“My mother,” Chenzhou explains. “Was a common soldier. Skilled, of course. Well above average. She and my father t on the battlefield, during the war with the Southern Tribes. They married as soon as the war ended.”
“Can’t imagine that went over well.” Eirian muttered. Even though love matches couldn’t be challenged in the Land of Sorrow, it didn’t stop so people from being horribly classist.
Chenzhou shrugged. “No more than usual.”
“Your mother was well respected.” Yuze pointed out. “Rather beloved, actually. Anyone in the court who disapproved of her marrying your father was probably smart enough to keep their mouths shut.”
“Where did she co from? Before they t.” Eirian poked at a plate of fried vegetables, before finally selecting a fried green bean to try. A day after she woke, she was still struggling to recover her weight, and Marian had tasked Finn with making sure she was eating constantly.
It was annoying that his cousin’s orders took higher priority than her own, but she didn’t have the energy to correct that at the mont and Finn, sohow, did seem to have the energy to do both for the mont.
The weirdo. Even at full strength Eirian didn’t think she had that kind of energy. The poor kid almost seed manic at tis. With so much energy that he had to move or lose his mind.
Finn vibrated, Yuze lurked, and Chenzhou remained as steady as a greet everwood tree in a storm.
Of them, Eirian was coming to prefer Chenzhou to the other two. It was easier to think in the presence of an anchor than a ship that was constantly moving.
Chenzhou, who had rarely spoken of his parents, before now was silent for a while.
Long enough that Eirian started to wonder if he was even going to answer.
“She was from one of the small outposts in the contested lands. It doesn’t exist anymore. A few years after she joined the Imperial Army it was over run and the survivors fled back to the Calia. I don’t know if she had any family before that or after. When she married my father and moved into the main castle she ca alone, though the Regents told she often had friends visit. I always figured that ant she was a good person, but I’m sure so of them were just looking out for themselves. My grandmother died almost two decades before, so the Calia had been without an official Lady for a long ti. Regardless of how they felt about her personally, the court was happy to have a Lady of the Calia again.”
“There has to be so record of her before her service, though. If she was born at a military outpost?” Eirian wondered and took a bite of what turned out to be fried carrot. She’d never seen soone batter and fry a carrot before, but it wasn’t bad.
“She would have been recorded on the Register of Births for the outpost, but those records were destroyed with the outpost when it was overrun.” Yuze looked thoughtful. “Or at least it was assud they were.”
“The Calia re-took the territory a month later, but the outpost was so damaged it was never rebuilt. It hasn’t been re-settled since. It’s considered a bad on now. The soldiers avoid it.” Chenzhou added.
Eirian perked up. “Wait, it’s still there?”
Chenzhou and Yuze nodded. They’d both passed by it on previous campaigns and missions.
The haunting ruins sat along a well-travelled route to one of the most common battlegrounds, a silhouette of shattered walls and torn standards, always on the horizon. Close enough to send chills through everyone that saw it, but far enough that sotis they could still get the soldiers to camp at the nearby waterhole.
Sotis.
“Even the tribes won’t go near it.” Yuze stroked Qiang Ye’s hilt. “They think its cursed land.”
“Even though they overran it?”
“Thirty thousand died in that fight and almost half of that were non-combatants. Families of the soldiers stationed there.” Chenzhou expression was sad, and his hand ca to rest on Huaban.
Ardain started a low, sad song in Eirian’s head and an impulsive, wonderful, slightly stupid idea popped into her head.
Eirian couldn’t help but grin. “We should go.”
“So of the soldiers in my class were out that way on patrol and they ca back swearing they saw ghosts.” Finn’s eyes were wide, and he raised his arms to mimic a floating ghost.
“I tried spending the night at the waterhole once. Didn’t sleep a wink.” Yuze shivered at the mory.
“I’ve never heard so much complaining as I do when we have to take that road.” Chenzhou shook his head.
“I want to go.” Eirian chirped, already excited at the thought of getting out of the castle. She’d brought her beloved roan mare, Fleet Goddess, with her but hadn’t had a chance to do more than stop by the stable and say hello. The stable hands let her out to exercise with the other horses, but she rarely let anyone besides Eirian ride her.
Chenzhou and Yuze laughed and then stopped laughing when she just stared at them.
“Wait-”
“No-”
A gleam appeared in Finn’s eyes. “That’d be interesting.”
Chenzhou and Yuze turned to him, faces twisted in betrayal and disbelief.
“It’s settled then.” Eirian patted Finn on the back in approval. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Absolutely not.” Chenzhou sputtered. “You’re not recovered.”
“And going to that place is a stupid idea!” Yuze added.
Eirian shrugged. “Then you two can stay here and Finn and I will go. If no one’s gone near the ruins since the outpost was destroyed there’s a decent chance will find sothing useful.”
Chenzhou froze in the middle of opening his mouth to argue. “Sothing about my mother?” Chenzhou had only ever asked the people around him in the Calia about his mother and only when he was younger. It had been so painful to hear about her that he’d stopped asking by the ti he was a teenager.
By the ti he was old enough to handle the hurt of learning about her, he’d been dying and now…he wasn’t.
~ tbc
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