The Heir and the General

Four.

Feith lounged on the chaise, reading before the fire in the cabin's main sitting room when Reyna returned. Her mother glanced up with an inquisitive look upon her arrival, but before she could question her daughter further, Reyna gave her a look of utter fury.

"Your soul-bound is an infuriating prick," Reyna snapped as she bounded up the stairs to her sleeping quarters on the second floor, much louder than she knew she needed to, and she slammed the door to her room harder than she should have.

Collapsing onto her bed, she stared at the ceiling as she let the anger wash over her. Every time she had the same argument with her father, every time ended in the same result. She knew she should stop,  but she couldn't. She wouldn't. For every time he insisted she remain behind, be the Princess he believed she should be, she would make it her life's vendetta to prove him wrong.

She heard her mother make her way up the stairs, and the door to her room opened before Reyna could object. Quietly, Feith let herself in and took a seat on the bench at the dresser.  "You know he only does this because he cares."

"Maybe he cares too much," Reyna countered without a glance in her mother's direction.

"He cares enough Rey, and that's why this is hard for him. He just doesn't want to see anything happening to you by taking the Trial."

"This isn't about the Trial," she informed the Queen, finally glancing in her direction. "He's already to let me start training with Thessan."

That certainly seemed to catch Feith off-guard. "So then, if he told you you could, what is all this about?" she asked with a wave of her hands towards Reyna's moping form lounging on the bed.

"This," Reyna informed her with a mocking wave that mirrored the one received, "is about everything else."

Resting her hands on her belly, the Queen of the North leaned back against the dresser, as if settling in to hear the story.

Reyna rolled over onto her stomach to face her mother, but the last thing she wanted to do at that moment was retell her everything she and her father argued about. To have her, too, remind her of the threats that awaited her outside of the Northern Kingdom.

"It doesn't matter," she finally murmured, matching her gaze.

It did matter, but Reyna was tired.

So tired of the constant battles over and over again, regardless of most of them being of her own design. That would soon change, she reminded herself. She was going to take the Trial. That, if nothing else, would show her father she was worth something more than being a coddled Princess.

"Where is your father, anyway?"

Reyna shrugged. "He's probably looking for Thessan, to warn him to take it easy on me when I start training with him in the morning."

Feith gave her a perked brow match by an incredulous look. "How did you ever convince him?"

"I didn't," she informed her with a smirk. "I'm just always bound to get my way at the end of the day."

Feith rolled her eyes as that as she stood and crossed the room to sit on the edge of her daughter's bed. "Well, whatever it was that created the rift this time, sleep on it, and try to smooth it out with him in the morning."

"After you've spent the night attempting to wear him down, you mean?"

"You have no idea how much wearing down I've had to do over the years."

At that, her mother leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on her brow and removed herself from Reyna's room, leaving her daughter behind to sulk until sleep overtook her.