The Kindly One

I. The Bastard

Iona of Tamaris was born the day the old gods died. The stories said that the skies themselves turned black as night the moment she took her first breath. Or at least, that was what her nurse told her. A wee light in that terrible dark, the old woman always said affectionately. To most, however, Iona was just the last remnant of that darkness and the world it had ruled, a curse that was breathed out in the last gasps before death. The common folk didn't have to say it—she could feel it in the fearful, hateful gazes that so often burned into her back. And the nobles, well, Lord Astor's words spoke for all of them. A bastard is to be neither seen nor heard.

She closed her almond-shaped, emerald eyes when she heard hoofbeats coming down the path in the woods. Sunlight was streaming through the dark branches unhindered by foliage, catching and refracting in the thousands of delicate icicles that gracefully hung like mid-winter festival decorations. Each breeze swept up crystals from the few inches of snow that blanketed the ground, cold and stinging against her angular face. The blown flakes abraded away even the memory of hot tears. Iona pressed closer to ice-encrusted bark. The rider was approaching, the gait of the horse slowing as it reached the end of the trail.

"Iona, I know you're here!" a man called. His voice was cultured and rich, that of a man accustomed to command. His nature wasn't particularly gentle, but he wasn't angry.

Her eyes stung in a way that had nothing to do with cold. Foolishness, blaming a babe for aught that happened afore it were born, her nurse's voice murmured disapprovingly in her thoughts. She was a dear woman, but she was also wrong. It wasn't about what was done. It was very much about what she was. A bastard, a half-breed, an affront to those delicate Yssan sensibilities.

The kindest were those who granted her nonexistence. Don't look at it, a mother might say to her children in the street. That's how they snare you, how they curse you. It still made her want to snap, but because of her father, she did her best to ignore the mutterings instead of lashing out.

You're better than that, he always said with calm confidence.

She didn't believe him. Not when she saw the same bewitching light in her own eyes that her mother used to captivate people like a serpent paralyzing a bird with just its gaze. If there was one thing she had learned watching her mother, it was that people were right to fear those eyes. Besides, she was the problem child. Her brother was a good man, always patient and respectful. He was kind, too, though that was a mark more of his mother than their father. She always envied him, if only because he had been wanted. By her mother's admission, she had been a...miscalculation, one of the few mistakes the woman ever made. One that might have been corrected, if her father hadn't found out. She was, after all, inconvenient, as she was living proof of what had been just a nasty—albeit true—rumor.

Iona fought with her father more often than not. She had his temper and a half dozen more of his faults to go with it. Somehow, he loved her anyway. Not in public, not under the scrutinizing eye of those who would do her harm if they knew, but certainly behind closed doors. She wasn't certain if that made her respect him more or less. Was he putting his own feelings aside for the kingdom's sake, or did he really not care? She couldn't tell.

"Iona." His voice was soft and close now. She'd been found. Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into a broad chest. "I'm sorry. Girls say cruel things. Lynette of Gray is an addle-brained creature. You can't take what she says to heart."

"Because if I ignore it, that will somehow make it less true?" Iona said, stiffening in the hug. She wanted to relax and take the comfort, but she was still furious. "She's not just some stupid girl! She's going to marry my brother!"