31
She was waiting for me in the drawing room, the same room I talked to Adian in that morning. The same room she gave me my lessons, and taught me to read, write, speak, think, and learn. How different everything felt now.
I closed the door behind me, after telling Mark not to disturb us, even if there is war. He nodded and began instructing the guards.
I turned to her. She was standing at the window, by the open curtain. The sun in her hair made her look jeweled.
"You, are my sister," I said, and stepped forward but stopped.
Her hand covered her lips, and her eyes watered.
We were taught, raised, to believe that birth family didn’t matter. What mattered was village, or realm, or area or who we were raised by and with.
We were taught this mostly from necessity, and need. After the Fall, there were few families still together. One or two might survive from a core family. A sister and a mother, perhaps. A father, and no one else. An infant with no one to care for him. People came together out of need and humanity.
The father who lost all, devoted his love and caring to the infant left alone who would have otherwise starved. Perhaps later, he would come across a mother and daughter, who also missed their husband and brother. Surrogates, yes, but were they any less of a family once they came together, and committed to each other? Of course not.
When it was clear that so few women could give birth, and that trading with distant groups was going to be a necessity, this became part of the culture. Birth family wasn’t important. Birth clans and tribes were only trouble in the old world anyway. Dynasties belonged to the past.
Even now, it would have been accepted and even proper that my mother traded me to another queen who had a human daughter, but she didn’t. Her mother didn’t either, but our grand-dame did. My grandmother was not her birth child. Royalty wasn’t blood, it was ability.
Growing up I witnessed a great deal of evidence that this proclamation was losing ground. People wanted to believe in their queens. Wanted to believe they were above the common ilk. It made them feel safe, even if they argued against it, they still wanted it. Knowing your royal family was security. Watching their princess grow up, gave them hope.
But my mother couldn’t send Iris away. Even though she was Kind. She kept her here, with her. With us. We were family. True family. Blood family and goddess damn the lot of them it did matter. It mattered to me.
"She made me swear," Iris finally said. "So many times she made me swear not to tell you."
"Why?" I asked, tears running down my face. "Why?"
She shook her head, her hair fanning in the sunlight. "I don’t know. I never understood why. I asked and she would say..."
"Because I said so," I finished for her.
Iris laughed and I laughed with her and then I ran to her and we hugged so tightly I couldn’t breath and I didn’t care.
Stepping back from her, I said, "I have to ask you something else."
"What?" she asked, wiping her cheeks with her palms.
“Adian. Are you in love with him?”
If she was sipping on water it would have shot right through her nose. “What? I mean…? Why? Why would you think that?”
“You’re closer to him than you are to the others. I don’t know. Call it jealousy if you want, but I figured since we’re putting everything out on the table, I might as well ask.” I don’t know what I would have done with the answer. Everything about Adian’s actions dictated that he loved me. And only me. But I couldn’t help how I thought Iris felt about him. I’m not sure it mattered. Still, there was a part of me that needed to know.
“I’m not in love with Adian,” she said plainly. “We are friends. Very good friends, that much is clear. I never pegged you as the jealous type, Myriana.”
I wasn’t the jealous type. Or was I? I wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.
“How and why did you become close?”
Iris took a deep breath. "Your mother’s death," she said. "He was devastated. He loved her. She was everything to him. He followed her everywhere, hiding, unseen but always there. He worshiped her. She was his world. And then, she was gone. Just gone."
She walked to the table, and leaned down on it as if viewing it all happen inside the wood grain, "You were inconsolable, and wrapped in grief. Karal and Bryce were constantly with you. Sleeping, eating, everything. He had no one to unburden himself to. You were her daughter, and his charge. He couldn’t come to you with his grief, with his destroyed world. From following her and Ragnar around he discovered I was your true sister, and so he came to me. I was sundered as well, but we shared with each other. We had the same kind of relationship with the Keep in a way."
I joined her at the table, "I didn’t know that about him. I mean, not at that depth. Having her men die with her, that must have been even harsher for him, because he was always around them as well; learning to fight, and about war and battle."
She nodded. "It could have been better if one of them had returned. But he only saw them as teachers, mentors really. Nothing more. He wanted to learn how to defend you. To be them. To take their place if your mother lost them."
That made sense. "And after that?"
"We — just were. We talk about you a lot. He always wants to talk about you. We’ve talked about Fenrir too."
If I wasn’t listening before, now I was really listening. “And.”
“He’s okay with you loving him.”
“He said it plain as that?”
“He thinks it’ll be good for you. For all of you, really. Give your relationship another dimension. Make you an even stronger queen. And he knows that he and Karal and Bryce can learn a lot from Fenrir. Plus, he’s not the worse company.”
“Or does he just want Fenrir to take his place while he’s away.”
“Away?”
“He wants to play captain for a while.”
“He loves boats. And ships. And water. I can’t say I’m surprised. But no. He knows Fenrir will never take his place.” She seemed so certain with her words that I didn’t struggle against believing them.
“How can you not be in love with him?” I asked and this time, the question was filled with humor.
“Ew,” she said and laughed. “No offense.”
She leaned forward kissed my cheek, and I felt the heart in me glow hot with love.
“I wish we could have been sisters earlier,” she said. “I really wish I had said something.”
I nodded. Smiled. And felt a lightness that I hadn’t felt all morning sweep over me.
"And," she said after clearing her throat, "you better be pregnant soon. I want another tiger around the Keep."
"Pregnant? Mmm, I’m not sure about that," I laughed. Then, after a pause I asked, "Fenrir knew, right?"
"Oh goddess, if it wasn’t for Fenrir I would have grown up insane. Yes, he knew and he use to visit me, at least once a month, and always when Ragnar was here. Since he first arrived with Ragnar. I think I was six or seven then. He would take me hunting, teach me how to fish, how to track. Fighting, swords, guns. And he would listen. Hours and hours and hours he would listen to me babble about mother and Ragnar, and you, and the Keep, and the boys."
"Just listened?"
"Yes," she said. "He would sit on my floor, eat grapes and cheese. Sip wine, and listen to me ramble. Afterward, he might tell me a story about his latest trip, or just sit with me."
"Why didn’t you fall in love with him?" I asked, quietly.
Her brows came together. "Why do you want me to fall in love with everyone,” she laughed. “I guess Fenrir was like my older brother. Perhaps an uncle or close cousin. He never, not once, made any moves or hints in that direction. Not that I understood, anyway. It just ... wasn’t, y’know? Like just — not."
Then she grinned, "You however! Oh goddess, three nights with him and you were lost in fantasy land."
"Stop it!" I companied.
"Stop it hell. I was so embarrassed for you. Your questions about things that you were sure you disguised so well… ‘What do men find romantic?’ ‘Do men like flowers?’ Oh, and my favorite, ‘Can the Kind hear heartbeats?’ "
"Stop! I was twelve!" I shouted, laughing.
"You were twelve until you were sixteen," she countered.
"Argh," I groaned putting my face in my palms, "I take it back! I don’t want a sister!"
"Sucks to be you then. You’re stuck with me," she laughed.
I sobered. "Am I? I mean. Where do we go from here? Do we break the deception? Do we announce it? What?"
Lifting an eyebrow, she said, "I never got that far in my thinking. I always hoped that one day you would discover me, and we could be family. I longed for this so many years. But I don’t know. I would suggest that we talk to Mark, and discuss it with him. He has a good mind for politics and people, and the realm itself."
"Good, then let’s have lunch, and after, we’ll talk with Mark. We’ll see what he has to say." I suggested.