Emma tasted acid thinking about it. She would make it up to Sasha if she saw her again. She understood now. She saw her mistakes. More tears came hoping she was going to get the chance to undo this sin of hers. They had to be alive. About a week after Kovos left some people found remains on the road, all male with royal guard armor. The bodies were robbed but that didn’t mean anything. Arkin followed them and Legon and Kovos were a force to be reckoned with. Sasha was fine. They all were. These were the thoughts that finally let Emma sleep.
* * * * *
Edis swore softly and put his thumb in his mouth. “Idiot.”
The door clinked shut and he saw Emma eye him. She looked like she had been crying all night; no surprise there, but she also looked concerned.
“Morning, Emma,” he said.
“Morning, did you cut yourself?”
“It’s no big thing. I just wanted to see if the knife was sharp, did it on purpose.”
She smiled wryly at him. “You cut yourself on purpose?”
She didn’t buy it, but he wanted to make her smile, the poor thing had been though a lot. “The back needs to be mopped,” he said gruffly.
“Yes sir,” she said, and gave him a slight curtsy.
As soon as she was out of sight he sucked his bleeding finger again. It really did hurt. Maybe Laura would need to clean it or something. He knew it wasn’t that bad of a cut, but Laura would treat it like a major injury. She always doted on him like that, and he had to admit he liked it, even to the point of hamming it up a lot of the time. He shook the thought from his head before Emma saw him.
“How did ya sleep? You look tired,” he yelled toward the back of the shop. She didn’t look up. “Fine, and you?”
“Now Emma, don’t lie to me. I know you better than that. What’s got you bothered? Are you afraid of being alone in that place? You know we’d love to have you with us. Just hold on to that place for the tax collectors and…”
“No, it’s not the house, well, not all the time…”
“So what is it then?”
She’d been through quite a bit but she needed to snap out of it. She needed to breathe again.
Laura stepped into the shop from the back door and smiled warmly at Emma. This seemed to break the girl. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and Edis felt himself instinctually move to her. Laura looked to be thinking the same thing. As they moved toward Emma she stepped back.
“What’s wrong dear?” Laura said soothingly.
“I don’t deserve this! You’re too kind to me and I can’t take it anymore!” Emma
threw down the mop and ran out the back. Edis looked at his wife.
“What did you say to her?” Laura asked.
“Nothing, I asked what was wrong.”
“Are you going to go talk to her?”
“I suppose she probably went to the hill overlooking the town.”
Laura looked curious. “What makes you say that?”
He was already taking off his apron and moving to the door. “That’s where everyone goes unless they’re my age.”
Laura’s concern cracked for a moment. “And where do people your age go?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not up hills, that’s where.” Edis said gruffly.
She laughed. It was the place he always found Emma when she ran off or when she wanted to be on her own. Sometimes in her wanderings it would take her a bit to get there, but that’s where it ended. Legon liked that place too, and so did Sasha. His throat tightened a bit at the thought of his children.
Thankfully the day was mild. The trees wouldn’t turn for another month at least, but the air was starting to cool, which was nice when you tried to follow someone half your age up a steep hill. He wound his way through the familiar trees, with only the sound of his increasingly heavier breathing and twigs snapping underfoot.
When he got to the top there she was, of course, sitting on the ground covering her pale blue dress in grass and dirt. Her sable hair caught the breeze, a few strands twirling around her head. She made no move to put the renegades back in place, she didn’t even seem to hear him. She must have been hurting badly today if she didn’t hear him. He heard himself, and every animal in the forest heard him too. It wasn’t just his breathing and heavy steps they heard. He was willing to bet most of the valley heard him stub his toe on the root of a tree.
He plopped down next to her and wrapped his right arm around her. She tried to shy away, but he pulled her into a half bear hug. He didn’t talk, he just waited. That seemed to work best for women—just wait, don’t fix it. If you try and fix it you get in trouble. It went against his better judgment to do this, but he fought the urge to talk. This was how it was when Sasha was upset too.
