Page 47 of Warrior of the Wild
“What village are you from?” Soren asks.
Since I can’t see how it would hurt to tell him, I answer, “Seravin.”
“I’ve heard of your leader. Torlhon is said to be one of the greatest warriors of his generation.”
Just hearing his name turns my insides cold. His face is all I can see for a moment. Not the way it looked when praising me. When proud of me. When training with me. But the way it looked as itsentenced me to banishment. When it told me I was tasked with killing a god.
“He is,” I manage.
“Did you know him well?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
Soren pauses with his hands full of berries about to be deposited into the bucket. He stares at me, waiting for an explanation. But he doesn’t ask, just leaves a space for me to fill, should I choose to. Not forceful, just open.
“He’s—my father.”
That sends his eyebrows shooting upward. He lets his load roll into the bucket, then wipes his hands on his hide-covered thighs.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because you are here instead of with your family.”
And that word,family, has thoughts of Irrenia racing through my mind. My throat suddenly aches, and I feel the annoying presence of extra water in my eyes. I blink forcefully, keeping it at bay.
“What about you?” I ask. “Did you leave behind a family?”
“Iric’s family raised me. My father died a warrior’s death. He was on watch when the ziken tried to breach the borders. I was three.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sickness took my mother the year after. I had no siblings. No living relatives at all. But Iric’s parents were unable to have any more children, though they desperately wanted another child, so they took me in.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat.
“Don’t be. I don’t remember either of them.”
But he’s here now, which means Iric’s parents lost both of their boys after they took their trial. I wonder if they reacted the same way my father did. With such disappointment and sudden hatred.
“And Iric’s parents are the kindest and most giving people I know,” Soren says. “They’ll have the biggest estate imaginable waiting for them in Rexasena’s Paradise.”
I suppose not, then. Perhaps it makes it harder, in a way, to leave them if they were loving up to the end.
“Do you have a big family?” Soren asks. “I know nothing of it outside of your father’s fame.”
The bucket is full now, but Soren and I pick berries and put them directly on our tongues. Neither of us moves to head back down the trail.
So I tell him about my five sisters. They, at least, are not painful to talk about, except for the small ache in me that longs to see them.
“Six daughters!” Soren exclaims. “Your father must have been so proud.”
At first, I think Soren is jesting, but after a moment, I realize he’s serious. He honestly believes that my father is proud of his large family.
“He would have been proud if we were all sons.” I don’t mean to say that aloud, but out it comes anyway.
“How can that be? After hearing you talk about your sisters, they all sound wonderful.”
