Zoe Reed - Breaking Legacies

“Me?” I repeated. She nodded with interest. “Alright, uh, well, my father died before I was born, you know, but I have a little brother. Nilson. He’s adopted, of course. My mother’s a cottager, she only has a few acres, but a friar was going around with this little infant he’d found on the side of the road, and no one would take him in. She’s got more heart than she does money, so she saw fit to look after him.” I’d been picking at a spot of fur on the blankets, but here I glanced up to make sure Ava was still interested. She nodded me on. “You know the kingdom, I’m sure,” I said, thinking she’d have had tutors that would’ve taught her geography. “So, our land’s only a few miles out of Wicklin Moor, near the edge of the Rockwood Forest.”

Ava nodded again, so I continued. “Nilson’s always had a particular enthusiasm for sweets,” I paused, knowing this was a story about thievery, and pointed at Ava with a smile, “now, you can’t tell another soul this story. Swear it?”

“You have my word,” she swore, giggling at my tone.

“We’re too poor to be wasting money on sweets, you see, so when he was just a tiny boy, he got it in his head that he could pinch it. Usually it was just from the neighboring farms, and he was so small that he actually made a fair thief.” I paused to take a bite of food. “Every once in a while, however, he’d want something fresh. So he’d hike the two leagues to Wicklin Moor, and come home with his pockets full of still hot pastries. Mind you, Ava,” I said, already pleased by the amused grin on her face, “we hadn’t given him any money. Not even the most charitable baker’s going to give him that many sweets for free, but we just couldn’t get it out of him how he happened upon so many.

“The furs I don’t use, I take into town to sell. This particular time I’d hunted a bear, and since I had more coins in my pocket than usual, I thought I’d come home with a sweet roll for Nilson.” I was already holding back laughter because I knew the part of the story that was coming up, and at my merriment, Ava’s face was lit up with expectation. “So I walk into the baker’s shop in Wicklin Moor, and the baker’s standing there, waiting on me to make a selection. I look up from staring at the baskets of goods, and you know what I see behind the baker?” Ava shook her head. “There’s Nilson, dangling from a rope through a fresh hole in the roof, reaching for the pastries the baker had just taken off the fire.” Ava snorted with laughter and covered her mouth with her hands. “He’d made friends with one of the beggar boys in town, so this boy’s at the other end of the rope, holding on for dear life so Nilson could get them their sweet rolls.”

“Did he see you?” Ava asked, struggling to hold back her amusement.

“Aye, he saw me all right,” I told her. “And my eyes were so wide with shock that the baker noticed, and he turned around and his eyes went wide at seeing Nilson. When the beggar boy noticed the baker, he panicked and let go of the rope, and Nilson dropped straight into a barrel of flour.” At this point I was struggling to even keep telling the story because I was laughing so hard. “So the baker grabs his wooden roller and lets out this angry yell, and Nilson shoots out of the barrel all covered in flour from head to toe. The baker takes a swipe at him with the roller and misses, and Nilson comes running toward me and keeps on going out the door, leaving a trail of flour footprints behind him. And the baker turns around and his face is all red because he’s so angry, and he starts running toward the door to chase after Nilson.”

“What did you do?” Ava asked.

“I’ll tell you what I did,” I chuckled. “I stuck my foot out as the baker was going by. Got him so good he tumbled through the door head over heels and rolled into the street. By the time he even knew which way was up, I’d run out the back door of the shop.” It was a fond memory, made fonder by the way the princess was enjoying it. “I wasn’t too pleased, you know. But I got home long before Nilson did, and when he came trudging up the road still caked in flour, I couldn’t stay mad. We laughed about it for days, even though I had to sneak past the baker’s every time I went into town after that.”

I let Ava laugh it off for a minute, and, noticing that she was done eating, I moved the food to the small bedside table. “May I check your wrist?” I asked, holding my hands out. She put her arm into them, and I removed the bandage to have a look at her wounds. “Is it still painful?” It was puffy and red, and surely tender to the touch, but the antiseptic I’d brewed was powerful, so I wasn’t scared of infection.

“The wine’s helped some,” she answered, and at the concerned look on my face, she chuckled, “I’m not as delicate as you seem to think I am.”

I smiled warmly and replaced the linen around her wrist. “Well, sleep is important.”

I got off the bed to grab the sleeping furs I’d dropped near the door, feeling the princess’s gaze on me while I did. “What are you doing?” she asked eventually, when I’d begun to lay them out on the ground near the bed.

“I was going to sleep on the floor,” I answered. “Albus tends to spread out at night.”

She watched me adjust them for a few moments, almost as though gathering the courage to say, “I’d prefer it if you slept with Albus and me.”

I looked from the furs to her. “You needn’t be afraid, Ava.”

“What I needn’t be and what I am are quite at odds,” she admitted, and I could tell it wasn’t easy for her to ask. She may be a princess, but it didn’t appear she felt entitled to what she wanted. How could I decline? I sat back down on the edge of the bed to take off my boots, and then I slipped under the covers in compliance. “Thank you, Kiena,” she said, and she gave my cheek another of her tender rewards before turning around to throw an arm over the hound.

Don’t let the princess bribe you with kisses , that’s what the king had told me. That was a joke. Here I was already, nearly prepared to keep taking her south, just like she wanted. It was only an intuitive pull in my gut that kept me from calling it bribery. She was genuinely afraid. She was genuinely grateful. And, best of all, she seemed to genuinely enjoy my company.

“Goodnight, Little Will-o’.”

I woke early the next morning knowing there were things to be done, but the bed was warm with Albus and Ava, and it was much softer than the one I slept on at home. The shutters of the single window were trembling in their frame, agitated by the wind outdoors. Years and years of experience had taught me to feel the weather in my bones. I could hear the direction and strength and intention in the whistling of the wind. I could smell the collecting moisture in the air. A snowstorm would be here by mid morning, and it put me on edge.

Instead of abandoning the heat of the princess at my side, I lay there with my eyes open, thinking. The paths available to our situation were limited so long as Ava wouldn’t tell me why she’d run. Taking her south was too treacherous. On the road to Ronan, spies were a possibility, bandits a probability, and danger a guarantee. The princess hadn’t revealed her destination in the south, but I’d heard stories of how the Ronan capital was so far south that the woods grew denser and hotter and wetter until you reached the Emerald Sea. It was a long distance to travel, and in land unfamiliar. I couldn’t take her south.

Had the castle not been the safest place for her? If a spy had infiltrated the ranks and threatened Ava’s life, were there not hundreds more of the king’s soldiers to find them? Yet, she’d run. She’d left her father and mother and the safety of their home because something made this journey less of a threat. I couldn’t think she’d leave them without a word should their lives also be in danger. Though I knew so little of her, that much I was certain of. I could see it in her sincere care for Ellie, and how she’d tried to bandage Albus’s muzzle. She was caring and kind. Life was important to her, and her own was at risk; I very well couldn’t take her north.