Next week, we’d harvest the crops like we always did, and then we’d prepare the fields for the next season. After that, we’d start working with the foals more, getting the best of them ready for the king and everyone else who’d purchased them.
We’d spend the winter training them. We’d weather the blizzards, tend the fires, and drink hot confections. We’d warm our frozen fingers, curse our frosted toes, and carry on.
Life would go on… without my mother… but would it continue here?
“Should we leave the manor behind now?” I asked.
Scarlet came to stand beside me, wrapped her arm around my waist, and rested her head on my shoulder. “Do you think that’s best?”
“I don’t know what’s best anymore.”
“I think we should stay,” Mr. Fletcher said.
I turned my head as he came to stand on my other side. He stuck the shovel’s head in the ground and placed his foot on it. Ruby and Billy stood on his other side.
Ruby had informed my Aunt Connie of her sister’s death, but she’d decided against attending the funeral. She hadn’t come for my father’s either. Despite that, I’d expected her to attend her sister’s.
They didn’t have the closest relationship, and it had been at least a decade since I last saw my aunt, but my mother had visited her every year for her birthday. When I was a child,Aunt Connie would also come to visit us; I never learned why those visits ended. She lived in one of the sea villages with her husband, who was a fisherman, and she remained there.
I had fond memories of my aunt but hadn’t spoken to her in years. Still, I wished she would have come for this.
“Why do you think we should stay?” I asked Mr. Fletcher.
“The aristocrats, including the duke, are going to bereallypreoccupied after everything that happened at the earl’s. They’re going to be focused on their homes and their servants for a while. I have no doubt they’ll eventually lash out on the rest of the realm, but that could be months from now.
“You have a plan to help the rest of the amsirah in Tempest, and now you have money to help set that plan in motion. You owe the king crops and horses. If you disappear, he’ll notice, and if you do so after the rebellion, he’ll suspect you and start hunting you. You’ll do more good as a free woman than a hunted one.”
I pondered his words, and while I agreed with him, I also worried. “What if they come for us before we can get away?”
“We’ve lived with that risk for months now, but right now, they have bigger things on their plate, and we have some time. We’re safe… for now.”
“I think you’re right.”
“What do we do about Callan?” Scarlet asked.
“I’m going to take him to the Veiled Rock to meet Luna… if she’s there,” I said. “After that, I’ll take him to Tucker’s encampment. He’ll be safe there.”
He was in the manor now, and while it wasn’t ideal, we could at least see if riders were coming from the hillside and get him out if necessary.
“I can’t believe he got himself mixed up in this,” Ruby said.
She’d pulled her dark red hair into its customary bun on top of her head. She was kind and loving but also no-nonsense. Shedidn’t tolerate fools, something she’d often told me and Scarlet over the years.
Despite that, I had an easier time calling her Ruby than I did calling Mr. Fletcher just Fletcher. Maybe it was the fact that, as Scarlet and I had aged, Ruby had taken on more of a friend role with my mother.
On the other hand, Mr. Fletcher had remained stoic in his fatherly role, but Ruby was the one who’d sat with my mother and told us about sex. We’d sat there and squirmed while they drank a lot of wine.
Ruby had joined my mother and me for drinks on our birthdays. She’d danced and sang with us as we made fools of ourselves around a bonfire.
And those weren’t the only times she came over for drinks, laughs, or to have a friendly discussion. As we’d aged, Scarlet and I would often find ourselves at my kitchen table with our mothers, talking about our days and laughing.
We’d also spent a lot of time worrying together during the Ghoul War and then crying together after my father died.
“I can,” Mr. Fletcher said. “He’s always been impulsive, and so was his sister.”
“All children are,” Ruby said with a pointed look at me and Scarlet.
Both of us shrank away from it a little. Scarlet’s parents had stopped being irate with us about our roles in the Hooded Robber stealings, but they still weren’t pleased.
