Penthos: The Guardian Sea

Chapter Twenty-four: Keeping Strong

Serapheme noticed over the next handful of years how her youngest daughter had changed. She began wearing formal gowns more often, even as her physical wounds had healed and the need to conceal her horrible injury passed. She wore her hair up most of the time, with her usually windswept bangs cut neatly across her forehead. Her silver chains were woven through her hair more often, and a heavy silver circlet rested atop her head. She attended court more often and ventured outside of the castle less.

     Even the people noticed her absence. Her sons had come back a few times from the mainland with scrolls and questions from the town asking where Arielle was and when she would be back. They, the royal family, kept up the ruse that she was ill.

     Arielle hardly left her room after formal court. She went to the library to read, or write, or whatever it was she did when Serapheme wasn’t around.

     Jarissein was faithful that she saw. He never left Arielle, and seemed to brighten her mood up when she was depressed. He always got her to smile and laugh when she refused to talk, as if he was the fire keeping the darkness at bay.

     Serapheme wished she could talk to her daughter about what happened. To at least calm her down and be the mother she always wanted to be to her little girl. To shower her in whatever she wanted to make her feel better, or to take her to annoy the cooks until they fed her sweets. But Serapheme was never that parent. It was always Jhordyn.

     But even Jhordyn was being tossed from Arielle’s presence outside of formal affairs. Jarissein, it seemed, was the only one allowed around her, and that was because of his Oath. He told the queen that sometimes Arielle even kicked him out, so he had to stand outside the door until she calmed.

     Serapheme knew Arielle had nightmares. When the queen herself couldn’t sleep, she usually sat outside Arielle’s door with Jarissein until dawn, conversing about small things, inconsequential matters. He asked her how his friends in the Guard were doing one long night, and she replied that they were doing well. Only one had broken his Oath, but then no one had had the heart to punish him, so they made him that temptress lady’s knight. Then Arielle had screamed and Jarissein proceeded to enter the dark room and calm her down. Serapheme so badly wanted to be the one holding her daughter, telling her everything would be alright. But she wasn’t sure if Arielle even saw her as a mother anymore.

     One night, Jarissein had fallen asleep as Serapheme was walking down the hallway; she had been unable to escape dreams of Arielle bloody in his arms as he shouted for aid in the corridors of the palace. She crept up beside him and sat in the bench opposite Jarissein’s chair. She was just thinking about how God-awful her hair looked after she had tossed and turned on it for hours when Arielle let out a blood-curdling cry from behind the door.

     Serapheme shot up, but Jarissein was so tired the cry didn’t even stir him. She took a deep breath. This was the moment she would prove herself a mother to Arielle. She pushed the door open to her room.

     The air was hot and humid, the cool night air barely penetrating the terror that had taken root there, the room dark as pitch. The moon was a little sliver tonight. Tomorrow would be the new moon, she noted absently.

     Serapheme’s eyes adjusted as she saw Arielle twisted up in her sheets, her hair coming out of her braid. She was whimpering, curled up into a ball when she raised her head. “Jarissein?” she whispered.

     “No, Arielle,” Serapheme said quietly, the v-sound of her daughter’s name more pronounced in her draconic-accented speech. “It’s me. Your mother.”

     “Oh . . .” Arielle broke off into silent sobs as Serapheme approached the bed and sat down on the edge. “Mama,” she said, throwing her arms around Serapheme’s waist. She hadn’t called Serapheme that in ages, and the queen felt tears come to her eyes as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “Why did he have to die, Mama? Why did the Light Guardian let him die? Couldn’t he have been saved instead of me?”

     Serapheme pulled Arielle into an embrace, and rested her chin on the top of her daughter’s head as she cried into her chest. “Shush, baby, shush. Everything happens for a reason. Something good will come from so much bad. You have Jarissein, and your father and your brothers and sisters who all love you. And you have . . . me.”

     Arielle pulled away to look her mother in the eye. “Mama, I’m so sorry I’m so terrible to you. I’m the worst to you and you don’t deserve it.”

     Serapheme stroked her cheek, smiling sadly. “It isn’t your fault, little one. I’ve not been the best of mothers. Let’s say we start over?” Arielle nodded. “Alright, how about we get you back to sleep, my dear?”

     Arielle nodded again and laid back in her pillows. “Mama, will you sleep with me tonight?”

     The question was so child-like, so strange to hear from Arielle’s mouth that Serapheme sat frozen in shock for a moment. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. “Of course, baby.” She pulled up the covers and laid down next to her daughter. Arielle moved closer and settled into her mother’s arms, silent tears staining Serapheme’s nightgown.

     “Sing me your lullaby, Mama.”

     Serapheme stroked Arielle’s hair, holding her daughter close for the first time in more than fifteen years, since her daughter was five. She sang in Lu’va:

     “Rei sei va, sei arielle    

Sa vi se tu mele du on leja

Arielle, tul ke se norre

Ja tul fje erenorde i nos de na ian.”

     She continued humming the lullaby over and over until she and Arielle dropped off to sleep.