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Mother swept inside and softly closed the door behind her. Giving Farrendel space and giving Essie a chance to explain.
She turned back to her brothers. They were lined up, arms crossed, feet apart.
Ready to take on the world for her if she needed them to. Even if she didn’t at the moment.
Farrendel gripped hisknees, shaking and trying to fight through the last tatters of the nightmares. Pain lanced through his head as it pounded. His stomach churned until he thought he might vomit there on the floral rug.
Essie...what had he done? Caught in the tumble between the nightmare and waking, his memories of the last few minutes were splintered. Was it nightmare or reality that he had lashed out?
The door to the room clicked, and soft footsteps crossed the rugs. Not Essie’s. These were slower, not as quick and bouncing.
His heart raced, his mouth drying, his magic crackling in his fingers even as he struggled to yank it back in. He forced himself to raise his head and look, trying to steady his breathing and swallow back the panic.
Essie’s mother eased down onto the rug. She gave him a soft smile. “Sitting on the floor isn’t as easy as it used to be.”
He blinked at her. What was she doing here? After what had nearly happened, surely she would hate him. Or be wary, at the very least.
Her mother did not waver, and something in the expression reminded him of Essie. “I know you don’t know me very well, yet. But I hope we will have a chance to get to know each other better.”
“Why?” Farrendel lifted a shaking hand to rub at his temple. Sharp pain stabbed from the base of his skull all the way to behind his eyes. Why would Essie’s mother want to know him? Surely she saw him as the person who had taken her daughter away to a foreign kingdom, rarely to return.
“Essie is special to me. She’s my only daughter. But that also means you’re special to me, too.” Essie’s mother was poised, as if she wanted to reach out and hug him. Something he only recognized thanks to Essie. “I have three sons, but you are my only son-in-law.”
Something deep inside his chest ached. As a young child, he had believed the late elf queen had been his mother, as she was for his siblings. He had hung on their stories about her, imaging how she would have loved him if she had lived.
Melantha had finally been the one to gather the courage to tell him the person the rest of his siblings called mother did not belong to him. The dream of her that he had built in his mind had never truly existed. How could it have hurt so much to lose someone who had never truly been his?
“I never had a mother.” He did not know why he was telling Essie’s mother that. She would assume, as the rest of Essie’s family had, that the late queen had been his mother and he had never known her because of her death. He hoped they would never add up the dates and realize that the truth was much worse.
“You poor boy.” Essie’s mother met his gaze. “You have me now, if you want.”
The next thing he knew, Essie’s mother shifted so that she was next to him and pulled him in for a hug, as if he was a small child she was comforting.
He held himself stiffly. What was he supposed to do now? It was everything he had longed for when he was a child.
But he was no longer a child. He had not been a child from the moment the trolls had wrapped his arms with magic-laced stone and dragged him back to their base for torture while they lured his father into a trap.
Still, he forced himself to relax. This was the family Essie had grown up with. Her mother was the reason Essie was so warm and caring, even though she had been even younger than Farrendel when she had lost her father.
Perhaps he could get used to having a mother for the first time in his life.
Essie crossed her armsand glared back at her brothers.
Averett broke first and stepped forward, reaching for her as if intending to hug her. “Are you truly all right, Essie? You aren’t just smiling and carrying on like you always do.”
“I told you. I’m fine.” She gritted her teeth. She was too tired to deal with their lingering suspicion of Farrendel. They had seen him come near breaking on the train to and from Parliament. They had almost seemed to be bonding. And now they were back to being suspicious. She was grateful for their concern, truly. But this was getting ridiculous. “That was Farrendel. He struggles with nightmares, all right? And staying here isn’t helping things any. The stone...”
Essie bit off her words. She’d promised Farrendel she wouldn’t tell her brothers the truth. She drew in a deep breath, trying to calm down. “The stone reminds him too much of being captured by the trolls. He was only the elf equivalent of sixteen, and they tortured him. I’ve seen his scars. What they did to him...”
Her voice broke. She was exhausted. All she wanted was a peaceful night’s sleep. Something neither she nor Farrendel had had in a week, except for the night on the train here. She was far too emotional and worn out for this conversation.
“You really do love him.” Edmund stepped closer, his posture relaxing.
“Yes.” The word held more depth of feeling than she’d intended, too tired to hold her heart back from her voice. “If I have been hiding anything, it’s been this. He’s been trying so hard to give me time to enjoy being back home, but it’s torturing him. And I don’t know what to do.”
She blinked back tears and tried to pull herself together. She wasn’t going to break down and cry in front of her brothers. That would just be embarrassing.
Julien sheathed his knife, the elven dagger Farrendel had given him, now that Essie got a good look at it. “All right. Then he can’t stay here. Family camping night. I’ll fetch the camping supplies.” After a pat to Essie’s shoulder, he headed for the door.
