Page 59 of The High Mountain Court

“It’s lovely,” Remy whispered to keep her voice even.

“It was my mother’s favorite flower,” Hale said, watching the purple petals spin in Remy’s hand.

“Was? I’m sorry—”

“She is not dead,” Hale corrected, “though for all we see each other she might as well be.”

“She doesn’t live in the capital?” Remy twirled the flower again, realizing she released her grip on the bannister to hold it. Her legs felt steadier when she stood beside Hale.

“I see the stories and gossip of the Eastern Court have not made it to your little tavern in the West?” Hale gave her a half-hearted laugh. Remy shook her head. “My mother lives on the Eastern coast in a remote fishing village called Haastmouth Beach. My father banished her there when he married the current queen.”

Remy stifled a gasp. Banished? How could the King be so cruel to the woman who bore him his first child?

“Why?” It was all she could think to ask.

“I think he really loved her. But she was below his station, and he had ambitions that she got in the way of. It is not the way of the Eastern royals to marry for love.” Hale exhaled as Remy passed him back the amethyst flower. “When he announced he was to marry the current queen, it broke something in my mother. They say she went mad. They said it would be kinder to send her away than to lock her up.”

Remy clenched her jaw to keep her mouth from falling open. “They would have locked her up?”

“They kept me away from her for many years . . . I was six when she left. It was another six years before I ran away to find her.” He had been the same age as Remy when she lost her parents. “Of course, I found a perfectly sane woman. Sad, yes, but she was still in her wits completely. I think my father loved her and just wanted her gone.”

“That’s awful.” Remy chewed on her bottom lip.

“I visited her every few months after that for many years. I spent every summer of my teen years there too. My father would allow it during the weeks my tutors were away on holiday. I made friends with the locals. I learned to fish and swim in the big ocean waves. I’d always bring her a gigantic bouquet of these flowers that I had picked along the eastern banks of the Crushwold. They don’t grow by the seaside.”

“Those sound like very happy memories . . .” Remy couldn’t quite finish her thought: And yet when you speak of her you sound so sad . . . what happened?

“It has been a decade since I’ve seen her. Though my soldiers tell me she still lives,” Hale said so quietly Remy had to strain to hear over the wind cupping her ears.

“Wh—why?” she asked.

“When I was eighteen, my father assigned me my first job. I was to assemble a group of soldiers and we were to take back the Eastern village of Falhampton from Northern control. Drive them out. Oversee the building of better walls and guard towers. Train the villagers to defend from future attacks. It was a task for a general, and yet he gave it to me, despite my partying and childish behavior.” Hale huffed. “Only recently, though, did I realize he thought I would never succeed. He wanted to make a show of effort.”

“But you did succeed?” Remy smiled knowingly to the river. Hale’s shoulders lifted a bit at that smile.

“Indeed I did—it took nearly a year. And when I returned, you should have seen his face. It was the first time he had ever really acknowledged me. He made me a general, the youngest in the kingdom.” Remy felt the pride radiating from him as his chest puffed up again briefly before deflating. “I had planned to go visit my mother upon my return, but my father thought that would be unwise. I needed to show the people I was a true Prince of the East and that I had chosen him and the crown over her.”

“That is nonsense,” Remy dismissed with a wave of her hand.

As if broken from a spell, Hale looked at her and laughed. “Where were you to tell me that then?” He threw the flower into the river and watched as the choppy currents carried it away. “I wrote her a letter apologizing for not visiting and telling her I needed to focus on my job as a newly appointed general. She wrote me a letter back.”

“I’m guessing she understood.” Remy already knew the answer.

“She did.” Hale’s eyes crinkled as he gave her a sad smile. “She told me she was proud of me and that I knew where to find her when I was ready and to remember to bring her a bouquet of flowers.” He sighed. “And as the years went on, the shame felt greater. It felt harder and harder to make that trip. It felt less and less likely that she would forgive me.”

“She will,” Remy said confidently, leaning her shoulder into his.

“You seem very certain of that.” Hale chuckled.

“I am.” Remy pressed her shoulder into him again. “She loves you. A mother’s love . . . it does not fade with years. It burns brightly forever.”

“Where did you hear that?” His cheeks dimpled as he looked at her.

“From my own mother,” Remy said.

In that moment, standing there on the bow of that boat, they both seemed like two small children, missing their mothers. It was something deep and vulnerable that they rarely showed others. Remy saw her own pain mirrored in Hale. It made him seem less like a prince and more like a normal person, a son, with a family he loved and missed like she did her own.

“After you find the High Prince and restore him to the throne, you will go to her with a big bouquet of fragrant flowers, and she will smile and hug you like no time has passed.” Remy smiled. Staring off into the distance, she imagined it was her going to see her own mother.

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