Chapter 42

30th Day of Early Spring 768 n.c

I was woken, after definitely not enough sleep, by Mother gently shaking me. I sat up groggily and looked over at the other beds in the room. Kara's was empty, but Illith was still asleep in hers. We'd both slept in. Seeing that I was awake, Mother walked over to Illith's bed and gently shook her awake.

"Sit," she commanded Illith, pointing next to me.

Illith did as she was told and, half asleep, collapsed heavily next to me.

Mother was frowning at both of us, she knew!

"Sharein," she said, "if you are going to sneak out at night, make sure to not wake your sisters."

"Yes Mother," I replied contritely, hanging my head.

"Illith," she said to my sister, "you are not yet thirteen. You are still not to be out of my sight and definitely not to be going into that forest."

"Yes Mother," Illith said, equally as contrite as I.

"Sharein," Mother said, looking at me again, "when she gets back, you will bring her to dinner."

"Bring who?" I asked as innocently as I could, how did Mother know about Shard?

"Your… the girl you are… walking out with?" Mother said slowly, hesitantly but then grew more sure, "or are you engaged to be married?"

Illith let out a little gasp that was cut off when Mother shot her a look, "Shard."

"How?" I asked quietly, echoing my shocked thoughts, how did Mother know all this? Did she hear all of our conversations?

Mother pffffft'd and rolled her eyes at me, "you two both made so much noise and were so oblivious to your surroundings that a blind beggar could have strolled right up and stolen the ribbons right out of your hair." Her voice hardened a little, "don't evade the question."

"Uhhh…" I stalled, trying to process what Mother had just said and delay any admissions, "I don't think that I'll be able to bring her to dinner. I don't think that she can leave the clearing. I mean; I haven't asked, but we've never left the clearing."

"Sharein," Mother said sharply,cutting off my rambling "are you engaged to be married to her?"

"I… didn't think that we could?" I replied.

"Well, officially with the Mayor of course you can't," Mother replied, "but a marriage is first and foremost acknowledged by the Gods and depending upon which God, there are ceremonies that can be performed between two women."

Processing this news filled me both with excitement, confusion, trepidation and a sudden realisation, "I… think that I might be?'

Mother's voice hardened even more and Illith shifted uncomfortably at her tone, "What do you mean 'you might be'?"

"Well," I said, surprised at the coldness in Mother's voice, "I think I said 'If I could, I would marry you', does that count as a proposal?"

Mother deflated, visibly, and looked askance at Illith, before rallying herself and sitting up a little straighter, "It could. It definitely could. I don't know whether that will affect anything or not."

"Affect what?" I asked.

"You remember that I told you that I prayed at that altar in the forest for you and my mother prayed at an altar for me and so on and so on?" I nodded, "We received a vision, a confirmation that our prayers would be answered. A masked god appeared before us, he wore a hooded cloak and a mask over his emerald green eyes. For each of us it happened right before sunrise, before our mothers came to get us. But, and this is the most important bit, it was not simply a granting of prayer. Whichever god it was, whichever god we prayed to, he demanded a sacrifice. A promise, that he be given the Mother's-right over the child. My mother gave her Mother's-right over me to that god and I gave my Mother's-right over you to him. Sharein, I never chose your Father, I had eyes for… someone else. On my seventeenth name day your Grandmother dreamed about your Father, just as her Mother dreamed about your Grandfather on her seventeenth name day. My Mother demanded that I stop pursuing the other person, she demanded it under Mother's-right. Of course I complied, albeit unhappily. I demanded to know who I could pursue and she told me 'I'll know him when I see him.' It took another two years for her to point out your Father to me. She arranged our marriage and that was that. It wasn't until the morning after the night at the altar that she explained it to me. 'Aloise,' she said, 'Did you have to make the promise too?' It was then that she explained the vision on my seventeenth name day."

If Mother prayed at Shard's altar, was it Shard that answered or did she act on one of Tenebrae's children's behalf? Did Shard know about this? Is Shard the one that holds Mother's-right over me? So many questions that I'd have to ask Shard about. Out of all the things that confused me though, one thing stood out.

"What do you mean Grandmother arranged yours and Father's marriage?" I asked

Mother looked a little guilty for some reason, "Well, arranged marriages are almost completely unheard of in Carn, but where we came from they were very commonplace. Two parents get together and arrange for their children to marry, money or goods are sometimes exchanged. It's a way to elevate a family up Arithna."

"What?" Illith asked.

I immediately followed with "We're not from Carn?"

"Your Father is, his family have always been in Easthaven," Mother said, looking worried, "and he and his family have always been under the impression that we're from Hillwaeholm. But, Hillwaeholm was merely the first town we stopped in on our way to Easthaven from Allarth."

"So we're Allarthian?" Illith asked.

Mother looked towards the door and shushed us quietly, "well, that's complicated. According to Allarthian society you would be Allarthian because our lineage is tracked from Mother to child. It makes sense really, as the Mother is the only person you can be sure the child came from. Carnians however, track lineage down from the Fathers. It's very silly and doesn't make sense at all."