Just give her time Edis, she knows you’re here and you care,
he thought.
“Is your toe ok?” Emma asked after a bit.
He winced. “Heard that, did ya?”
“I think everyone heard that.”
“I know I’m too old to come up hiking like that anymore. I’m not like you children.”
She was silent again. What was on her mind?
“Edis, you don’t want to comfort me,” she said, dejected.
“Really? Wish you’d said something before I walked up here, would have sent Laura instead.”
“She doesn’t want to comfort me either, or she shouldn’t.”
“And why is that?”
He thought he knew where this was headed.
Her words came out in a rush. “I was horrible to your daughter and made her suffer so much. I used her, made fun of her, I even told her she was going to be made into a whore once but I don’t know if she heard me.”
He felt himself tense. Was he ready for this conversation?
She went on. “So you see, I don’t deserve your love or anything from you. If anything,
you should hate me.”
“She heard you,” Edis said soberly, remembering that time on the hill too.
Emma seemed to collapse in on herself when he said it.
“I’m so, so sorry Edis. I didn’t, I didn’t think about…” she trailed off.
He felt the air in his lungs leave in a breath. “Look kid, you weren’t any different than anyone else. If you can believe it, you were pretty nice, comparably speaking, and we know everything people did to her. You aren’t the first person I’ve tried to console up here.” He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it either. His daughter should not have been treated the way she was.
Emma sobbed. “I was one of the good ones?”
“Yes, you were,” there was flint in his voice now.
She looked at him. The dust from the trail was separated by tear tracks on her face like rivers on a map—a face not unlike his Sasha’s. Memories of his hurt daughter assaulted him, and he felt his heart begin to break.
“Look, Sasha would have and did forgive everyone, frankly, and so will I. You’ve grown up, so to speak, and I don’t see you treating anyone badly again, am I right?”
She nodded vigorously. “So you don’t hate me?”
“No I don’t, and neither does my wife. We like you a lot kid. Also it’s not like it’s all your fault either.”
She looked confused. “What do you mean?”
Did he want to tell her this?
As he spoke he felt uneasy, not for what Emma would think, but for the subject matter. “Arkin told me a bit of how the queen stays in control, something about dragons and stuff I don’t know or don’t want to know, but she’s the one behind all this.”
That was a lie. Sure, the queen was behind a lot of it, but so were the people. They didn’t have to let themselves be cruel, but Emma didn’t need to hear that now.
“How did Arkin know that?”
He paused. “I don’t think he was from here. I think…”
“You think what?”
“I think he was here on assignment. He never said so, but he left when Legon did and he looked after that boy. Sasha too never saw anything like it before. Sometimes it bothered me, but he was devoted to Sasha and he gave Legon the skills to defend her, so…” he trailed off again, not knowing where this was going.
“You must think I’m a bad father for letting my kid learn from someone just so he could hurt people.”
“Not at all. Sasha needed that and he would have done it anyway. I can see what you mean. The Royal Guard was looking for Legon, and they all got killed. Do you think that was Arkin that did that?”
“Maybe, I don’t know, just so long as those young ones weren’t involved. That’s all that matters to me.”
She was leaning into him now. “Edis.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. I won’t be so gloomy anymore.”
“Ok kid, you better not, do you want that room I offered? So long as you own a house you won’t get taxed for living with us.”
She looked thoughtful. “You know what, I will take it. Thank you.”
She smiled widely at him and he gave her a squeeze. “Emma?”
“Yes?”
“Today when you mop, make sure you get the corners of the room.”
She leaned away from him and hit his arm. “Oh, slave driver!” She was still smiling as she got up.
“Do you need help old man?”
“Old?” he paused. “Yeah, I could use a hand.”
