This is... the actual end of my story. So I guess this is the end of LMS for me. Wow.
Spoiler! :
Chapter 38
When Saegen woke up, she had that funny feeling that told her she had had this feeling already while asleep, and now she just had to wake up and face it. Waking up into any feeling that wasn’t the freshness of a new day was a sure way to start off-kilter, but she supposed it was only right in her situation – or, if not right, hardly surprising.
She had been offered a chamber at the palace to sleep the celebrations off, but she had refused. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, and she was glad she had, because however she felt now she would’ve felt tenfold after waking up in a strange place.
Although perhaps it would have been good to get a head start.
In any case, she had to make her way back to the palace as soon as she was ready to go. Mother had said she would take the morning off, and Saegen didn’t doubt her willingness to do so, but however long Saegen idled, that much of money-making time her mother lost. Not that mother had said this – she would probably appreciate a little more free time that day – but Saegen was determined that no livelihoods would suffer for her.
And so, after a breakfast that had lost it taste to Saegen’s thoughts, she lifted a bag on her shoulder and clasped her mother’s hands. Both of them had promised each other not to cry, and both of them failed miserably.
“Be good, darling”, her mother said through ever-so-slightly trembling lips. “I know you always are. But be good. And be well.”
“I will, mother”, Saegen said, thinking for a brief moment that she would set her bag down and they would sit back at the table, continuing eating like it was any other morning. The moment was very brief, but it was there.
“Make sure I hear from you often.”
“More often than you will have patience for, I’m sure.” Saegen smiled.
“I will never hear from you often enough, my girl”, her mother said, pulling her into a hug. Saegen breathed in that hug, because they both knew that when they stepped out of it, there wouldn’t be more in a while.
They held each other longer than Saegen had been held by any one person at a time. It was her, however, who had to take the first step back, so she did.
“I love you, Saegen.”
“I love you too, mother.”
Then she walked out, looking back every few steps and seeing her mother still looking at her, until Saegen decided it was time to face forward, towards another goodbye.
Despite her melancholy mood, Saegen couldn’t help but laugh when she saw Myriad’s face. It was so obvious what had happened.
“So, how was it, your highness?”
“Don’t you dare try to lighten the mood”, Myriad said. “But, since you asked, oh my goodness, Saegen, it was divine. He’s divine. And he’s my husband.”
Saegen laughed again. It felt good. “You’re very lucky, indeed. Not only in your choice of husband, but having it be divine from the beginning. Sanning said it was horrible.”
“Well, I expect it’s because Sanning isn’t married to a prince”, Myriad said seriously.
They looked at each other for a second, and then broke into a simultaneous laughter and cry. You truly could do both at once, Saegen remarked, and it sometimes felt the most natural thing of all.
“I don’t want to do this, you know”, Myriad said, voice damp. “It’s not right, saying goodbye. How am I meant to know how to be after this?”
“I don’t know how either. But we’ll learn. And you know, it will never be for longer or for less time for you than it is for me. And it’s really only the first day we’ll need to get through. Tomorrow, there’s already going to be something new to occupy our minds.”
“That doesn’t sound like something that should comfort me, but strangely, it does”, Myriad said, wiping her cheek and Saegen’s.
“This is for you, by the way. You and Sumner.” Saegen handed Myriad the parcel she had been carrying under her arm. “Open it together”, she warned when Myriad’s fingers reached for the string.
“Fine”, Myriad said. “But you’ll tell me what’s in it, right?”
“Of course”, Saegen said, smiling. “It’s a quilt. I started making it when I learnt of your engagement. I had to rush to finish it, since there was… a break. I know it’s not royal or regal or anything, but you can use it as an extra layer or something…”
“I’m going to put it on the bed. Sumner will like it. The Queen won’t, but she’s not going to live there, is she?”
“I hope you’ll like your new home. I wish I could see it.”
“You will”, Myriad said gently but challengingly – promise me you will. “Thank you, Saegen.”
Saegen felt like the tears were coming, but she smiled them dry. “I had to give you something that was for the both of you.”
