Page 96 of Fate

Then the kitchen.

Then aired out their room in the loft and cleaned it.

Again.

The laundry was hanging on a line. There was an entirely separate space dedicated just to the craft, down in what she thought was a root cellar. But no, there was the cauldron on its great hearth, the scrubbing boards and wringer.

The colourful quilts moved gently from the state of the breeze, but Firen was restless.

Lucian was under tutelage with Vandran until almost supper, and he’d asked her to please refrain from indulging her threat of refreshment until he’d at least settled a week with the man.

There were things to do. A great many of them if she wanted to fuss and make lists of it all.

But it was too quiet about her. Too few people. No one to share anything with.

She went back into the house and changed out of her work clothes. Smoothed her hair and tried not to look like a laundress. The looking glass was small and speckled, but she was satisfied with her appearance when she went out the back door. Out the gate that creaked just a little as she exited the courtyard.

Then hurried back in both when she recalled she’d locked nothing and had not even remembered the keys to do it. Also, her coin purse. That was rather important as well.

This time she made it beyond the gate before she hurried back again, suddenly worried what might happen if Lucian came home early and found her gone, the house locked and empty. The second key was in possession, but he might worry, and she didn’t want that.

She scribbled a note on a scrap of parchment and debated where she might leave it. Why he’d take to their bed she didn’t know, so she decided against his pillow.

There was the small room on the lower floor that they’d discussed making a workroom. Books and study for him, a place to tinker for her.

It would spare the kitchen being subjected to either fancy, and the disorder that would surely accompany either pursuit.

Satisfied, she actually made it away from the Hall. She might have circled a few times, just to see if she could spy Lucian, but that felt a little desperate, even to her own judgement.

So on she went.

Away from the towers. Away from all that was new, and back to what she knew far better.

She would make new friends, eventually. Befriend shopkeepers and the like as she braved doing her shopping in a building rather than a stall.

But that could be another day.

She smiled broadly as the market came into view. The lines of fluttering pennants, the wooden tops of the stalls painted in varying shades of white. She knew the routes so well, and she would have landed early to walk and mingle as she pleased, but she waited until almost the last moment, her approach so quick that she earned the startled gasp from her mother when suddenly she was simplythere.

“Was that necessary?” she scolded, with a hand on her chest and a scowl on her face.

“Yes,” Firen answered sweetly before wrapping her arms about her and sighing just a little.

A bit of normalcy.

“Surely you have better things to do,” Mama countered, eyeing Firen over. It had only been a few days since they’d seen one another last, so there was nothing truly to see. Butshe supposed that was to be expected. Age and mating did not change a mother’s love.

“Probably. But I wanted to be here.” Everything was arranged a little differently, which she should have expected. Mama hadn’t worked in the stall for a long while. Not since Firen had come of age and taken over. “We didn’t talk about this part,” Firen observed. She sat on the second stool, the one that more often than not, she’d filled with a friend. But now it was just her and Mama, and it felt like her younger days. When she couldn’t keep still, and Mama would threaten to tie her to that same stool if she didn’t stop fluttering about like that.

Mama brought a flask to her lips and took a deep pull. Water, surely, for the day was warm, and the breeze was calm. Even so, Firen peered a little closer, trying to make out the contents.

Mama shoved her away with a playful hand. “I’ve not turned to strong drink in your absence, Firen,” she chided. “And what do you mean we did not talk? Talk of what?”

Firen gestured to the stall before them. “About this. You don’t like it here.”

Mama frowned, shaking her head slightly. “I never said that.”

Firen snorted out a laugh. “You did not have to. Hip high, all of us could see how grumpy you got on market days.” It was all right that Mama laughed. Ask any of her siblings and they would tell her just the same. “It’s true!”

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