Page 136 of Reap & Sow

That was a pleasant thought.

With great care, Eda placed a handful of colorful stems before her mother’s headstone and pinned them with a little rock. She arranged the rest in the same way before her father’s.

Her hand lingered for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “And I forgive you.”

She stood back.

“They’d be proud of you, Edie,” Lawrie said.

“They’d be proud of us all. At least, I hope so.”

“Course they would.” Ben rubbed his red nose. “We’re model citizens.”

“Ugh. I don’t like it when you make jokes. It’s unnatural.”

“Someone has to, Lawrence. You’ve been selfishly moping around recovering from your near-death experience.”

Eda smiled to herself as they made their way back down the street. The sight of her brothers bantering and sniping was one she’d feared to never witness again. But they were here, alive, if not a little battered and bruised. Should fate be kind, they would have a lifetime still. She tried to imagine them with gray hair and wrinkles; what a privilege that would be! Her heart swelled with the rightness of it.

At Shaws’ Antiques & Curiosities, Eda insisted on checking for anything she might have forgotten to pack. In truth, she merely wished to indulge in another tour. She wandered through the tiny kitchenette, the cramped solar and its old hearth. Her brothers’ bedroom. Her own. She lingered by her bed awhile. Touched the worn-thin pillowcase. Downstairs, she strolled along each stack, trailing fingers over books and shell collections and painted fans. Eda even stood at the top of the cellar door and looked upon the place where the Gateway used to be. But she did not go down.

“You’re acting like you’re never coming back,” Lawrie said when she reemerged in the foyer. He squinted at her. “You are coming back, aren’t you? You said—”

“Of course I am. I just…wanted another look.”

And so, with her travel bags in hand, they stepped outside. The doorbell chimed behind them. Wistfully, Eda wondered when she would next hear it.

She spared the shop another look: the proud oriel windows, the golden lettering above the door. The peeling green paint, which Lawrie insisted would finally be redone next she saw it. It had been her only home. It would always be her home. But for now, her path was diverging, just as theirs was. All of them could finally begin to live. There was as much excitement as melancholy in that.

They paid a few coppers to hire a boy with a mule and cart. Loaded up among Eda’s bags, they rocked together as they were delivered through the city. Eda tried to memorize that too. The cobblestones, the damp smell of the canals. The blackened stone and the spindly spires reaching for the gray sky. They crossed Saint Leoric’s Bridge. She admired the bustle of the portside, the algae-coated hulls, even the briny fish scent carried on the wind. She didn’t look away from any of it until they passed beneath the northern overstreet bridge and beyond the city walls.

The surrounding town thinned to scattered villages, and there, still in clear view of Blackbridge, they dismounted. They bade the boy wait. He agreed—for another copper.

The three made their way off the traveler’s road and through a busy livestock village. Embly, it was called, so named for its favorable position on the Embel’s bank. They skirted the edge of the village where snorting pigs and roaming chickens alone might observe them.

Eda scanned the stretch of river. He said it would be here…there!

A handsome twin-hulled barge in comely blue awaited them down the river path. Eda’s heart leaped at the sight of it. She found herself clutching the plain gold pendant around her neck. Useless now, so far as she could tell. But no less precious.

I hope you found your Oriana, wherever you are.

She had to remind herself to keep a sedate pace. Lawrie wouldn’t mind her going ahead, but she would not throw away these remaining, cherished moments with him. Eda hooked her arm in his. As they approached, a small figure popped up on the bow.

“Sire! Sire! She comes!” The imp scurried into the cabin, but his voice was shrill enough to hear through the walls. “The Lady Eda is here!”

“Lady Eda?” Ben and Lawrie exchanged a glance. “Thought he didn’t like you.”

“Helping to kill Kit’s usurper brother seems to have won me some measure of respect.”

Tripp had wished above all for his lord to be happy. And I make him so, she thought warmly, still overwhelmed by the idea. But some things did not need to be said aloud to one’s brothers.

The cabin door swung open. A lithe, dark figure stepped out. He saw her and stilled. Smiled.

Eda’s heart swelled.

They came to a stop. Ben put her bag down and pulled her to him. There had been a time when her eldest brother withheld his embrace, preferring to comfort her with words of guidance. But they’d come so close to losing one another. What could words tell her that the warmth of his arms did not?

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “With him?”