Episode 188: Home (Eedhos)

He spent time on land regularly. It was safety, away from the prying eyes of his father. So long as he was clothed, no one questioned him. So long as he stayed far from the royal houses, no one recognized him.

Until now. Today he was voluntarily going into the heart of the enemy’s operations. He might be recognized. He might be imprisoned. He might be killed by his father on his return home.

It didn’t matter. He was done with games. Hundreds of years, he’d placated with games, and hundreds of years his father had only stacked new demands on top of the existing ones.

Now he rescued this girl, this daughter of land and sea. It would likely cost him his life. It was better than dying for nothing, on some whim of his father’s.

“You never bonded?” she asked him.

He thought back to the girl, the source of all the strife between himself and his father. Meirya.

“When I was younger,” a child, really, “I bonded to a commoner. My dad, King Thelos, was mad, so he broke it. So I rebonded. So he broke it so that I couldn’t bond to her ever again, but I think he messed up because I haven’t bonded to anyone since.”

She frowned at his story, the graceful arc of her eyebrows lowering to meet the downward slant of her lips in a way that implied an outline to her entire face. “The queen can make bonds, you know. I’m a commoner, I don’t see the difference.”

The queen, a land queen, capable of making bonds? How could it be? Only those of the sea, rightful claimants of the throne beneath the waves, possessed that ability.

He handed the girl some clothing. “Come on,” he urged. “I have travel packs. I understand this isn’t your favorite outfit, but you’ll be home soon.”

“What is your plan?” she asked him.

Death. Death, as an act that saved the life of another. Escape.

“Take you to see the queen,” he improvised. “Have our bonds broken, tell the Keshmari idiot to take you home before your parents find you again.”

Her mouth popped open before she closed it again. “What about your dad?”

He shrugged. “He won’t care.” About killing him, anyway.

“Okay,” she breathed. “He won’t care if my dad comes back and is mad?”

Eedhos bit back a laugh. “What’s your dad going to do? Be pissed?”

Thelos would probably just kill the dad too. The dad, at least, deserved it. Danija didn’t seem to.

“I guess if I get married, he won’t be able to come after me again,” she agreed. Her lips turned upward this time. “Just pissed.”

He nearly put his hand on the small of her back, before he remembered that touching, with unwanted bonds, was a generally bad idea. He stepped away from her instead. “And the Keshmari will protect you.”

“I hope so,” she worried.

He had better. If he didn’t, he didn’t deserve her.

Eedhos finished dressing and offered her his hand. That seemed platonic enough, and it wouldn’t ignite the bond too much. “Ready?”

She slid her small, elegant hand into his grip. “Ready.”

He passed a travel pack into her free palm, and she transported them to a garden, the heart of the festival. The madding crowd.

He fought the urge to tuck his shoulders in close to his body. “You’ll have to tell me which one is the queen.”

“I don’t see her yet,” Danija said. She whirled around, eyes wide, hungry in search of the person whose actions would yield her escape from him. “But this place is big.” She stood on tiptoe and then raised one arm and pointed toward the west. “There.”

He afforded himself one small touch of her back, against the strains of the bond which wanted so much more. “This should be quick,” he promised, himself more than her. “It was nice to meet you, Danija. Good luck with everything.”

“You too,” she said.

He could feel her flesh beneath his fingertips, warm with fire magic she’d gotten through a bond, abuzz with the excitement of her upcoming freedom. He withdrew his hand from her skin, a farewell of sorts, and calmed the sensations that rippled through his own body.

The queen turned and saw them.

She turned, and they saw her. Eedhos saw her. Impossible.

His mother, alive. On land, ruling. Hundreds of years lost, only to turn up here.

“Danija?” she asked, with a voice like Briza’s. “You’re back?”

“Yeah,” Danija said in a smaller voice. “Hi.”

His mother looked at Danija. Did she ignore him intentionally, or had she not recognized him yet?

“Hello, Queen…” he said in a pushier voice, the one he used with some of the nobility at home.

She turned her smile on him. “Aadya,” she told him with a wide, pleasant, probably genuine smile. It wasn’t the smile he remembered. “Just Aadya. And you are?”

It was possible it had been too long. He might have changed too much for her to see him. Or he might be mistaken about her identity. Aadya…

“I’m Eedhos,” he told her. She had named him, long ago. She either didn’t know him, or wouldn’t acknowledge him, or she wasn’t his mother and it was little more than a bizarre coincidence.

He wanted to leave. “Would you mind breaking our bond so she can return to her love?” he asked.

His chest constricted as she snapped the bond, breaking it not just for the moment but for all time.

He didn’t know how much more of this grief his bond could withstand. Already it felt brittle, splintered.

“Will this cause issues with Thelos?” she asked.

If she was really his mother, she was asking him not to tell.

He bit back his confusion. “I don’t think so,” he promised.

“Good,” she said. “If you’d like to stay for the festival, you’re more than welcome. We have rooms.”

He stood frozen in his own little capsule of air, here in the presence of his own mother, whose behavior was inscrutable. Where was his hug? Where was her joy at seeing him, her promise to stop his father?

Hundreds of years, he’d longed for her return, for the solutions it would provide.

And she…

“I should get home,” he apologized. Then he remembered Briza. What if her disappearance was because she’d made her way here? “While I’m here, have you seen my sister?” he asked his mother. “She came to land recently.”

“I haven’t,” she said. Her countenance became vague for a moment. “But you should come back in a few days.”

Not likely. He intended to be dead in a few days. This, more than anything, encouraged him that he made the right choice in death over life. There was nothing left for him in this world.

His mother’s face cleared and her eyes drank him in, surveyed his body, studied his own eyes. “You knew me before, as Elaira,” she stated.

“A long time ago,” he acceded.

She reached her hand toward him and then lowered it. There would be no embrace. “A very long time. Forgive me for not remembering.”

“We thought you had died,” he lied. Most who knew her believed her dead, anyway. Only a few had ever suspected otherwise. “Why did you lie?”

“My memories were erased,” she apologized. “My name changed.”

Erased. Removed. All that she had been, was no longer. It was a death, in a way.

“If Thelos knew you were here…” he warned. His father would raze this kingdom, pull it into the sea and claim her as his own.

“He does,” she countered. “I’ve met him in the past two decades. He told me I had siblings…not…I didn’t know.”

If his father knew, and had done nothing to claim her…perhaps he had dismissed her as incapable of being turned for use in his power plays.

“No one is angry with you,” he assured her. He suspected it was another lie. “You’ll take care of Danija and see that she finds her prince?”

If his mother recognized the bonds, she would have seen the way his pulled at Danija, longed to strengthen itself until it was whole and healthy and hers. She would know what he gave up.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “And you’re welcome here. Your sister will be here soon, I think.”

He shook his head. He might return, if he could manage it, to see if there was a life for him here, but first he had to go back. “If I stay, it will stir Thelos,” he explained. “The choice to give her away can be excused. Failure to return home will be seen as kidnapping.”

She stepped across the infinite separation between them and closed the gap, drawing him into her arms, into the hug he so badly wanted. “If you ever need somewhere,” she urged, “don’t hesitate. No matter what he says, our goal is to keep peace between the kingdoms.”

That was Eedhos’s goal as well. With luck, it wouldn’t cost his life.

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