“Eh”, Myriad said, shrugging. “We have now more candelabras, coronets, and sconces than we know what to do with. Actually one of each would be more than I would know what to do with. So it’s unlikely Sumner would know that you hadn’t given him anything. But I will make him know, of course.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
There was a moment’s silence, during which both of them seemed to be unsure of whether to speak, and, if so, what to say.
Then they both spoke at once.
“So I really…”
“So I guess you…”
“No, sorry –“
“Go on –“
“Shush”, said Myriad. “You speak.”
Even as Saegen opened her mouth to say the words, she physically felt the reluctance. “I should actually… go, I think.”
There. Up until that moment she hadn’t quite believed that she would. Now she had said it to Myriad, and now it was true.
“I’ll come with you”, Myriad said. She must have read Saegen’s face, because right off the last syllable had left her lips, she added: “To the harbour. I’m not quite yet deserting my duties, although right now there’s nothing I would wish more.”
Saegen didn’t say anything. She just took Myriad’s hand, and they went.
Saegen had always liked water. The Whistling Brook had been her favourite place for any emotion, and probably would continue to be, even if she couldn’t reach it. She loved the rain, most of all when she was inside with a mug of hot drink clasped between her palms, but even when it dripped down her cheeks and made her hair limp and tangly and several shades darker. She loved the river, across from which she could look into the next kingdom and feel her heart flutter at its possibilities.
But the sea she had never learnt to know. It was too big, too changeable, too powerful. And now it would take her away from everything she loved, and she hated it. Then she wondered why, for it was her own choice to be taken away. The sea couldn’t be blamed for her own mistakes or victories, whichever they would turn out to be.
Still, she was scared of it, which probably meant she was being brave, even if she didn’t feel like it.
“That’s her, then?” Myriad was still clasping Saegen’s hand in hers.
“Yes”, Saegen replied, in a voice that didn’t belong to her.
The ship loomed above them like a monster that had come alive and leapt from a storybook. Violet, it said on the side of the hull. Flower or girl, Saegen wondered in passing.
“You are the most courageous girl I know”, Myriad said. “Honestly, when you told me about this I didn’t think you would do it. Lately, I’ve started to believe it more and more… and checked myself more and more. How could I possibly not know you would do this? How dare I even call myself your best friend, your sister?”
“These past months, I’ve done and thought things even I didn’t know I ever would. There was no way you could’ve known. I still don’t know, myself.”
“I know now. And I’m so proud of you. Even if I have to keep stopping myself from tying you up and never letting you go.”
“I will be back, you know”, Saegen said, as much to Myriad as to herself. “I don’t know when… but I will. And I’ll write you, more than to my mother, I’m sure.”
At that moment, the horn blew – the sound that Saegen had been dreading. The lump in her throat suddenly melted and made the tears flow freely. Myriad was crying now, too. They squeezed each other in a tight embrace, Saegen’s tears wetting Myriad’s neck, and Myriad’s wetting hers. All the hum of the harbour died down until it was silent in Saegen’s ears except for Myriad’s rising and falling breath at her shoulder. In it were all the words they were thinking but not saying just then.
Finally, it was Saegen who pulled away. “I do need to go now, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, go”, Myriad said, with a choked voice. It was only the guard a little way away and the occasional interested look from a passerby that told that it was the new princess of Cordovan standing snivelling at the dock. Neither Saegen or Myriad noticed them, though.
With a deep breath, Saegen picked up her bag from her feet and looked directly at Myriad, who was reaching behind her neck and fiddling with something.
“Take this”, she said, extending a gold locket towards Saegen.
“What’s in it?” Saegen asked, smiling.
“Nothing yet. You find something for it while you’re away.”
“I will”, Saegen vowed. Then she kissed Myriad on the cheek and stepped on the bridge leading up to the ship. She was soon swallowed by the mass of the other passengers and couldn’t turn to look towards the port until she was up on the deck. Myriad hadn’t moved; she was looking encouragingly up at Saegen from down below.
It must have been several minutes but only felt like two seconds when the horn sounded again, and the ship started trembling, and a moment later, pulling away. An involuntary gasp entered Saegen’s mouth – she was off.
