The Viin


    They sailed into port in the early hours of the morning, the fog rolling in as steady as the morning tide. It clouded Trystan’s view of Benevolence Vige, but that did not stop him from taking it all in with a grim expression.


    He had not slept a wink the night prior. Instead, he’d remained in the background as the crew sang their birthday song to Sage, then happily tripped one of the crewmen into the wall when he nted arge kiss on her cheek. After that, he’d disappeared, saying he had a headache, but that wasn’t why he had made his escape. Not truly.


    He inhaled the scent of salty sea water mixing with the smells of the bakery just opening on the docks. The thin cloth of his shirt did nothing to protect him from the morning chill, but it did not matter. He needed the cold.


    Girls. Two of them.


    She had been trying to rattle him. As far gone as Trystan was for her, he wasn’t so foolish as to ignore her insistent attempts to shake him, to be his downfall in this battle of wills.


    The problem was not even that she was winning.


    It is that I’m bloody enjoying it.


    All night, he was gued by images of those two little girls with Sage, of a family with Sage. Every time he tried to shove the thoughts away, they kept popping up like a deands-possessed jack-in-the-box.


    Kingsley dragged his chained foot over to perch on the ship’s edge, holding up a single sign.


    Father?


    “No!” he boomed before slowly looking up to find a dozen set of eyes locked on him, all clearly having witnessed the outburst.


    Kingsley put the sign down and pointed his toes toward the edge of the dock, and Trystan followed, his irritation shing to embarrassment when he saw what Kingsley was pointing at: his father, Arthur, waiting on the docks. Trystan’s ears grew hot.


    Kingsley held up another sign.


    L.O.L.


    “What in the deands is L.O.L.?” He picked up the sign and shook it usatorily.


    The morning fog at Benevolence Vige was always too thick for any unseasoned sailor to take port in. The docks would be nearly empty. Trystan lifted the hood of his cloak over his head.


    The nk was lowered from the deck to the dock, and Trystan was mortified to find Sage watching him at a distance, her dress a vibrant green, gold thread woven like vines throughout. One of Tatianna’s, surely.


    But the dress was nothingpared to the mischievous grin on her lips. Red. He shook his head at her, drawing a threatening finger across his throat.


    She smiled wider, and his heart fluttered.


    Hearts should not do such things.


    Raising a brow, he walked toward her in long strides, the intensity in his gaze making her breath hitch, her eyes widen, her throat bob—and Trystan understood that this was what it felt like to be wanted. He reached out, fingers stroking her neck on either side as he moved to the hood of her cloak, adjusting it over her shoulders as she gazed up at him.


    “Ready?” she asked softly, perhaps noticing how his hand clenched the fabric before letting go.


    “To face my mother? Never. But I suppose, since we came all this way,” he said dryly. He was turning on his heel when Sage’s soft hand found his, stopping him as he twisted his torso back. “Yes?”


    Sage smiled at him with more warmth than he would ever know what to do with and whispered, “I’m with you. No matter what, I’m on your side. Okay?”


    Something burned in the corner of his eye and didn’t stop, even as he nodded stiffly and watched his sister run down the boat’s ramp to the docks.


    “Father!” re cried, running right into Arthur’s arms. His features were a harder, more masculine version of re’s, but her nose sloped at the same curve and her jaw was cut in simrly sharp lines. She had always been their father’s daughter. In every sense.


    Malcolm had been their mother’s son, and Trystan had been…


    No one’s.


    He sneered inwardly at the mncholy. It was as ufortable as joy, but this made his stomach hurt instead of the usual overwhelming nausea.


    Trystan followed Evie, taking her hand in his, his ungloved skin touching hers as she stepped up onto the ramp and carefully made her way down. “Don’t fall in,” Trystan warned. “There are crocodiles that would love you for a sweet.”


    Sage turned. “Are you calling me dessert?”


    Damn it. “No, Sage. I was trying to scare you.”


    “Byparing me to cake?”


    “About the crocodiles!” He waved a hand. “Just go. I aming.” He came up behind her, cing a hand at the small of her back, then pulled up the hood of her cloak, shielding her face. A mistake. She wasn’t ready for the sudden obstruction of her vision and nearly stumbled headfirst into the dock before Trystan had his arms up and around her, pulling her close as he leaped,nding safely off the ship and right in front of Arthur.


    “You couldn’t have waited two more steps before nearly knocking me into the water?” She jammed her elbow into his stomach, not exceptionally hard but enough for him to loosen his grip.


    “I’m the only reason you didn’t fall in the water, actually.”


    Sage sighed, the wrinkle in her nose distracting him momentarily as he inanely began counting her freckles. The chirping of birds signaled the start of the workday, and Trystan adjusted his hood, too, nodding for Tatianna and re to do the same.


    “Arthur!” Captain Jones jumped from the ship and wrapped his arms around the core healer, the two friendsughing as they pped each other on the back. Arthur had spent the entirety of Trystan’s early years traveling the continent with the captain, looking for people’s souls to heal, blessing everyone with his ever-pure magic—everyone but his children.


