But she could not bring herself to form the words.
For that would be a defence of what they had done, would mean sharing the purpose of their removal.
Which even now was growing vaguer, even to her own mind.
She swallowed, and found herself nodding once, before she was crushed into her mother’s embrace once again. “I am so sorry, dearest one,” she murmured, and there were tears there, and anger too, perhaps from one, perhaps from both. “I should have—”
Penryn pulled back from her. “Please, do not hold yourself responsible,” she entreated, her voice as firm as she could make it. “There was nothing that you should have done differently, and I hold no resentment.” And with great relief, she found that to be true. “It is enough to know that...” a lump in her throat made it difficult to continue, but she pushed through anyway. And if there was a catch in her voice, so be it. “That I was loved. And wanted.”
“Always,” her mother declared, keeping hold of her eyes with a determined look of her own. “From the moment I felt you catch hold within me, you have been so.”
A hand at the back of her head, stroking at her hair, and she closed her eyes, relishing the contact from Grimult, however brief it might have been. An encouragement. A confirmation that he was right, but a comfort all the same. He was there, he bore witness, and maybe, he was proud of her.
“We do not know your name,” Rezen interjected, looking strangely bereft from his position set apart. Penryn brushed at the lingering tears on her cheeks, and took a step nearer to him.
“I do not know if you had a name you meant to give me,” she answered. “But I chose Penryn for myself.”
And then, because it did not seem fair that their only contact had been a shared thing, she reached out and hugged him. He was tall, although not quite as much as Grimult, but he stooped so she might put her arms more fully about his neck, his own arms holding tight as if afraid she might disappear too quickly. “A fine name,” he murmured in her ear. “You chose well.”
They did not enquire why she was not given one by the sages, and she was glad of it. She did not know how much she wished to share of her time with them, not in order to maintain their secrets, but simply because to do so would cause them all the more pain.
And that was the last thing she wished.
They had suffered with her, even from afar, and a part of her was ready to not dwell on such things any longer. There was work to be done yet, but tonight, there could just be this. A taste of what might have been, if things were different.
And with fresh determination, she knew that she would seek exactly that.
The line would end with her, that she promised herself. If it was at all within her power to ensure it was true, she would see to it.
Others could make the Journey. Could settle the peace between the clans and the land-dwellers, assuming they survived the coming horde. But it would be their choice, free of the mysticism that clung to the selection process even now. No more lies about souls and otherly beings.
Just a brave soul, willing to learn and negotiate.
As it always should have been.
“I would like to meet these other children of yours,” Penryn murmured against her father’s chest, hearing the sounds of light commotion drifting from the other side of the door.
A sigh, but she suspected that it perhaps was given to distract from the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. “You may regret that,” he countered with good-humour. “Brothers, the pair of them, and fond of their mischief.”
Penryn glanced at her husband. The inverse of his own family, she now with two brothers while he had none to call his own.
Except that what was hers was now his, so perhaps he had just the same after all.
“Still,” she urged with a smile. “I think I shall brave it all the same.”
A shrug, a smile, and a kiss upon her temple, although he looked at her hesitantly before bestowing it, as if uncertain of its welcome. But her smile of encouragement was enough, and he was brave enough to give it, and she was not certain she ever wanted this night to end.
Amarys opened the door again, standing to the side and ushering the rest through. Penryn wondered as she passed if this was a typical happening for her, if all were corralled and properly bolted in. It had a slightly unsettling quality to Penryn. She had grown used to open skies and freedom of movement, the penned in feeling reminding her too much of her fledgling days. But she pushed the thought back. If her mother needed them to be closed within a secure space, Penryn was not going to argue.
She did not know who she had expected to see settled within the kitchens. Perhaps boys of