She kept looking at Myriad and waving until her arm was sore. Myriad waved back, although it was getting harder and harder to see her. Eventually, she must have decided that Saegen couldn’t make her out anymore, for the speck Saegen knew to be Myriad started moving away.
Saegen had worried about this moment in advance, too, and was worried she would cry again. But then the smell of the sea broke into her nostrils, and despite being scared of it before, she now smiled.
“Saegen! I thought it was you!”
Saegen turned and found herself looking up at the friendly face of Dom Fischer. To her joy, she noticed that it was nothing but a pleasure to see him there.
“Oh, hello, Dom. How are you?” It was almost like any day on the streets of Inglemere.
“Excited”, Dom said. “I never found what I was looking for at home. In fact, I don’t know that I know what I’m looking for. But I’m hoping that when I get to Lynas, I will find it and know. I’m going to be an apprentice for a blacksmith. My uncle knows one there. What about you?”
“Something like that”, Saegen said, smiling. “I want to study, I want to see more what I have seen so far. I don’t want to lose the opportunity before I know what I would be losing. I don’t know how long I will stay in Lynas, if at all. But it will be me who will make that decision, whatever it is.”
This was more than she had said at once for quite a while, and it exhausted her. Dom must have noticed it, because he said:
“I’ll let you start the journey in peace. You know now that I’m here, if you need a conversation.” With a quick bow, he was off, and Saegen was grateful.
She followed him with her gaze for a moment, until her eyes landed on a familiar head of sandy hair. The sight nearly stopped her breath right then and there.
Then the person turned around, and it wasn’t who she had thought it was, but the frozen feeling in her body remained. She forced herself to look at what she was leaving, and little by little, she started to relax again.
There was Inglemere, there was her country and her family and her heart. She could still faintly make out the spire of the Cordovan palace, where Princess Myriad and her prince would soon begin their rule.
Then she turned to the opposite direction. There was nothing but the sun, and the gleam of the blue-green waves. But as the horizon grew closer, she was that much closer of being on the other side. She clasped the empty locket in her hand. With nothing familiar around, she would only have herself.
And she was looking forward to it.
When Saegen woke up, she had that funny feeling that told her she had had this feeling already while asleep, and now she just had to wake up and face it. Waking up into any feeling that wasn’t the freshness of a new day was a sure way to start off-kilter, but she supposed it was only right in her situation – or, if not right, hardly surprising.
She had been offered a chamber at the palace to sleep the celebrations off, but she had refused. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, and she was glad she had, because however she felt now she would’ve felt tenfold after waking up in a strange place.
Although perhaps it would have been good to get a head start.
In any case, she had to make her way back to the palace as soon as she was ready to go. Mother had said she would take the morning off, and Saegen didn’t doubt her willingness to do so, but however long Saegen idled, that much of money-making time her mother lost. Not that mother had said this – she would probably appreciate a little more free time that day – but Saegen was determined that no livelihoods would suffer for her.
And so, after a breakfast that had lost it taste to Saegen’s thoughts, she lifted a bag on her shoulder and clasped her mother’s hands. Both of them had promised each other not to cry, and both of them failed miserably.
“Be good, darling”, her mother said through ever-so-slightly trembling lips. “I know you always are. But be good. And be well.”
“I will, mother”, Saegen said, thinking for a brief moment that she would set her bag down and they would sit back at the table, continuing eating like it was any other morning. The moment was very brief, but it was there.
“Make sure I hear from you often.”
“More often than you will have patience for, I’m sure.” Saegen smiled.
“I will never hear from you often enough, my girl”, her mother said, pulling her into a hug. Saegen breathed in that hug, because they both knew that when they stepped out of it, there wouldn’t be more in a while.
They held each other longer than Saegen had been held by any one person at a time. It was her, however, who had to take the first step back, so she did.
“I love you, Saegen.”
“I love you too, mother.”
Then she walked out, looking back every few steps and seeing her mother still looking at her, until Saegen decided it was time to face forward, towards another goodbye.
Despite her melancholy mood, Saegen couldn’t help but laugh when she saw Myriad’s face. It was so obvious what had happened.
