The Exiles

11. Into the darkness we go

Mama stood before the very spot where they had arrived on earth fifteen years ago; at the very spot mere hours ago, Attin, too, had disappeared. Behind her, her children stood, looking nervously at the trees about them. This was the deepest they'd been in those unfamiliar woods. Trailing the nomadic bunch, with their cloth-wrapped parcels tied to their small backs, or layer upon layer of clothes they couldn't carry, stood Granny, with her own parcel of food hitched over her slightly hunched back.

"What's the holdup?" she called, getting a little irritated. This was her cooking time around the hearth. The one thing she'd been doing nonstop for the past decade and a half. Routine was something Granny Silvertongue really enjoyed. After all, what else was an exiled Queen Mother to do if not look after her family in a land that knew them as nothing more than the 'odd family at the end of the world'?

"Mama?" Ursa tugged at Rita's sleeve, Rita who stood there with the key in hand, staring at the woods with pallor in her skin. Her hand trembled ever so slightly, for there was doubt in her heart and mind. Are we doing the right thing? Dear Mother, I hope we're doing the right thing.

"Rita?" Granny walked around the children to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Queen. Yes, that was what Rita Silvertongue was. The Queen of Chymer, Cerulean Lands, but she hadn't been one in several years and she wasn't sure she knew how to get back to that life. To rule their land again—if they could survive. "What is it?" Granny asked.

"What if—what if?" Rita couldn't share her fears, not with her children around. A band of women — except tiny little Mawsie — were about to return unarmed to the land that banished them. It was probably safer for them that the Chymer boys weren't with them during the crossing. Rita doubted she and Granny had changed much. Anyone who attended court would easily recognise them. "The children," she finally said. "What do I tell them if we're caught? I mean, Mama, we're banished for an age and it hasn't been an age yet. Another thirty years to go. We are in breach of our oath. We are the Chymers and we do not breach our oaths."

Granny clicked her tongue. "Nonsense. We are not breaching anything. First, we don't know how time has passed in Cerulean Lands. For all we know, it's been an age and a half and no one knows of Ovek the Merciful or his family anymore. We will slip in like ghosts, and set up our home on the outskirts of that world just like we have here. At least we will be together and alive."

"But what if—" Rita stared at the darkening trees. "What if time has barely passed at all and the moment they find us, Amer and Ovek pay the price for a child's mistake?"

"Amer wove as children do. They make mistakes. I shall let nothing happen to your children." Granny grabbed Rita's hand to steady it. "I said back then and I say it now. This was not a punishment that fit the crime."

Rita went to argue. Surely Amer and she were at fault. If Amer's head hadn't been filled with tales of magic at bedtimes and his sister hadn't been ill, he wouldn't have conjured anything at all, trying to save her.

"If they want a life for a life, I shall give mine." Granny slipped the key out of her daughter-in-law's hand. "Now, let us do what we should have done a long time ago. Go home and fight for what's ours."

"But, Mama..."

Granny held up her hand. Shush. In the other, she held the key up to the air, chanting the weave necessary for the door to appear. Pretty soon, it started with a spark, then grew into a sliver, then an arch formed. Within minutes, a glowing door made of ember stood before them, heat and smoke softly bellowed from its structure, roasting the frozen cheeks of the children.

Granny stood to the side as if making way. "Children, we are going into a world you don't know, but it is our home. But until your mother and I say otherwise, none of you will reveal who we truly are to anyone. Understood?"