Bow and Sparrow

CH 42

The study had never felt small but it did now with all of us crammed inside its four walls. It felt like a great divide had cleaved the room into two halves. My father and Davin on one side. Rylan and the others on the other. Me floating somewhere in between.

Father stood behind his desk, his whitened knuckles clutching the back of his chair. Davin crossed the room, pushing open the stained glass window. As if the room had been holding its breath, it let out a tremendous sigh and some of the tension left the room.

"Where's Ayla?" I realized I hadn't heard the pitter-patter of her running feet.

"She's in her lessons." Father answered, easing into his desk chair with a heavy sigh. He leaned forward, his chin resting on steepled fingers. "Tell me what happened."

I decided not to argue. Ayla could wait. The thunderous look on my father's face could not. So I told him everything, from the raid to the inn. I shortened the slavers' part, omitting the worst of it even as my back spasmed with phantom pain at the memory. Father's eyes flickered to Rylan, who stood within arm's reach of me, when I told him of my rescuer in the woods. I didn't catch his reaction but I thought I saw a newfound respect in my father's face. He listened intently and didn't interrupt until I got to the part about King Tano-

"That bastard." Father shot to his feet, his chair scraping harshly across the wood floor. "He'll pay for that. I must go to the capital and inform Bosco of this at once.

He meant to leave, but I moved to stand between him and the door. "Father, please-"

"They tried to take you away from me." His voice quivered as he realized just how close he was to losing me.

"I know." I know. I covered his hand with my own and I could feel how they shook. "But I've only just returned. Just rest and think on it before making any rash decisions."

"She's right, Edward." Davin stepped forward, his cane clicking against the floor as he landed a hand on my father's shoulder.

"Very well." Father looked between the two of us before he finally relented. "I would like to speak to my daughter alone."

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Rylan as he was ushered out of the room by my uncle, who promised refreshments and snacks downstairs. Father returned to his seat behind the desk, dragging a hand down his tired face.

"You're alright, really?" He asked once the door was shut.

I opened my mouth to tell him that yes, of course I was alright, but I couldn't force the lie past my lips. I think he could sense that. "I will be."

His brown eyes, identical to my own, traveled across the length of his desk before settling on a framed picture at the corner. It was facing away from me but I knew what the frame contained. I held the picture in my mind's eye.

It was an oil painting of my mother when my parents first met. I couldn't recall when the painting had been done but she looked younger than I ever remembered her. The delicate brush strokes highlighted her honey colored hair and though sunlight reflected off her radiant, youthful face, the source of light wasn't pictured. She wore a pendant that I could remember dangling from her neck when I was little. I could almost imagine the feel of it in my hand from when I used to play with it as a baby.

"I should have been here." He whispered almost to himself, picking up the framed painting and smoothing his fingertips over the picture. When he looked up at me, his eyes were glistening. "I'm sorry, my daughter."

I thought back to that day, the day of the raid. About Davin and all the men that were here that day. And the new guard. And the hush that blanketed the house that I didn't remember being there before. I don't think it would have made a difference.

"I know you said not to make any rash decisions, but I need to go to Bellevue. They must know what happened." He must've seen the look of disappointment that crossed my face because he continued, "I suppose it can wait a few days."

I nodded, knowing that was the best I was going to get from my father, always the general.

"There's something else." He leaned down, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a long, rectangular box. He slid it over the desk towards me and I reached out to take it.

I held the box in my hand. It wasn't heavy and the wood was smooth beneath my fingers as I traced the intricate pattern carved into it. I slid the lid off and inside, on a bed of velvet was a familiar sapphire pendant.

"It was your mother's." Father leaned forward to stare at the pendant, a far off expression on his face. "I've been meaning to give it to you for some time, but I couldn't seem to part with it. Now I realize there are more important things."

I picked up the silver chain. The sapphire glittered in the light as it swayed lazily between my fingers. I thought it had been lost when my mother died, but Father had kept it all these years. I ran my fingers over the blue stone, worn smooth with age and imagined another time.

I held it out to my father, who stepped from around his desk to clasp the chain around my neck. Where it should have been cold, the pendant was warm where it came to rest on my chest. I turned to show him.

"I'm glad you're home." There was a sad, wistful smile on his face.

"Me too."

There was a crash upstairs above our heads followed by rapid thuds that sounded suspiciously like little footsteps running across the room and it wasn't long before it moved to the staircase.

I opened the door just in time for a small figure to crash into me, careening me back a few steps. I looked down at the mop of brown hair that was pressed against my stomach.

"I knew you'd come back." Ayla whispered into a fistful of my shirt that she held tightly in her small hand.

"Of course I did." I crouched down to Ayla's level, ruffling her hair in the teasing way that she didn't like. "I always will."

She tried to flatten it back out but it was no use. It was like she had forgotten what a hair comb was in my absence. Her eyes widened when she saw my hair. "Where's your hair?"

"I cut it." I turned my head from side to side, the ends brushing against my shoulders. It has grown some since I cut it and it needs a proper washing. "Do you like it?"

Ayla reached up with her hands, her fingers twisting in my short hair and she nodded enthusiastically. "Can you cut mine too?"

"I thought you liked your hair." Father said, coming over to stand next to us.

"Nori's hair is short, though." Ayla stuck her bottom lip out, crossing her arms over her chest. I straightened back up, trying to hide my smile at Ayla's attempt to puppy-eye our father.

"No one is cutting their hair." Father declared, striding out of the study and away from the conversation. I gave Ayla a wink as we followed him downstairs.