A clan.
The draw was there, enticing and strong, that if she would just allow it, she might be able to believe that all this was true. That the man before her had spoken truly, that he...
He was her father.
And this clan, with their still evident ties to the sea were her family. She would have grown up amongst them, in homes such as these, with cook-fire and partitions rather than walls and doors.
“You have doubts,” Harlow continued, nodding his head. “That is plain to see.”
“What did they tell you of us?” Rezen cut in at last, his voice strained.
The impulse to reject the question was there once more, that the sages’ methods were sacred, secret things, not to be discussed with the common people.
She bit her lip, her hands clenched into fists at her side, and vaguely she was aware that the left did not give even a twinge of pain any longer at the action. Perhaps it had finally mended.
Or perhaps she was so overcome by what was before her that she simply had no room to feel such things any longer.
They were waiting on her to speak, and the panicky feeling was threatening to pull her under once more. But she beat it back with a few long breaths. “It is all right,” Grimult murmured behind her, and she felt him lean close from behind so he was whispering only to her. “I believe they are sincere. You are safe with them.”
She closed her eyes, wanting that to be true.
Willing it to be true.
But a part of her was so very afraid that this had all been a mistake, a misunderstanding, and it would not prove real at all and she would have allowed her hopes to flourish.
Only to have them dashed when the truth of it was revealed.
She opened them again. She trusted Grimult’s judgement more than her own. Hers was too weighted with years of indoctrination, while his was good and pure and allowed room for others. For clans and family and all that was good and best in the world.
“They told me you were wise,” Penryn answered, forcing herself to look at Rezen rather than Harlow. It was far more difficult than it should have been. “That when told of the purpose behind my birth, you were glad,” there was no mistaking the stricken expression on his face, the ashy quality to his skin. But he did not close his eyes, did not look anywhere but back at her. “That you relinquished me with all the grace and dignity of ones befitting the arrival of the Lightkeep.” At that he could not seem able to control the derisive sound that came from his throat, shaking his head.
“It nearly killed us,” he rasped out, something in his eyes entreating, his hands opening and closing as if full of the desire to reach out and touch her.
Should she want that? Allow that? Not for her sake, as the thought of it still set her heart pounding in the urge to flee, whether from something good or something harmful, she still had not decided.
But there was compassion for him all the same, and she could see why Grimult believed in him.
“Your mother...” he cleared his throat, shaking his head again. “She did not speak for a long while. She... blamed me for not going after you, for not bringing you back home where you belonged.”
Penryn’s eyes widened. “They would have killed you,” she answered honestly, for that felt no great secret at all. To trespass into the sages’ keep uninvited and uninitiated... all knew the consequences.
And to target the Lightkeep especially...
A sad, dim smile came to his lips. “I went to the keep once. Hoped I might see you. To... know that you were being treated well. That you had milk to drink and that someone cared for you.” She had not expected that, and her heart lurched to think of how close he might have been, but more than that was fear that he might have succeeded. Had they found him? Hurt him? His wings were intact and there did not appear to be any prominent scars on his person, so perhaps not.
“It is aptly named, of course, and I could catch no glimpse of you. And to make enquiries would mean I would be detained returning to your mother, and she required much care.”
Penryn glanced at the floor, wondering if she could truly ask the question that burned at her tongue, urging her onward. “You speak of her as if she is already gone,” she observed, her voice quiet. She did not want to bring more pain to this man, not if... if he had truly lost so very much, and to speak of another wound to an already broken heart might prove too much for him.
At that, his shoulders relaxed rather than grew more tense, and she took that as a good sign. “Not gone, no. But she is stronger now, and does not need me as much as she once did.”
“Amarys is a good woman,” Harlow confirmed. “More than you ever deserved.”
“Of that I am well aware,” Rezen answered quickly back, as if the comment came unbidden, from a place that did not require thought at all. He blinked, surprised by the words, before he grew more serious again. “There was so much I always wanted to ask you. Wanted to... tell you if I was ever given the opportunity.”
He looked at her almost expectantly, as if waiting to hear that she had done the same.
She gave a reluctant nod to her head. She did not want this witnessed any longer, did not want to bear her most personal wounds to a group of strangers, and even now, the man across from
