The ride back to the Calia was cloaked in silence, the first few days after they left Tira-Lian. Everyone seed to be struggling with what they had seen and learned.
Chenzhou had fallen into a pensive lancholy, and Anna fretted over him, never far from his side. Eirian gave them both space since Marian seed to be intent on keeping an eye on them.
Even Finn and his friend Patrick had been quiet. Disappointed, probably, with Eirian’s opinion on Song Rui and the ghosts of Tira-Lian.
On the fifth day, the walls of the Calia appeared on the horizon, and everyone seed to relax.
Sothing slid loose in Chenzhou’s chest at the sight of his estate. A breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding ever since they’d left. This place was so many things; it had grown to be a physical part of him. His ho and his mausoleum. His responsibility and his enemy.
Had his mother felt that way when she’d first co here with his father? They were already in love then, and she’d already accepted his proposal. She’d co here to start a new life; to start a family, it was supposed to be a good thing, but by then, the miasma had likely already taken hold. Had his father warned her? Had he even realized the depth of what was happening?
Chenzhou would never know for sure. The only two people who could answer his questions were long dead. His father had known sothing was happening. He was no fool, and he’d been fighting to pull the Calia from her slow decline his entire life.
Next to him, Lady Yang was saddling her horse for the final leg of the journey, and it occurred to Chenzhou that she and his father had been of an age, but he’d never heard her speak of him or his mother.
“Lady Yang.”
She looked over from tying her saddlebags. “Yes, Lord Ye?”
He hesitated and then said, “You never speak of my father.”
She blinked, surprised. “You never asked.” And then she swung into the saddle and watched him do the sa. “I apologize for my silence, Lord Ye, but I find it distasteful to comnt on the family of others unasked.”
He couldn’t really argue with that, could he? As a teenager, he’d hated anyone talking about his parents because they weren’t there for him. It was anger he had yet to fully let go of, and seeing his mother at Tira-Lian had brought so of it back. “The only ti in my life I get to see my mother, and it is as a ghost.” He murmured.
A stricken expression overca Lady Yang. “I have four children, and I am one of five. I cannot imagine my Lord’s suffering.”
“Speak of my father,” Chenzhou commanded softly.
Eirian and Anna, both riding near enough to hear, perked up as Lady Yang thought. “The previous Lord Ye was…a quiet man. You are much like him in that way.”
Yuze snorted and looked away innocently when Chenzhou twisted around to glare at him. Yuze was perhaps the only person on the Rock who thought Chenzhou loud and outgoing, because compared to Yuze himself, he was.
Lady Yang ignored them and continued. “He was very dutiful in his studies.”
Lord Yin chuckled. “He was the only one who out-scored you in the exams, wasn’t he, Cici?”
Lady Yang sniffed and ignored him, too. “The previous Lord Ye’s father also died when he was young and he was raised by his mother, your grandmother. She was a terribly sad, terribly fearso woman. Your father inherited much from her. I think it’s possible the Ye line would have ended then if not for her. She was quite determined to ensure it continued.”
Chenzhou’s eyes widened in realization. “You were…?”
Lady Yang inclined her head. “There were discussions, but they were brief. I t my husband around that ti, and we were…well, pardon my insult, but there was no competition.”
Chenzhou smiled reluctantly. Lady Yang and her gentle husband were a love match and one of the few couples at the Calia’s Court that truly seed to enjoy one another.
“Besides, anyone who had married your father then would have lost him imdiately the mont he t your mother.” Lady Yang’s countenance softened. “They were very much in love.”
“That’s all anyone says about them.”
Lady Yang smirked. “Then perhaps you have not heard that the first piece of intelligence that ca from the battle where they t had nothing to do with the tribes and everything to do with how Lord Ye was so smitten he tripped over a dead tribesman and landed at your mother’s feet.”
Eirian laughed, “Really?”
“The ssage was quite amusing. Lord Ye had to put up with a great many retellings at their wedding.”
The conversation lifted Chenzhou’s spirits for the rest of the ride, which in turn seed to lift everyone else’s.
Eirian caught Lord Zhao glancing at her several tis and had to resist the urge to nudge Fleet Goddess close enough to talk to him. The man looked like he’d spook if she got to close, so she’d just have to wait for him to approach her.
Hopefully, he’d manage it sooner rather than later.
They pushed the horses hard after a break at midday, to make the Calia by nightfall. Li had sent two guards ahead the day before to warn them they were coming to make sure they had an update on Kang and Miki waiting.
None of them were expecting them to be waiting outside the gate to the Calia, their nervous energy transferring to their horses, who couldn’t keep still as they crossed the last hundred feet and joined them.
The two guards imdiately bowed to Chenzhou, and the gate behind them began to creak as it swung open.
“Did sothing happen to Kang and Miki?” It was the first ti Eirian had seen Li display anything other than exhaustion or frustration.
“Sir, Kang and Miki are in the care of the healers and expected to recover.”
Li wasn’t the only one who relaxed significantly at the news. His guards were close-knit, Eirian was realizing. Sothing that ca from having the sa solid leadership for so long.
It was sothing the City Guards in Aontacht sotis lacked.
The two guards shared a concerned look, and Li sighed. “Spit it out.”
To his surprise, and to Eirian’s, they turned to her. “Lady Ye, we thought it best to inform you before you went inside…your father and mother are here.”
~ tbc
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