* * * * *
Laura waited patiently for Emma and Edis to come home. It would take Edis a little while to get up the hill and then to talk to Emma. Laura was making her way to her bedroom. It was the largest bedroom in the house with a large window looking out the back. Her eyes moved to the left side of the room where the bookshelf sat. It was one of Arkin’s and it took up the whole wall. It was actually more like three bookshelves. Laura wasn’t a reader per se. These were mostly out of date medical books, ones that she should really get rid of, but then the wall would be so bare. Some were not books, but logs of things she’d tried as a healer and things she thought might work in the future. One whole shelf was covered wither her logs for the Empire. Every person she treated, barring her family, was in these, including every treatment in detail dated with the cost, the amount she charged, everything. These logs were audited at random and she needed to keep only the last ten year’s worth, but she kept them all. Her’s was a compliant industry, as was the butcher’s shop. Edis had logs as well, though not quite the same. Most of his audits involved cleanliness and procedures. He was audited every six months. She was only saved this because unlike butchers, healers needed to be certified.
The back door opened downstairs and she quickly grabbed the book she wanted. She moved to the railing, looking down into the small living space. Emma was with Edis, which was a good thing. He was jubilant and his face looked like it would crack from the smile he gave her.
“Honey, she finally caved!” he called to Laura.
Now her face hurt with a much-too-large smile. “Good! We have so much to do!”
Edis looked a little confused. “What do we have to do? She needs to keep her house looking like it’s hers for taxes, remember? She can’t move too much stuff over. It will take us maybe an hour.”
She was heading down the stairs now and sidled up to Emma, placing her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Emma, you asked me once if it was hard to become a healer.”
Emma nodded.
“If you want you can become my apprentice. You know most of the herbs I use, and I need to go to Salkay in a week or so to stock up on things. You could come.”
“You’ll really teach me?” Emma said, overwhelmed.
“Yes. I need the help more than Edis does, and once the weather gets cold I’ll get busy.”
Emma looked astonished. Laura knew what she was offering her, and it was a big deal. It would take her some time and eventually she would need to go to Salez or some other large city to finish up her training and get certified, but this gave her a future.
Being a healer was a great advantage. When the Iumenta took over they didn’t improve much on humanity; if anything they tried to hinder them. There were a few things they did improve on and one was medicine. They needed a healthy workforce, a workforce that wouldn’t get upset because they were sick, so healers went from having only the training their fathers or mothers gave them to being certified and schooled by the Empire. It was hard to get into medical school if you weren’t an apprentice of a healer before you came, but if you were and you could pass the basic test, you were accepted.
This was Laura’s hope for Sasha, why she trained her from the time she could remember anything. In truth, Sasha was just as capable as Laura, if not even a little bit better, though Laura would never tell her that. One of the many perks of being an apprentice was that if you were taken into the care, you weren’t really mistreated. You were sent to one of the schools and were then given a recommendation of towns to live in. You didn’t have to go to one if you didn’t want to, but you had a choice. Also, when being taken into the care, you wouldn’t be treated harshly. It was more that you were just getting a ride to the training house. You received tax credits, more so if you could use magic. Sasha could have made a wonderful life for herself, if it weren’t for her episodes. Those alone condemned her to a life of misery. That wasn’t the case for Emma. If she came on as an apprentice now, she would get a half tax status, and Laura, now able to claim a valid apprentice, would get a full tax credit. The beauty was that Salmont was large enough to justify one and half healers.
“I would love to do that Laura, are you sure?”
“Very. I need the help and when Kovos comes back for you then maybe your lot can stick around for a while and get to the point where you can go to a training house. That would mean you could live just about anywhere you want.” With Kovos’ trade they would have a exceptionally good life indeed. Even the most hostile of enemies needed both smiths and healers, making them all but immune to being victimized.
* * * * *
Emma felt her eyes water again today. Well, they stung like they were tearing up, but she was pretty sure she was out of tears, at least for today. She didn’t answer Laura, but hugged her instead. She couldn’t believe this, yet more that she didn’t deserve, but she would be more dedicated than anyone. She would earn this. She would earn her new adopted family. That’s what she was now—family. Just like Legon had brought in when he was a baby, she was being brought in now. She wouldn’t let her new brother and sister down either; even if she never saw them again she was going to do her best.