I pushed aside a branch, smiling as I let it fling back. It probably wasn’t high enough to hit Tyrrik’s face, but I grinned at his grunt when the branch thwacked against him. A quick peek told me he still found my rear end far too interesting. I wonder how many branches I could catch him with between now and Gemond.

Which reminded me. “Why are we going to Gemond? The king lets his people eat each other.”

“Did you listen to nothing I told you about King Zakai?” the old man groaned.

I pushed aside another branch and then let it go. The thin tree limb flicked back, and I smirked as Tyrrik grunted again.

“Yeah, I listened,” I answered, jumping a small creek, my wispy skirt bouncing around my thighs. “But I didn’t believe you.”

“You don’t believe a man you’ve known most of your life?” Tyrrik asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

Dyter laughed derisively. “Rynnie didn’t believe plants came from seeds until we put a pot in her room and made her check it every day for three months.”

“I thought it was a scheme to give the people of Verald hope.”

“You didn’t know what a scheme was at five.”

I might not have had the words to express how I felt at five, but I did think seeds were a hustle. Most people in Verald couldn’t get them to grow and bear fruit, so it wasn’t really a stretch for my childhood mind.

“Wait,” Tyrrik said. “She didn’t believe plants came from seeds until five?”

I scowled at the grin in his voice.

“No one was more surprised than I to find out she was Phaetyn,” Dyter quipped.

The conversation was feeling like a man alliance, and Dyter was supposed to be firmly team Ryn. The next words passed from my lips without filtering. “I can’t believe Mum never told you, Dyter. She told you everything.”

The old man was silent, and I had time to wonder if I could’ve phrased my comment better. Definitely could have.

He turned back, his features darkening. “She loved you more than life itself, my girl. When you love someone that much, you don’t take risks that could lead to hurt. I was your mother’s best friend, and she was mine, truly. There were very few who were in the confidence of Ryhl, and I consider myself honored to have been one of them.”

I stared at the blurry ground in front of me, stepping in a puddle. The muddy water splashed up on my calves as I was still bare footed. I didn’t want to bawl again, so I focused on the only other thing in my head: I needed shoes.

It is normal to be sad, Khosana.

Even now, months later, I missed my mother terribly. For the most part, I seemed to get by without thinking of her, and then in moments like these, the sadness, the regret, hit me with the force of a brick wall. Shoes fled my mind as my emotions echoed through Tyrrik.

“Dyter,” I said. “Can you tell me about her? About how you met?”

Dyter wouldn’t normally hesitate to tell me, but I held my breath, remembering Tyrrik. Despite my easy relationship with the old man, he wasn’t one to spill his guts, and he was the king of secrets.

Sure enough, Dyter stiffened. He flung a quick look at the Drae then met my gaze, and his eyes steeled. No one was more surprised than I when he started talking.

Dyter trusted Tyrrik? But my memory niggled at the back of my mind that this wasn’t the first time Dyter had made this decision in front of me.

I shook my head and focused on what he was saying.

“My sister, Dyrell met her first,” Dyter spoke. “Your mother was searching the bins behind The Raven’s Hollow in Harvest Zone Eight.”

I grimaced. Amateur. Dumpsters were always picked clean. Not that I’d had occasion to pick through them like many others, but growing up in starving Verald, rubbish bin-dipping had been common among the poor in the Penny Wheel. Still, life had probably been a bit easier back then, or at least more food was available if my mother’s stories were true.

“My sister took one look at the baby swaddled on your mother’s back and invited her in for a meal, but your mother refused to go inside. Dyrell thought it odd but put it from her mind; even then, people were just scraping by, and Dyrell was busy. A week later, five of the emperor’s men came through the zone asking after a young woman and a child. Dyrell denied it, having forgotten all about your mum; there were too many going hungry to remember any one in particular. But, a few days later, Dyrell saw your mum again and put things together after that. Enough to realize your mother was in trouble.”

My mother had told me she’d run from my abusive father to start a new life. Talk about the understatement of the century.

“When Dyrell asked if Ryhl was in trouble and offered to help, your mum ran off,” Dyter broke off. “But four weeks later, your mother knocked on the back door of my sister’s tavern and asked for food. She was starving, and her milk had dried up. She could no longer feed her child.

“Your mum worked for Dyrell for a month, for room and board, and then the king’s men stumbled into Dyrell’s tavern with several Druman. Your mother hid again, this time returning a few days later. Dyrell wrestled the truth from her. Zone Eight had more money than Seven, so there were more patrols, and your mother insisted she leave. So, my sister and your mother fabricated a story between them, and my sister sent the pair of you to me. We told everyone your mum had recently been widowed and decided to start afresh in a different Harvest Zone. My sister acted like your mother’s dear friend, giving plausibility to the story and fooling everyone in our Zone. We got her a house, and she kept quiet for a good long time, and after several months, it was as though she’d always lived in our part of the realm.”

