Ethenn hardly looked up from his work, his hands preoccupied with skinning the last of the rabbits. “What would you like to know?” he asked, sounding neither forthcoming nor perturbed.
Ilain smirked. This was the same Ethenn who sat across from her beneath the willow two nights ago: reserved and guarded but smart enough to know he couldn’t completely ignore the questions in front of him.Why is he so closed off?she wondered.What has caused him to cling this tightly to self-preservation?
Ilain knew why she protected her innermost self. She hid her truest values so others couldn’t exploit or take them from her. But what caused Ethenn to defend his secrets so fiercely?
“Well,” Vayden began, “you’re a soldier now, but I know that’s a recent development. What were you before?”
“I was a hunter,” Ethenn said flatly. “But when I wasn’t in the woods, I also worked in my uncle’s smithy to pick up the slack.”
“Sounds like you were busy.”
“I was.”
“And where did you live?”
“A small town in Estshire,” he explained. “I believe we’ll pass by on our way to the Terrae Keep.”
Ilain perked up. “We will? Does that mean I’ll get to see your hometown?”
Ethenn shrugged. “I’m not sure if we’ll actually ride through Trollenston, but perhaps. Though it isn’t much to see.”
“Does your family still live there?” Vayden asked, and Ilain tried not to flinch. It was clear by Ethenn’s avoidance of her own questions about his family that there was something damning he didn’t want to say.
Ethenn’s jaw tightened, but he replied, “Some.”
“Do you have any siblings?” Vayden asked, either unaware of Ethenn’s discomfort or not caring to acknowledge it.
With a final flick of his knife, Ethenn ripped the hide from the rabbit’s muscle. He deftly slit it from neck to bottom and began to flay it from the bone. “A sister,” he said.
Ilain blinked in surprise.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Auden said.
Ethenn shrugged. “It never came up, I suppose.”
Vayden smiled brightly. “Older or younger? No, let me guess.” He held up a hand, considering. “You’ve got a protective ‘weight-of-the-world’ sort of manner. The kind that demands you take care of those you love, even to your own detriment. You’re the eldest, aren’t you?”
Ethenn made his final slits to deconstruct the mammal, then handed it over to Ilain for seasoning. “Yes,” he said without emotion, then stood. “Excuse me, I need to wash up.”
And with that, Ethenn walked away.
Ilain and her brothers watched him thoughtfully.
“Is he usually so withholding?” Vayden asked quietly.
Ilain turned back to him with a pointed stare.
“I’m just curious, Lainy,” Vayden said. “He’s your betrothed, which makes him my brother. It makes him family. Yet, neither Auden nor you knew he had a sister?”
“Like he said,” Ilain replied, shaking the jar of spices over the fillets of deep pink meat. “It never came up.”
Auden nodded. “We don’t exactly sit around telling childhood stories.”
“And Ethenn is reserved,” Ilain added. “He doesn’t tell you things if you don’t specifically ask about them.”
“I know you, Lain,” Vayden said. “Family is important to you. You asked, and he lied.”
“He didn’t lie,” she said. “He simply didn’t tell the full truth.”