“So, how was it, your highness?”
“Don’t you dare try to lighten the mood”, Myriad said. “But, since you asked, oh my goodness, Saegen, it was divine. He’s divine. And he’s my husband.”
Saegen laughed again. It felt good. “You’re very lucky, indeed. Not only in your choice of husband, but having it be divine from the beginning. Sanning said it was horrible.”
“Well, I expect it’s because Sanning isn’t married to a prince”, Myriad said seriously.
They looked at each other for a second, and then broke into a simultaneous laughter and cry. You truly could do both at once, Saegen remarked, and it sometimes felt the most natural thing of all.
“I don’t want to do this, you know”, Myriad said, voice damp. “It’s not right, saying goodbye. How am I meant to know how to be after this?”
“I don’t know how either. But we’ll learn. And you know, it will never be for longer or for less time for you than it is for me. And it’s really only the first day we’ll need to get through. Tomorrow, there’s already going to be something new to occupy our minds.”
“That doesn’t sound like something that should comfort me, but strangely, it does”, Myriad said, wiping her cheek and Saegen’s.
“This is for you, by the way. You and Sumner.” Saegen handed Myriad the parcel she had been carrying under her arm. “Open it together”, she warned when Myriad’s fingers reached for the string.
“Fine”, Myriad said. “But you’ll tell me what’s in it, right?”
“Of course”, Saegen said, smiling. “It’s a quilt. I started making it when I learnt of your engagement. I had to rush to finish it, since there was… a break. I know it’s not royal or regal or anything, but you can use it as an extra layer or something…”
“I’m going to put it on the bed. Sumner will like it. The Queen won’t, but she’s not going to live there, is she?”
“I hope you’ll like your new home. I wish I could see it.”
“You will”, Myriad said gently but challengingly – promise me you will. “Thank you, Saegen.”
Saegen felt like the tears were coming, but she smiled them dry. “I had to give you something that was for the both of you.”
“Eh”, Myriad said, shrugging. “We have now more candelabras, coronets, and sconces than we know what to do with. Actually one of each would be more than I would know what to do with. So it’s unlikely Sumner would know that you hadn’t given him anything. But I will make him know, of course.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
There was a moment’s silence, during which both of them seemed to be unsure of whether to speak, and, if so, what to say.
Then they both spoke at once.
“So I really…”
“So I guess you…”
“No, sorry –“
“Go on –“
“Shush”, said Myriad. “You speak.”
Even as Saegen opened her mouth to say the words, she physically felt the reluctance. “I should actually… go, I think.”
There. Up until that moment she hadn’t quite believed that she would. Now she had said it to Myriad, and now it was true.
“I’ll come with you”, Myriad said. She must have read Saegen’s face, because right off the last syllable had left her lips, she added: “To the harbour. I’m not quite yet deserting my duties, although right now there’s nothing I would wish more.”
Saegen didn’t say anything. She just took Myriad’s hand, and they went.
Saegen had always liked water. The Whistling Brook had been her favourite place for any emotion, and probably would continue to be, even if she couldn’t reach it. She loved the rain, most of all when she was inside with a mug of hot drink clasped between her palms, but even when it dripped down her cheeks and made her hair limp and tangly and several shades darker. She loved the river, across from which she could look into the next kingdom and feel her heart flutter at its possibilities.
But the sea she had never learnt to know. It was too big, too changeable, too powerful. And now it would take her away from everything she loved, and she hated it. Then she wondered why, for it was her own choice to be taken away. The sea couldn’t be blamed for her own mistakes or victories, whichever they would turn out to be.
Still, she was scared of it, which probably meant she was being brave, even if she didn’t feel like it.
“That’s her, then?” Myriad was still clasping Saegen’s hand in hers.
“Yes”, Saegen replied, in a voice that didn’t belong to her.
The ship loomed above them like a monster that had come alive and leapt from a storybook. Violet, it said on the side of the hull. Flower or girl, Saegen wondered in passing.
“You are the most courageous girl I know”, Myriad said. “Honestly, when you told me about this I didn’t think you would do it. Lately, I’ve started to believe it more and more… and checked myself more and more. How could I possibly not know you would do this? How dare I even call myself your best friend, your sister?”
