Giving Eira one more hug and waving at everyone else, Arin held on to the straps of her pack and ran toward home. “Mama! Daddy!”
The door flew open. “My baby!”
“Mama!” Arin plowed into her and threw her arms around her mother.
Laughing, Mama hugged her back just as hard. “You’re here! It’s really you! Daleina sent word, but I didn’t think you’d be here so quickly. Come in, come in.” She bustled them inside.
Wait, Arin wanted to say.How did Daleina know to send word? I snuck away—
But then she saw Daddy standing by the sink, a dish in one hand and a cloth in the other, and all thoughts left her mind. He beamed at her, and Arin ran into his arms. “I missed you so much!” Arin cried.
Behind her, Mama was saying, “Champion Ven, welcome again to our home.” She heard him murmur thanks and introduce Caretaker Neena. Her mother greeted her warmly, inquiring about her journey, offering their hospitality.
Patting Arin’s hair, Daddy said, “Sweet pea, you have no idea how happy we are to see you. The house has felt so empty without you!”
Quickly and loudly, Arin said, “We can’t stay long. We’re on a trip to introduce Caretaker Neena to Ven’s family. She’s his chosen love.”
Ven did not react to this lie. He merely creased his lips into a smile within his beard. “My mother and sister live near the northern border. Your home is on the way.” For all Arin knew, that was true. She’d never thought about Ven having a family, though of course he must. He hadn’t sprung out of a tree in full leather armor, with a quiver on his back and sword at his side—even if that’s what some of the songs said. She tried to picture him as a child and failed.
Mama turned to Naelin and said, “We’re delighted to meet the one who has captured the heart of the Queen’s Champion. He’s grumpy sometimes, but he’s a good one.”
“He is,” Naelin agreed.
And Arin could have sworn she saw Champion Ven actually blush.
Mama shooed them all inside, bustling around them and offering them chairs and rockers and telling them to make themselves at home. Arin dropped her pack, and Ven stacked all their supplies in a corner.
Soon, Mama and Daddy were piling the table with food—the nut bread that Arin always loved, the leaf-wrapped spiced boar meat, and the little triangles of berries in puff pastry that melted in your mouth.
Dinner’s ready—they must have known we were coming, Arin thought, once more unsure what that meant.More proof that Daleina knew and told them. Does this mean she approves of my going? But she’d said no...And if Daleina knew, did that mean her parents knew? But they hadn’t recognized Queen Naelin...
Mama interrupted Arin’s thoughts. “Arin, could you get the plates, please?”
Arin jumped up to carry plates to the table. She poured berry juice for everyone. Ven tried to help with getting utensils, and Naelin began folding napkins, until Mama shooed the two of them back into their seats, saying they were guests.
In minutes, everything was ready.
Standing at the head of the table, Mama sliced the nut bread. Using the knife as a server, she laid a piece on each plate as she said in her storytelling voice, “In the beginning, there was only light and darkness, and we were alone, floating in the light and dark for uncounted time, until at last a child was born, a baby girl. It was the first birth.”
Sitting in her old chair with the creaky seat, Arin felt like she hadn’t ever left. Their meals always started like this, with a story to say thanks. Mama and Daddy liked the old traditions—they never skimped on charms in the roof, they left the first cut of wood outside for the fire spirits to claim, they planted acorns to appease the tree spirits every spring, and they always told a gratitude story before eating.
I’d missed this in the palace, Arin thought. She hadn’t even realized she’d missed it. Everything had happened so quickly: Daleina’s poisoning, the invasion, her apprenticeship.As soon as we’re done in Semo, I’ll come back.
“...the newborn child spoke one word, ‘Earth,’ and the spirits of the earth were born from her command. They fashioned earth beneath our feet so we could stand. She spoke again: ‘Air,’ and we breathed freely for the first time. ‘Water,’ and we drank. ‘Fire,’ and we were warm. ‘Wood,’ and we had trees for homes and plants for food. ‘Ice,’ and we had seasons to grow and seasons to rest. And so we multiplied, until we were too many for the world. And she spoke again, one more time, ‘Die,’ and the spirits who had made our home became our scourge and sought our deaths. And so we cried out to the baby, ‘Save us!’”
Daddy took up the old familiar tale in his deep, soothing voice that made Arin think of lullabies: “So she laid her body in front of the spirits. Ice froze her skin. Fire burned her. Water drowned her. Air tore her limbs. Earth buried the pieces. And then Wood caused her to grow. From the pieces of her body grew stalks that blossomed, turned to fruit, and ripened. When the seed fell it was in the shape of little girls, and the spirits listened to what they said. The place where she sacrificed herself became the first sacred grove, and the first to fall from the fruit of their mother became our first queen. It is she we thank for this meal, for our home, and for our lives. Her blessing on us.”
“Her blessing on us,” Arin echoed, and she bit into her mother’s nut bread and sighed happily. She’d tried to bake this bread in the palace ovens, and it hadn’t tasted the same. Maybe it was the kind of wood Mama burned in their oven, or maybe it was the type of nuts they harvested. Or maybe it was some other kind of magic, unknown to queens and champions and other fancy folk. But this... it tasted like home.
“We tell another version of the tale up north,” Ven said. “In ours, the baby is a woman called the Great Mother of Spirits. And her body split apart to form the different groves—one for Aratay, one in Semo, one in Chell, one for Elhim, and one for Belene.”
Mama poured pine-needle tea into mugs, and Arin got up to help hand them out to everyone. Even though she hadn’t been home in months, she didn’t think to act like a guest. Naelin and Ven were the guests, not Arin. This was home, even if she knew she wasn’t staying. She loved the way it smelled: the spice of the tea, the warm sharpness of the wood-stoked oven, the fresh baked bread. The palace always smelled like flowers.And sometimes like blood, she thought.
“Would you like to tell us the tale?” Mama asked Ven politely.
“It’s supposed to be sung, and you don’t want to hear me sing it, trust me,” Ven said. “My sister is the one with the beautiful voice. She’s a canopy singer.” He helped himself to a pile of leaf-wrapped boar meat and then stuffed one in his mouth.
Arin wished for a moment that they were actually traveling to Ven’s family, not to the foreign land of Semo, and that this were only a short, simple trip.For now, I’ll pretend it is.
