He shook his head. “It’s a long story—one maybe I’ll tell later.” Once I figure out what to say. “Anyway. Her name was Jenna. We weren’t even together that long, so I don’t know whether to call it love.” He looked up at her. “How do you even know?”
“Love is not measured by the amount of time you spend together,” his mother said. “It’s how that time is spent.” She smiled wryly. “Love moves fast in wartime—it has to. And it’s not particularly useful to try to put a label on it.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he said. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” His mother sighed and squeezed his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, sweetling.”
An hour with his mother, and he was already handing off sorrows. It wasn’t fair.
“I feel stupid bringing this up,” he said. “There’s no comparison with what you had with Da, with what you lost, and yet—does it ever get easier? Do you ever wake up and it doesn’t run you over, when you remember?”
She frowned, thinking. Ash liked that she didn’t answer right away with a platitude or dismiss his pain as trivial.
“It does get easier,” she said finally. “There will come a time when your memories will bring you more joy than pain. It’s taken me four years to get to that point.”
“I see.” He took a quick breath. “I know I have no right to ask this, but—”
“But have I thought of remarrying?” She snorted. “Everyone else asks it, so why shouldn’t you? The answer is yes, of course I’ve thought of it, but that’s as far as it goes. I see no reason to marry right now. Sometimes it seems that I would only be putting one more person at risk.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our family has suffered more than our share of loss, and yet the losses keep coming. The wolves keep running.”
The queens of the Gray Wolf line saw wolves in times of danger and change. “Are you . . . are you seeing wolves now? Still?”
“The wolves are always with me, these days,” his mother said, gripping the wolf ring that hung from a chain around her neck. “I can’t help wondering if we are reaching the end of the Gray Wolf line.”
Ash had never heard his mother sound so despondent. But then, so much had happened these past four years that he hadn’t been around to see.
“No!” he practically shouted. And then, more quietly, “Mother, I—I can’t believe that this—that this is all for nothing. I can’t believe that we live in a world that rewards evil and punishes the good.”
“Some speakers say that we must wait to be rewarded in the next life.” She shook her head. “Forgive me for being maudlin. We should be celebrating your return from the dead, and looking forward to your reunion with Alyssa.”
Clearly that was all she meant to say on the topic, because she stood, and said briskly, “Enough. I’ve asked Magret to open up your old room, and by now it should have had time to air out.”
He looked up, startled. “Magret? She’s still . . . in service?” He was going to say alive, but thought better of it.
“Don’t be so surprised,” the queen said, smiling. “Four years is a longer time in the life of a thirteen-year-old than in that of one who’s nearing eighty. And she intends to serve until death calls her away.”
Hanalea’s Maidens were an order of warriors bound to the service and protection of the Gray Wolf line. Magret had served as nurse, teacher, and protector to his mother and Aunt Mellony, and then to Hanalea, Adrian, and Lyss. She had brought an array of skills to the job. More than once, she’d drawn her sword to protect the royal family.
She had a tongue like a sword as well, when she believed that her young charges required correction. Ash didn’t look forward to feeling the bite of it now.
21
A MIXED RECEPTION
Ash had been struggling to come up with a story to tell when his mother and her council began asking hard questions. They must know that he and Lila had been missing from school since Solstice. The next morning, at a private breakfast in her chambers, he asked about plans for a debriefing. But the queen seemed in no hurry to move on to that phase of this reunion.
“I had cleared my calendar so that I could spend this week at temple, mourning for you,” she said wryly. “Since that’s no longer necessary, we will lay plans for your resurrection. Rumors are flying already. I’ve scheduled one meeting with the council for this afternoon. Tonight, we’ll hold a small reception for family, close friends, and high officials only. When people ask questions, tell them you’ll need to speak with me first.
“Tomorrow, we’ll announce your miraculous return with a service in the cathedral temple, a parade through the city, and a street party. Beginning the day after that, you’ll have more than your fill of meetings. So enjoy these two days before the ordeal begins.”
He had two days, then, to settle on a plan. He spent the rest of the morning being bathed, shaved, and shorn to make him as presentable as possible. To his surprise, he found four fine coats hanging in his closet, along with three pairs of breeches and a pair of clan-made boots.
“Where did these come from?” he asked Magret, who was filling drawers with smallclothes and shirts and tidying what didn’t really need to be tidied.
“Most of those clothes belonged to your da, may he rest in peace,” Magret said. She looked him up and down. “It might be that now you’re big enough to fill them. Your sister the princess Alyssa had them cleaned and hung them in the closet so they’d be here when you returned.”
Startled, Ash looked up at Magret. “She did? When?”
“Right after your father was killed and you were carried off. She never gave up hope that you were alive. She used to come in here now and then and brush the dust off so they’d be ready. On the day of your funeral she locked herself in her room and refused to come out.” The eye she fixed on him was disapproving.
“I’m sorry I put her through that,” Adrian said. He could spend the rest of his life apologizing and it still wouldn’t be enough. There was no way to atone for this, no penance great enough to even the scales.
“Her Majesty had new stoles made for you with your father’s ravens. They’re in the drawer. Will you be needing anything else, Your Highness?”
Not if it comes with a lecture. “No, thank you.”
“Don’t forget, Her Majesty the Queen’s reception begins at six, and it’s quarter past five now. You’ll hear the bells in the cathedral temple—”
“I remember,” he said. “I’ll be there.” She probably thinks I’ll run out on that, too. He waited until he was sure Magret was gone before he fingered the nearest coat, an emerald silk. He leaned down to sniff it, hoping it might still carry a trace of his father’s scent, but, whether due to cleaning or the passage of time, it did not.
What would it have been like had he stayed? If he and Lyss had worked through their grief together instead of each on his or her own? He wouldn’t have met Jenna, and Gerard Montaigne might still be alive. He might be married now. Or he might be dead.
There was no fair way to compare what had been with what might have been. He just had to find a way forward.
Here was a coat he recognized, one that sent his stomach plummeting into his boots. It was his father’s clan mourning coat, stitched with his sister Hanalea’s gray wolves. On the back, the Waterlow ravens, and the High Wizard flame and sword down the sleeves. His father had worn it to Hana’s funeral.
Ash sank onto the bed, cradling the coat in his arms, his tears falling on the leather and wool, his fingers tracing the intricate stitching. He shivered, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. It was almost as if his father had prepared this coat for him, blazoned with the signia of those Ash had loved and lost.
Should he wear it in honor of his father? Or would it be seen as arrogant, as if he’d wandered back home and made an immediate claim on his father’s legacy, down to his serpent amulet?
He decided he didn’t care.
It had been a long time since he’d worn anything but the drab brown healer’s garb at Ardenscourt and the nondescript breeches and coats that had served him well on the road from Ardenscourt to Fellsmarch.