“Didn’t guards notice someone new?”

Dyter nodded. “They did.”

“And they didn’t think a new woman and child in a Zone that suddenly had more food a bit suspicious?”

“What would you do if you were hungry and you found a patch of carrots hidden in the middle of nowhere?”

Easy. “I wouldn’t tell anyone about them.”

“Exactly,” Dyter said. “And Ryhl was our patch of carrots. She could grow things. Not only that, she helped a lot of others grow things. I’m not sure you realize how many people revered your mother, Rynnie. In such hard times, many people of Verald would’ve gone to significant lengths to ensure her safety, not merely myself.”

“So no one told the king or the emperor?” I asked. As my mentor shook his head, I felt a swift and fierce pride for the people of Verald.

“Though it took me a long time to understand why, Ryhl’s house was always dark at night,” Dyter said. “One day, it clicked that your mother wasn’t actually sleeping there. Back then, she didn’t rely on anyone to keep her secrets. I don’t know where she slept those first few years, but she always turned up during the day. I hadn’t bought the tavern off the prior owner at that point, and I had to walk past your house to get to my own back then.” Dyter tipped his head back to look at the blue sky. “It took three years for me to see a candle lit in your house at night.”

Three years? “She didn’t trust anyone for three years?”

Dyter turned to me. “I told you I was honored to be a confidant of your mother’s, and I meant that. I can count the people she trusted on one hand. I never asked where she came from or what she ran from, but it didn’t take a genius to see your mother had been taught trust was a weakness.”

I breathed through the tightness in my chest. Hadn’t I learned that lesson myself? I knew anyone could snap under the right pressure. You couldn’t really trust another, not unless they were willing to die for you.

“Her life sounds so isolated and forlorn,” I said hoarsely. “I never saw her as a lonely, frightened person.” But to live life in the company of such fear, always running, never trusting, constantly expecting to be captured. I’d always believed my mother to be a happy person, firm and unafraid, loving and kind to those around her. From Dyter’s description, she was someone who had few friends, and she’d never learned to trust again.

Was that my fate? To be unable to trust? Unable to live a peaceful life?

“She eased up as the years went on, Rynnie. She began sleeping in the house, remember? It took your mother time, but she began to live life in time, and much of that was thanks to you. You brought so much happiness to her life—”

Dyter broke off, and a burning sensation built behind my eyes.

I whispered, “Is that true, Dyter? Was Mum happy?”

Dyter’s shoulders shook, and at least a full minute passed before he replied, “She was truly happy, Rynnie. For the time she spent in Verald, in Harvest Zone Seven, I can say that with certainty. She found love and joy again through you.”

A tear slipped down my cheek, and despite my struggle to keep my emotions in check, I knew my choked breathing wasn’t missed by the Drae behind me. There was warmth at my back as he approached, and I stiffened, conflicted. I hoped Tyrrik would touch me, I longed for it, and I worried about what it may mean to give into that longing.

He fell back once more and spoke in my mind instead. There’s another branch ahead.

I wiped my eyes and saw he was right. I pushed the branch out of the way and let it fling back. This time when Tyrrik grunted, I knew he’d let me tree-whip him on purpose, and the thought struck me that he might’ve been letting me fling branches at him all morning.

Holy pancakes, he sure knew how to treat a woman. I couldn’t completely stop the smile tugging on my lips or the tickle of warmth spreading through my heart.

We started up a grassy hill, and the trees grew sparse.

I glanced ahead to where Dyter strode through the knee-length grass of a clearing in front of me.

For months, I’d been struggling to understand my mother. In many ways, the person revealed on the night she died had been a stranger to me, and deep down, I’d been left wondering if I’d known her at all. Dyter’s story erased my fears. My mother was happy. I was just one of the few people to witness her that way. I might not have known she was Drae and running from the emperor, or I was Phaetyn and Drae, but I understood why she’d lied. I didn’t just understand; I knew the fierce loyalty and love it took to protect those I loved—after my dungeon time, especially. She’d protected me because she loved me, and my heart beat easier for seeing I had known my mother.

Dyter didn’t look back, and I didn’t expect him to. I’d seen him cry once, not too long ago, but he would hide his tears from me if at all possible. I raised my voice so he would hear. “Thank you for telling me about her, Dyter.”

“Any time, my girl,” he said gruffly.

I looked at the sky, to the hidden stars where my mother now resided. I miss you, Mum, I thought, not caring that Tyrrik would hear me. Thank you for protecting me.

I pushed into the long grass, feeling more at peace than I had in a long time. My mother had been enslaved and learned to trust again.

That meant Tyrrik could, too.

My mother had been broken, and in time she’d found herself and happiness.

That meant I would be okay.