“These past months, I’ve done and thought things even I didn’t know I ever would. There was no way you could’ve known. I still don’t know, myself.”
“I know now. And I’m so proud of you. Even if I have to keep stopping myself from tying you up and never letting you go.”
“I will be back, you know”, Saegen said, as much to Myriad as to herself. “I don’t know when… but I will. And I’ll write you, more than to my mother, I’m sure.”
At that moment, the horn blew – the sound that Saegen had been dreading. The lump in her throat suddenly melted and made the tears flow freely. Myriad was crying now, too. They squeezed each other in a tight embrace, Saegen’s tears wetting Myriad’s neck, and Myriad’s wetting hers. All the hum of the harbour died down until it was silent in Saegen’s ears except for Myriad’s rising and falling breath at her shoulder. In it were all the words they were thinking but not saying just then.
Finally, it was Saegen who pulled away. “I do need to go now, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, go”, Myriad said, with a choked voice. It was only the guard a little way away and the occasional interested look from a passerby that told that it was the new princess of Cordovan standing snivelling at the dock. Neither Saegen or Myriad noticed them, though.
With a deep breath, Saegen picked up her bag from her feet and looked directly at Myriad, who was reaching behind her neck and fiddling with something.
“Take this”, she said, extending a gold locket towards Saegen.
“What’s in it?” Saegen asked, smiling.
“Nothing yet. You find something for it while you’re away.”
“I will”, Saegen vowed. Then she kissed Myriad on the cheek and stepped on the bridge leading up to the ship. She was soon swallowed by the mass of the other passengers and couldn’t turn to look towards the port until she was up on the deck. Myriad hadn’t moved; she was looking encouragingly up at Saegen from down below.
It must have been several minutes but only felt like two seconds when the horn sounded again, and the ship started trembling, and a moment later, pulling away. An involuntary gasp entered Saegen’s mouth – she was off.
She kept looking at Myriad and waving until her arm was sore. Myriad waved back, although it was getting harder and harder to see her. Eventually, she must have decided that Saegen couldn’t make her out anymore, for the speck Saegen knew to be Myriad started moving away.
Saegen had worried about this moment in advance, too, and was worried she would cry again. But then the smell of the sea broke into her nostrils, and despite being scared of it before, she now smiled.
“Saegen! I thought it was you!”
Saegen turned and found herself looking up at the friendly face of Dom Fischer. To her joy, she noticed that it was nothing but a pleasure to see him there.
“Oh, hello, Dom. How are you?” It was almost like any day on the streets of Inglemere.
“Excited”, Dom said. “I never found what I was looking for at home. In fact, I don’t know that I know what I’m looking for. But I’m hoping that when I get to Lynas, I will find it and know. I’m going to be an apprentice for a blacksmith. My uncle knows one there. What about you?”
“Something like that”, Saegen said, smiling. “I want to study, I want to see more what I have seen so far. I don’t want to lose the opportunity before I know what I would be losing. I don’t know how long I will stay in Lynas, if at all. But it will be me who will make that decision, whatever it is.”
This was more than she had said at once for quite a while, and it exhausted her. Dom must have noticed it, because he said:
“I’ll let you start the journey in peace. You know now that I’m here, if you need a conversation.” With a quick bow, he was off, and Saegen was grateful.
She followed him with her gaze for a moment, until her eyes landed on a familiar head of sandy hair. The sight nearly stopped her breath right then and there.
Then the person turned around, and it wasn’t who she had thought it was, but the frozen feeling in her body remained. She forced herself to look at what she was leaving, and little by little, she started to relax again.
There was Inglemere, there was her country and her family and her heart. She could still faintly make out the spire of the Cordovan palace, where Princess Myriad and her prince would soon begin their rule.
Then she turned to the opposite direction. There was nothing but the sun, and the gleam of the blue-green waves. But as the horizon grew closer, she was that much closer of being on the other side. She clasped the empty locket in her hand. With nothing familiar around, she would only have herself.
And she was looking forward to it.
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