|
If any of the small village in the Folde had cared to look toward the morning sun, they could have seen the wilted outline of Degas lit by it. They could, perhaps, have made out the broken harp in his hands; the glow of the strings flashing like infinitely small whips of fire might have given it away. He'd dropped it by accident in a fit of annoyance and watched in horror as a crack split the fine frame and snapped several strings, fraying many others. He walked, a ghost, out the front doors of his family home, his hands curled around it, staring blankly.
Everything is broken in my life.
He pushed the thought away. He did not want it. To admit to problems made it so much harder to qualify doing nothing about them.
"She's to return."
Degas glared at his brother. Fenrir was two inches taller than him, was heavily built; most chose not to pick fights with him... they'd lose if only to his temper.
"What's it to do with me?"
"You know where she is."
"So do you. If you want her back so much, go get her." He felt like he was betraying Saeryn. He should have known... Fenrir did not live far from Edoras. Perhaps a day's ride. If he had not heard before then, he'd learned for certain through the city gossip that his youngest sister was the lady of a man she had not wed.
"You will bring her back."
"I'll do no such thing." Fenrir took a step forward.
"Go ahead, brother, do it. You know you want to. I know you want to. What stops you, brother? That the village can see us? Be a man and pick fights where the world can see. Punish me all you like. I will not be your slave or your messenger. If you want Saeryn back, go and grovel."
"I do not grovel."
"Then you do not deserve her." None of us do. She is the only worthy one of us.
"You will cleave to my will or you will be removed from that of our parents."
"You'd never dare." His words were acid. Careless. What had he to lose? Father would never approve of a rivalry of his children's wills. Father was gone. Mother; she would take them aside in private and share her displeasure with a look of disappointment. Fenrir would wilt. Degas would have already apologized. Mother was gone. Their displeasure meant little. Only the here and now. Here and now, Degas stood alone with his brother in the morning sun, and he had no Linduial to take for evening walks, to write music for, to treat like his very own queen. He had no parents to disapprove. He had no Saeryn to take his hand and calm him, to make him think sense. When had she become the calming force in his life? She'd had the temper as a child. He'd been pushed into watering troughs often enough to know it. When had she changed? Why hadn't he been there for her?
"I can do it without question. You left home with little warning and no regard for the state of your lands or your people. You left their well-being to another while you frolicked in foreign lands living upon the purse of another. Is that the responsibility to hold lands? You allow your youngest sister to live in the house of a man not her husband, to be his lady out of wedlock. You allow rumors to garner about her, cutting her hard earned reputation to ribbons, and what do you do of it? You care nothing for your land or your family. Your inheritance is undeserved."
"You dare!" Degas stepped forward, his harp still in his hands.
"You will bring Saeryn home or the matter will be taken before the king and he will learn more even than the little I've said."
"You have nothing."
"I have everything."
|