State of Sorrow (Sorrow #1)(32)

“My horse threw a shoe, so we decided to cut across the land, hoping to reach somewhere before nightfall to attend to the horse. And the first cottage we came to was Beliss’s—”

“My … guardian,” Mael interrupted. “Her name is Beliss.”

Aphora nodded. “We approached, knocked on the door and were surprised to find it answered by a Rhannish youth.” She nodded to Mael. “At first we assumed he was there with a Rhyllian lover –” Sorrow kept her expression carefully blank “– hiding from the authorities. But then Beliss herself came in, and it was obvious that they weren’t what I’d believed. We didn’t know what else to do, so we sent for Lord Vespus. We waited three days, asking the boy the same questions, over and over. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?’ But his answers were always the same; he was Beliss’s child, it was his home. The old woman herself refused to be drawn, until Lord Vespus arrived. But he got her to speak, and finally confirmed what we’d begun to hope. That we’d found the lost Ventaxis heir. Alive, and well.”

There was something odd about the way she was talking. It sounded rehearsed. The pauses, the inflections, even the way she raised her brows as though unable to believe it herself, had the air of performance.

Charon’s flat tone when he replied “How incredible” told Sorrow he felt the same.

“It was the first I knew of it.” Mael leant forward earnestly. “I’d never questioned that I was supposed to be there, or that she was my mother.”

“But you don’t look Rhyllian,” Sorrow said. “Not at all.”

“I didn’t know what Rhyllian or Rhannish was.” His eyes lifted to hers. “I knew me, and I knew Beliss. That the only two people in my world didn’t look alike meant nothing to me. I looked nothing like the goats or the chickens either. For all I knew, everyone in the world was a different colour, and a different shape.”

“You must have been surprised,” Charon said. “When they told you.”

He shrugged. “Of course. Of course I was. You see, I liked my life. I liked – loved – Beliss. She’d been everything to me, taught me everything I knew. It was my home. I didn’t want to be someone else and I didn’t want to leave.”

“So you were taken to the capital?” Sorrow didn’t care what Mael had or hadn’t wanted; all she wanted was to hear the rest of the story. She let her impatience seep into her voice. “And then?”

He sat back, slumping in the chair. “Yes. And I could still remember nothing, none of my past, nothing of Rhannon at all. They…” He looked at Vespus, who nodded. “Her Majesty, Queen Melisia, and her council weren’t as convinced as Lord Vespus.”

“My sister suspected he was an imposter,” Vespus added. “She worried he was plotting to make trouble between our countries. She had him arrested and imprisoned. They brought Beliss to the castle too and accused her of the same.”

“So what changed my aunt’s mind?” Rasmus asked. Vespus’s expression darkened briefly, but he said nothing.

It was Mael who answered. “Besides the birthmark, Beliss had kept the outfit she’d found me in. After all those years, she still had it, tattered as it was. It was brought to the castle and examined and the tailor’s label was found. Queen Melisia remembered what I’d been wearing. The embroidery on the collar, specifically. It was Rhyllian made, you see. By her own tailor, as a gift. Completely unique.”

Silence fell over the table. Vespus gestured for the server to return, murmuring to him to replace the coffee.

“Where is it?” Charon asked. “The outfit? I don’t suppose you still have it.”

It was obvious he expected them to say it was lost, or destroyed during some kind of examination, and Sorrow privately agreed, so she was surprised when Aphora reached into a concealed pocket in her flowing gown and pulled out a small parcel wrapped in gossamer-thin paper. She lay the package reverently on the table and delicately peeled the paper away, revealing a set of shorts, and matching tunic, in green and white, fit for a child. There was embroidery on the collar of the tunic, as Mael had said. Moonflowers.

Sorrow reached for the garments and Vespus moved, snatching them away.

“They’re fragile,” Vespus said coolly when Sorrow glared at him. “As you can imagine, the fall and the water took their toll. We’ve been protecting them carefully until we could hand them to the chancellor.” From inside his robe Vespus drew a long glass stick, and used it to push a scrap of the white cloth back, revealing a label. “But you see here, the royal tailor Corius’s label. You were there, Lord Day, were you not? You remember it.”

Sorrow looked at Charon, whose face was stony as he gave a curt nod.

“Did the Rhannish ambassador know that you believed you’d found the lost child?” Sorrow asked.

“No,” Vespus said firmly. “Ambassador Mira knew nothing. There was a very small inner circle who were aware of it until this morning, on Melisia’s orders. She did not want Mira to be compromised. Mira was notified this morning, along with those who accompanied us to the bridge shortly before we began the journey.”

“Why wasn’t she there?” Sorrow asked. Mira had always attended the ceremony before, remaining on the Rhyllian side.

“She was asked not to attend.”