Something didn't make sense and it took a moment for me to put my finger on it, "but Mother?" I asked, "You said that Grandmother prayed at that altar? How did she pray at that altar when you were from Allarth?"

"Oh… well, not that particular altar. But there was one just like it near our village back in Allarth," Mother replied, "When we needed to flee our village, Mother refused to leave until she prayed. She disappeared that night and when she returned the next day, she said that she knew where we needed to go… Here."

"There was another altar," I began and Mother nodded, "exactly the same?" Another nod, "in Allarth?"

"Yes. My Mother prayed at that altar and the masked god appeared and told her to come to Easthaven in Carn." Mother explained, "He showed her exactly where the other altar was, turned her into a bird and flew with her all the way from Allarth to Easthaven and then out here to the forest."

"Mother?" Illith asked and Mother turned to her, "why did you need to flee your village?"

"Oh." Mother said under her breath, she blushed a little and looked even more guilty than earlier, "when I said that I complied with your Grandmother's Mother's-right unhappily, I may have underexaggerated. I ran away from home."

"What?" Illith and I both exclaimed. Mother shushed us both again.

"You have to understand that your Father knows none of this," she said to us both, "nothing at all. Just as I will keep both of your secrets from him until such a time as you want him to know, you must keep this secret for me."

Illith and I looked at each other and then simultaneously looked back to Mother and nodded our agreement.

"I was unhappy, not only that Mother forbade me from pursuing the person that I was attracted to, but also that she was telling me who I could make eyes at." Mother began, "So… I ran away, to the Capital of Allarth: Milne. I didn't have any money nor know anybody there. I was seventeen and alone. Purely by happenstance I came across another girl about my age and made friends with her. She introduced me to her friends and then, after a few days she introduced me to The Family'."

"Her family?" Illith asked.

"No," Mother continued, "'The Family', the Allarthian Thieves Guild. I ran around with them for about two years until I did something stupid that meant that I had to flee. Not just me, they would have come after my entire family. When I confessed to Mother and told her that we all had to run away from Allarth, to go somewhere else she simply told me 'Tomorrow, I'll know where to go tomorrow'."

"What did you do?" I asked, very much surprised at Mother's revelation (In fact, all of Mother's revelations, it would likely take me days to process everything she was telling us).

Mother chuckled wryly, blushed and looked at me with an odd smile, an unusual expression for Mother that made her look ten years younger, "I stole King Brandewyn's crown."

"You stole what?!" Illith exclaimed, marginally beating me to saying exactly the same thing.

"I stole," she said slowly, "the crown of the King of Allarth; King Brandewyn, from his Castle in Milne."

I just blinked at her and she preempted the 'why' I was about to ask, "It seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, though, I probably shouldn't have done it. Because if he ever finds out that I'm here, he will send assassins here to kill me, your Father and all of you kids. Do you understand?"

We both nodded, mutely. Wow. I never expected to wake up that day to discover all of those things about my Mother that I absolutely never had any inkling about.

"Good, because…" Mother began to say, but stopped when we heard the front door bang.

"Sharein!" I heard Father call out from the front of the house, "everybody is here, are you ready?"

"Just a moment Father!" I yelled back to him.

"Oh poo!" Mother said and instructed, "hurry and get dressed."

While I got out of my nightclothes and put on my trousers and tunic Mother got up quickly and disappeared out the door. She returned just as I finished tying my hair up, carrying a belt and a sword in a black leather sheath. She approached me and wrapped the belt around my waist so that the sword rested on my left hip. She drew it from the sheath and handed it to me. It was a short sword, with a blade about two and a half feet long and one and a half inches wide. It was made from some sort of black metal and had a guard that extended out from the blade like two raven's wings one side connecting with a straight guard that came out only on that side. The grip was wrapped with black leather strips. I knew nothing about swords, but this one looked very well made.

"I don't know who will be able to teach you to use this around Easthaven, except for me of course. For obvious reasons I can't though." Mother said, "Even if there is no danger to you from being attacked by kobolds now; I can't let you go out there unarmed, even if you do have your magic."

"Thank you Mother!" I exclaimed, giving her a tight hug.

"Go on," she said, breaking the hug and giving me a swat on the backside, "and you'd better practice your innocent act because although you might fool your Father and most of the rest of the fools from town, you won't for a second trick your Master."

"Yes Mother," I said with a smile as we headed out to the front of the house.

What greeted me there was an interesting sight: Father and a mob of men from Easthaven all carrying an assortment of farm tools repurposed into weapons. Malkarov stood amongst them and immediately looked at me with suspicion. I hadn't even said anything!

"What is this?" Father exclaimed, gesturing at the sword resting at my side, "Where did that come from?"

"My Grandfather's," Mother responded quickly and convincingly, but something told me that it was actually hers, "I had hoped that none of our children would have such a need for it for me to pass onto them, but here we are."

"Well, we'd best be off," Master Jorganshard said gruffly, "we've wasted enough time as is."