    Trystan didn’t think there was much merit to wanting the approval of others; repelling them was easier, simpler. Making people feel unwanted was assurance that they would leave him when he chose.


    But wanting the approval of his father…that was a desperate aspiration that lived in the marrow of Trystan’s bones, so intertwined with his existence there would be no exorcising it.


    “You told him we wereing,” Trystan used Jones, feeling like he was dangling on puppet strings when all the while, he’d thought he was the master.


    Jones pped his hands together in warning. “Now, Trystan, I have done you a favor. You said you needed to stop at your mother’s for something, and Arthur is the only person you can trust to get you to her without the king’s men being called upon.”


    Arthur’s long red beard was neatly trimmed, his hair tied away from his face, and his arms slowly spread, as if to… Oh dear gods, was his father trying to embrace him?


    Trystan swerved so hard into Sage that he nearly took them both to the ground. His arm identally brushed the side of her breast, and he wasn’t sure what about this situation was worse—that his estranged father had gone in for a hug when Trystan barely tolerated handshakes, or that the mere brush of Sage’s corset-covered breast made his arm feel as if he’d been struck by a stray lightning bolt.


    A tie. It had to be a tie.


    Arthur’s hurt showed in the furrow of his brow, the downturn of his mouth. “I deserve that. I should not have assumed… I apologize. Jones was being a friend by writing to me. Your mother is not easy to get around—it took me years of trial and error to sort it myself.” The gruffugh was a sound Trystan had heard often in the life before this one. Arthur continued. “I wanted to help you, and I thought if you had me on your side, Amara may be more cooperative in giving you the ss slipper.”


    The reasons made sense. But Trystan did not care.


    “And how do you intend to help with that?” Trystan folded his arms, turning his body to block Sage when a few fishermen passed them, not moving until they were well out of sight.


    Arthur gestured to the end of the docks, where a covered carriage sat. “This will get you through the vige; I will drive it home. People will assume I’ve brought wares back with Jones. It’s the best course.”


    It was.


    Fucking annoying.


    Another fisherman passed and looked at Sage a little too closely before sping a hand over his mouth and jumping. “The Wicked Woman! Call the Valiant Guard. It’s The Wicked—”


    Trystan shoved him over the side of the dock, whistling as he heard the ssh.


    Sage looked into the water uneasily. “Didn’t you say there were crocodiles in there?”


    “Yes,” he said ndly. “Why?”


    “One of you fish that man out and keep him quiet!” Jones called, unfazed by Trystan’s sudden act of violence.


    Maybe he was losing his touch.


    Jones pped him on the back. “I will be waiting here to return you home. Good luck to you all, and good luck to little Alexander, too.”


    The name made warning bells go off in Trystan’s head, a paranoid shock shuddering through him, and he did not know why. Not until he looked around and found an unchained cuff attached to a small, weighted ball near his feet.


    Kingsley.


    He caught a sh of green in the corner of his eye, and the next moments drew gasps from the entire group as they found the frog atop a post, seconds from leaping into the water. “Kingsley?” Trystan called cautiously. “Jump down from there.” The frog’s gold eyes were nearly swallowed by the ck of his pupil, the awareness gone, causing his heart to plummet. “Alexander. Alexander, it’s me. It’s Trystan.”


    Nothing.


    And then the frog leaped. Trystan and the others watched, the world moving in slow motion as Kingsley jumped from the post, toward the water, hopping right atop a lily pad and then back to the dock, disappearing into the vige fray. “No! Shit. We must go now.”


    Arthur ushered them all along, piling them into the carriage, grabbing Trystan’s hand before he shut the door. “It’s not your fault, son—none of it. You need to remember that.”


    Arthur closed the door in Trystan’s face, trapping him inside the carriage and trapping the words that were making tiny dart-size holes beneath his skin. The carriage rattled along, and Trystan took brief peeks at the sand-lined roads, the street vendors with fish and beautifully colorful nes, the stone houses getting bigger and bigger as they rode.


    “Don’t lose that frog!” Trystan banged on the roof, and Sage shushed him.


    Sage. Shushed. Him.


    The world had turned inside out. “Be quiet, you little urchin!” she said smugly.


    Be quiet, you little urchin, or you’ll get us both killed.


    The first words he’d ever spoken to her. Thrown back in his face. Lesson learned—next time you find the most infuriating, beautiful, and life-altering woman you’ve ever encountered…


    Leave her behind to die.


    “I see him!” Arthur called down to them. “I see where he’s heading! Up the stone path! He’s chasing a—a fly!”


    “Where?” Trystan hissed, nearly lunging for Sage when she gave him a thumbs-up.


    But all the anger disappeared when his body finally caught up to what his mind had been screaming at him to realize. Where the stone path led.


    “Your mother’s house!”


    Trystan’s mother’s house. That was where Kingsley was going.


    The same mother who had tried to kill him thest time they met.


    Very well. At least she wouldn’t hug him.