The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) by Garrett Robinson (elon musk reading list TXT) 📕

“This is not an order. Please, brother.”

I relaxed. As her rangers went to issue her orders, and Mag remained with Dryleaf, I followed Ditra up the stairs to the same chamber where we had met last. There was a new bottle of wine on the table, and two cups. She stopped in the middle of the room, staring at them.

“One of those cups was for Maia,” she said. “I suppose it is yours, now.”

“Thank you,” I said. I poured for both of us and sat back, but I did not touch my wine. Ditra, on the other hand, drank half of hers in one gulp. She put it back down upon the table, staring at her own hand as it gripped the glass.

“You were right about Kaita.”

“I wish I had not been.”

“The past is barren ground for sowing wishes,” she said, “and the future is fertile for nothing else.”

My brows rose. “I have never heard that wisdom. I doubt you learned it from Mother.”

“I did not. It came from my late husband.” At last Ditra looked up at me. But far from the pain I had seen there last time, her eyes were filled with a profound sadness, almost mourning. “You should have come back, Albern. When Romil died. You should have come back.”

“And what would Mother have said?” I asked her quietly. “How could I have faced her? She, who I could never quite say hated me, but simply … did not seem to care. Yet she would have cared, had I returned. Romil would not have died, if not for me. She was only on that pass because she was returning after seeking me out.”

“Yes, she was,” said Ditra. “That does not mean it was your fault.”

“I know that. But Mother … she would not have seen it the same way. She would have hated me, then.”

Ditra nodded slightly. “You are right. She would have. She did. And without you there to turn her hatred upon, she turned it on me instead, and on herself. She spent nearly every waking moment in the pass, hunting down any Feldemarian who dared to enter our domain, until in the end, they killed her. But not before she had let me know just how useless I was to her, in her time of loss.”

I shook my head. “Ditra … no one should have suffered that. Least of all you. I am sorry.”

“No. That was not your fault, either.” She sighed and pushed her chair back a few fingers. “And we have no time to worry about it now, in any case. Kaita will be back. I doubted you before, but no longer. If we are to die here, as might well be the case, I would sooner do it by your side than alone. Will you stand with me?”

I nodded. “I will help you save your people.”

“Thank you.” It came out as a whisper, though I do not think she intended it to. She took a deep breath, obviously steeling herself. “Albern, I … my daughter. Vera. I never knew that you were ander, I would never have …”

She trailed off. The sound of the name caused my chest to grow tight. But this was nothing like when Romil had said it to me, on the edges of that sellsword camp, or when I thought Maia had said it to me. This feeling was strange.

Because never, in all the early years I had spent in Tokana, had I ever dreamed that someone would be proud to name their child after me.

“It is a perfect name,” I managed to say. “I am sure it suits her beautifully. Better than it ever suited me.”

Ditra gave the first full, genuine smile I had seen since my return to Tokana. “It does, at that. I am going to send her with the rest of the refugees, and I must do it soon. But before she goes, would … would you like to meet her?”

I felt dangerously close to shattering, so I remained silent. But I nodded. Ditra rose and left the chamber. When she returned, she brought a little girl who could not be older than twelve. The girl’s eyes were wide and wonderstruck as she looked up at me.

It was like looking at a painting of myself at her age.

Ditra kept her hand on Vera’s shoulder, looking at me with obvious apprehension. I smiled and held out my hand.

“Hello,” I said. “I am Albern.”

Vera’s eyes went wide. She looked up at her mother, who nodded, and then back to me. “You are my uncle,” she said in a quiet voice, putting her hand in mine.

“I am.”

“Mother says I look just like you used to.”

Ditra’s hand clenched on her shoulder. “Vera—”

“It is all right,” I told her quietly, before smiling at Vera again. “Your mother could not be more right. I only wish we had more time to talk. But you have somewhere to go.”

Vera’s smile dampened, and her eyes filled with doubt as she looked up at Ditra. “I told her I did not want to leave.”

“Yet you must. Your mother is doing what is best for you.” I met Ditra’s eyes. “Parents always try to do that. Some of them fail. But not your mother.”

Vera frowned. But she took a hesitant step forwards, and then another, and then she hugged me about the waist. It startled me, and a long moment stretched before I thought to embrace her in return.

“I am glad I met you, at least,” said Vera quietly. “Might we talk more, when we return?”

“I hope so, child. In fact, I promise that we will.”

Kaita flew towards the northern edge of the city. Great swells of warm air rose before her from the flames of Kahaunga’s burning buildings, but she flapped anyway, powering her wing muscles with sheer fury.

Why in the dark below was Mag there? she raged in her mind. They were in prison. Both of them. Again, always