old City.” He laughed. “I lacked a great deal of common sense, back then. I was set upon as soon as I got within the borders. Some rough gang of cutthroats, not thieves. I don’t know if they knew who I was. . .if they would have, I doubt it would have mattered to them. All they cared about was the fact that I was rich. . .for I had foolishly gone off in my normal clothes, not bothering with any kind of disguise.” He chuckled. “More lack of common sense. I think they would have killed me. They were certainly hitting me as if they intended to. I blacked out. . .and when I woke up, the thugs were all scattered around the alley, in various states of injury, and the Black Rose was bending over me.

“After informing me just how stupid I was and how lucky I was to be alive, with which I agreed wholeheartedly, she took me back to her house. It was hardly what I was expecting: a thief that talented, I was expecting a brick townhome or at least a house in one of the more prosperous districts. But no, what she led me back to was a squat sandstone building just a stone’s throw away from the slums. Her riches weren’t displayed inside the house, either. Just basic furniture, although it was all good quality.

““You seem surprised,” she observed, as she patched me up. “What did you expect?”

““I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “Just something more. . .elegant, for the Black Rose. . .you are the Black Rose, aren’t you?”

““I am Jianna,” she told me. Just as I was about to apologize for the mistake, she added, “Jianna, the Black Rose of Thaid.”

“We talked for a little while longer. Her viewpoint was refreshing. She wasn’t trying to impress me—indeed, if anything, it was the other way around—or wring any favors or rewards. For a thief, her lack of greed was surprising.

“When the sky was finally lightening, I reluctantly headed back to the palace. Before I left, I asked her if I could visit her again.

““Of course,” she said, amused, “as long as you don’t get yourself killed on the way.”

“The months that followed, I went to see her at least twice a week, sometimes more. She never once asked if I was setting a trap to catch her, although I know she was suspicious, at first.”

Myk heard a slight rustle from Keir’s other side: Saia had sat down as well, leaning against a cornstalk. Given the state of the corn, it might have been a risky move, if she hadn’t been a goddess. Strange company I’m keeping, she thought in amusement. The Goddess of Death and my father the Thaidlord.

“I’m not quite sure why I kept going back,” Keir went on, “except that I liked her. She was so different from anyone else I’d ever met, and she was so unpretentious, in spite of her fame. She was never the Black Rose when she was with me. . .just Jianna. And she let me just be Keir, which no one else had ever done. Most people saw me as the Thaidlord and left it at that. Some ignored it, some took advantage of it, some envied it, but no one had ever forgotten it. Until Jianna.

“It was about a year after we met that I realized I was in love with her. The knowledge was so alien to me that I simply fell silent in the middle of our conversation, staring at her. I’d never felt that way about anyone before. My previous marriage--with Serinnity’s mother--had been an arranged marriage, a political alliance. And then she died having Serinnity, scarcely two years later. So my experience with this sort of thing was rather nonexistent.

“Jianna noticed my strange expression and asked me what was wrong. I had intended to pass it off as nothing, manufacture some excuse. A simple “Sorry, I just got distracted for a minute” would have sufficed, but what came out of my mouth was “I love you.”

“She gave me one of those inscrutable looks that she was so good at, obviously trying to decide if I was serious, then said, very calmly, “You are either very brave, or very foolish, Keir. Are you not afraid of what I will say?”

“I sighed, assuming that she meant she wasn’t interested in me that way, and said, “It wouldn’t change how I feel, so please be honest. If you don’t feel the same way, I’ll try my best to simply regard you as a friend.”

“She turned to the fire, her hair glimmering in the orange light. “Very brave,” I heard her murmur. She tossed another stick on the crackling flames and turned back to me. I was shocked to see a tear rolling down her cheek.

““Jianna, I’m so sorry,” I exclaimed. “If what I’ve said upsets you, please forget all about it.”

““What?” she asked, frowning quizzically, then she reached up and touched her cheek. “Oh, would you look at that,” she said, sounding as stunned as I was.

“The next thing I knew, she’d abandoned her spot by the fire and was hugging me tightly. “Never think that anything you do could upset me,” she said fiercely. “Never. No one has ever said those words to me, until you.”

““Not even your parents?” I asked, pulling her close. She was silent a long time, then started telling me her story. She had a horrific childhood, Myk. Her father was an angry, violent man, made worse by too many nights at the tavern. She used to pray that he’d come home drunk, so that his aim wouldn’t be as good. He killed her mother--his own wife--right before her eyes. She was six years old,” he added quietly.

Myk drew a sharp breath, appalled. Jianna had never told her any of this. She tried to imagine a six-year-old Jianna and found that she couldn’t. The Black Rose had always seemed to be someone infallible, untouched by any sort of tragedy. Had all her laughter and mischievous smiles just been to put up a front?

