Page 171 of A Baron of Bonds
“What did the warden have to say?” his mother asked, taking Revich’s plate and hers, bringing them to a small basin to wash in water I was certain was not fresh.
“The usual,” he rumbled, his voice eerily like Revich’s. “Since the order is for the Spire, we need the biggest pieces we can find. Showy bastards,” he finished. Revich watched him carefully as if looking for any sudden movements.
“Today’s the day, son.” His father’s gaze turned from his empty plate to Revich. He pointed, saying, “I can feel it in my bones. You’ll find your first today. We’ll head back to that same tree. Something was there. I can feel it.”
He sat back in his chair, poking around his teeth. “You need to use that magic of yours and help us find more rhyzolm. You want more bacon for your father, don’t you?”
His mother continued to scrub, taking the pan from the table and beginning her work again. “Of course he does. But his power isn’t developed, Byn. Give him time. He practices every day, don’t you, Rev?”
He nodded, smiling at his mother before locking his gaze back on his father. Byn eyed his son as well, giving him a slight nod before rising from the table with his plate. He handed it to his companion and murmured low, “I missed you this morning, Heirah.”
I didn’t mistake it.
The clench of her jaw, the tension in her spine as he bent down and kissed her shoulder. She swallowed and shifted away from him. The movement was slight, but stiff, and Byn grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.
No, I knew exactly what was going on in this house, and it seemed Revich did too as he suddenly sprinted from his chair, almost shouting, “Should we go, father? Mama can meet us there soon, right?”
Heirah nodded, giving a weak smile. “Right, Little Love. I’ll follow your trail.”
Byn turned to his son with narrowed eyes.
Helping Revich along, I sprang for his father’s boots by the door, picking them up and handing them over.
He sighed and took them, headed to the door, pulling them on as he went. It opened with unnecessary force and Rev smiled back at his mother, forming a ball of blue light in his hands, tiny as a pebble. He backed up toward the door after his father while a scattered trail of his magic followed him. She laughed, grinning beautifully, and I recognized Revich’s unburdened smile on her face.
I knew it well. I knew it often.
Rhyzolm mining was difficult.
Not only was the labor hard on the body, it seemed to be on the soul as well. Little Revich surveyed the miners we passed, his trail of light breaking at points before forming again, staying lit and hovering to lead his mother our way.
He followed his father closely, his boots squelching through the mud that came up to his knees.
I kept turning Revich’s head as he tried to follow his father. We passed at least two dozen miners in the marshes, each one using a variety of tools to wedge underneath the exposed roots of the trees covered in green moss.
I knew that in order to mine for rhyzolm, you had to dig underneath the tree, finding the rocks imbued with the magic of Felgren that washed this way from the forest.
Revich had explained to me the difficulty in getting underneath the root system, and I saw it here, in this memory, as miners worked to pull roots apart, gaining access underneath.
“Why can’t we just cut down the trees and dig for rhyzolm underneath?” I asked.
The backhand came quick, sending me,us,to the mud.
“Don’t ask questions when you already know the answer. You know the marsh trees have not grown in hundreds of years. And you know these are all we have.” He gestured around, glaring at his son, who picked himself up out of the muck and wiped his hands on his overcoat.
I hated this man.
I hated him before, but now, now this was me, glad he was out of Revich’s life at a young age. He deserved to rot here in these marshes where no one would find or mourn him.
I thought again about what I was really doing here, in this memory, on this day, as I felt the sting on Revich’s cheek.
He had hit him after the question I had asked, but I knew by Rev’s reaction, this was certainly not the first time.
It would be thefucking lastif I could do anything about it.
Perhaps that’s what Rev had meant when I left for the trials. He’d reminded me I held a darkness inside, and I saw it now, blooming before me in a display of his father’s skull smashed among the roots of these trees.
I had no tolerance for this.
