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“I’ve had that feeling a few times.”
“Father and I liked to explore our home when I was little,” I began, consoled. “He would wake me and take me anywhere I wanted to go. We pretended to be wanderers. I led the way.”
My story continued in whispers.
Mother had often said I possessed an adventurous, impulsive streak like Father. She’d predicted I would grow up to be a daring female, ready to take chances and dismiss social rules. As a child, I enjoyed being around every class of people even when it wasn’t my duty.
Ever prone to fits and laughter, my emotions left a trail behind me. Often, I saidnoand askedwhy. I wept in Mother’s arms and ran circles around Father’s legs. I talked over them, around them, right through them.
I was unpredictable, too vibrant for Autumn. I didn’t hold back with them or anyone. My parents would quip that a stork had lost its way and delivered me from Spring.
When I was twelve, we traveled to that mischievous court, and there I met Eliot. I was so excited about making a new friend, I couldn’t sleep for the thrill of it. That same night, I tiptoed into my parents’ adjoining chamber and bounced between them in bed, demanding they hear all about Eliot.
At the time, I hadn’t thought to keep my relationship with a minstrel secret. All the same, it hadn’t mattered, because I never got to tell my parents.
Father’s temper had been strained during the first Peace Talks meeting. He was in such a vile mood that he cut me off and barked at me to go to sleep, his voice booming like a great Summer horn. He’d never raised his voice like that before.
I yelled in kind. I ran out of their suite, my frame scrawny enough to get past the gate, down the castle hill, through town, and into the wildflower forest. I ran forever.
Although it was blooming season in Spring, clouds blanketed the sky, and fat sheets of rain doused the landscape. Father had searched the court’s halls for me. He’d scouted the places we had explored together, then guessed that I fled outdoors. He caught up to me on his horse, knowing I liked those woods.
I’d ensconced myself behind a knot of exposed tree roots germinating with pillows of moss, a pretty place to hide. I thought to punish him, play with him—a grudge and a lark. I thought how sorry Father would feel when he couldn’t find me, how wonderful it would be when he finally did, because fathers were supposed to find their children. He was a king, as invincible and timeless as our home. He was my very own stronghold.
Whywouldn’the locate me?
The storm lashed, creating a mudslide down a neighboring slope. Father bounded off his horse and gave a shout, horrified I might have gotten swept into the deluge.
“Briar!” he bellowed, twisting this way and that. “Briar!”
I thought, what a gift it would be when he saw me alive. What a happy gift I would give my father by popping up behind him.
Many giant tragedies killed people. Wars and assassinations, diseases and poisons, and curses from old legends.
People rarely considered the elements, despite how we worshiped the Seasons throughout this continent, despite its power and magic. While charging toward the mudslide, Father’s foot snagged beneath one of the tree’s exposed roots. His head cracked against a rock when he fell, the crunch of bone cleaving through my ears.
Yet I laughed. I thought it was a jest or a silly, harmless fall. I thought he would get up, but he didn’t. And I laughed at him.
After crawling over the roots and tottering toward him, I plopped to my knees. “I’m here, Papa! I tricked you!”
Liquid pooled from his skull and seeped like ruby ink into my nightgown. His dazed eyes found me and glinted with relief, then with something soft and absolute—something I would later recognize as love.
Quickly, his expression became remote, those pupils turning to fog. And I stopped giggling.
When I did, his eyelids fluttered and then fell closed, no longer seeing me, no longer aware of how much I loved him back.
A brief loss of temper. A willful spirit. A trick.
The imprudent child I was had lost her father because she’d been playing. She hadn’t killed him, but she could have saved him. She wasn’t fit to be a daughter or anything else—certainly not a future leader.
That’s when I changed. I folded myself up and stuck myself in a drawer. For eight years, I spurned revelry—dancing, laughter, and amusement. I had to, otherwise I’d revert and become someone unforgivable.
Mother and I shared the same dread of losing one another. So she kept me close, while I kept my distance.
Poet remained quiet, holding me. When I finished, he stroked his thumb across the rim of my ear. “Has it worked?” he intoned. “Erecting that wall? Keeping everyone at bay?”
I traced an invisible pattern on his thigh. “It’s backfired.”
“You were a child, sweeting. You didn’t know better.”