You couldn’t forget something like that, no matter how hard you tried. You could maybe bury it, far down enough so that you could ignore it for awhile, but it would haunt your dreams. How could it not? Suddenly, the nightmares that Jianna had used to have once in awhile made sense to Myk. It had been a wonder she hadn’t had them every single night.

“He used to cut notches into her arms, for everything that she did ‘wrong’, or just when he was in a bad mood. When she was ten, she’d finally had enough and ran away to the street. Those first few years were hard for her. . .theft was a matter of survival. She had no street gang, no friends to help her find food when her own skill failed her. She couldn’t trust anyone, because she had, several times, and they’d all betrayed her. She had no one, and nothing, to call her own.

“After a few years, she’d managed to get good enough so that she could reliably steal enough to trade for food, but she had set her sights higher than that by then. She wanted to make sure that she’d never be desperate again. So she kept going, improving, and the rumors started to spread. She made up the name Black Rose so that her father could never find her, but it turned into something more than that. . .almost a mythic secret identity. And she finally was the best thief in Thaid.

“She told me all this then, looking as if she feared I’d push her away. Then she said, challengingly, “Are you ashamed?”

““Yes,” I told her. “I never knew how easy I’d had it before. While I was. . .you had to go through. . .I’m so sorry, Jianna.”

“She smiled ruefully. “That’s not what I meant,” she told me. “Are you ashamed that you love someone as weak as I?”

“I had no idea what she meant,” Keir said, shaking his head in astonishment. Myk smiled slightly. . .it was something Jianna would say. She had always been convinced that she wasn’t good enough.

““What do you mean?” I asked her, stunned. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, having to go through all that, and still survive.”

“Then she said something I’ll never forget. “I survived because I was afraid of the alternative,” she told me. “And even know, when I know my own heart and my own path, I am still not brave enough to say the words.”

““What words?” I asked.

“She laughed. “The words that will agree with what you said earlier,” she told me. “For I do agree. Keir, I. . .you are not just a friend.

“The three years that followed were like a dream. I came to see her as often as I could, and sometimes she would even come to the palace to see me.”

“Did she ever say she loved you?” Myk interrupted.

“Many times, after the first few months. The first time she said it, she looked up at me and said, “There. Now I have followed my path, and I am not ashamed.”

“And then, Myk. . .you were born.”

“Why did she leave?” Myk burst out. “She never told me about you.” Why had her mother robbed her of her father all these years?

“She felt that Serinnity was becoming increasingly unstable, and that she wouldn’t be able to tolerate a rival, however imagined the rivalry was. She was having a hard enough time dealing with Jianna. So she pretended to Serinnity and the rest of the few people who knew of us that she had left me, after the child was stillborn. She went back to her home in the Old City to raise you. She did come back secretly, to meet me once a month at the palace.”

“But why didn’t she tell me?” Myk exclaimed.

“Who your father was? She thought that the knowledge would put you in danger. Given what Serinnity became, she was probably right. She set a shielding spell on you, set to expire three days before your fifteenth birthday. She was going to tell you then, but. . .” Keir sighed.

“She’s dead, you know,” Myk told him softly.

“I know,” he murmured. “Saia told me, before she was trapped. At least I’ll go to join her now, but I’ll wish I’d gotten to know you better. My daughter, my Mykaira.” He leaned over and touched Myk’s cheek, then stood. “We’re free to go now?” he asked Saia.

“Are you ready, Keir?” she asked.

He smiled ruefully. “I’ve been ready for the past five years.”

“Wait!” Myk scrambled to her feet, a lump growing in her throat. Wordlessly, she flung her arms around her father and hugged him.

He held her for a moment, then stepped back. “You’re crying,” he told her.

Myk brushed a hand across her cheek, startled to feel moisture. “Oh, would you look at that,” she murmured.

Gray eyes met gray eyes, both pairs slightly misty. Dawn had come while they were talking, and the sky was brightening from black to a dull gray.

“I love you, Myk,” her father told her.

She sniffled. “I love you, too. . .Father.”

They hugged once more, then Keir pulled away and walked over to Saia’s side.

“I put a new portal right there,” Saia told Myk, pointing across the field. Squinting, Myk could make out a dancing blue circle, hovering in midair. “It’ll close up as soon as you go through it, so no return trips.”

Myk laughed. “I think I’ve had enough of Earthworld to last a lifetime.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Saia, her eyes twinkling. “We’ll meet again, Mykaira Ashfall Zephyr. . .but not too soon, I hope.”

“Goodbye, Myk,” Keir said quietly. “Follow your own path. Maybe it’ll lead to the Thaidlord’s position, maybe not. Whatever happens, I’m proud of you. . .and so is your mother.”

Myk wiped her streaming eyes and waved. Half crying, half laughing, she watched as Saia and Keir faded into the early morning mist.