“We’ve suspected Kozor and Serak of collaborating with the pirates, but to stoop to piracy themselves is base.”
“It’s not unheard of,” Maud pointed out and wished she had bitten her tongue.
“You’re right. But the Houses of the Holy Anocracy never prey on each other without a declaration of war.” Ilemina took a swallow of her wine. “It’s a hefty accusation. I need proof.”
“I understand,” Maud said.
They sipped their wine. The pressure was mounting inside Maud with every passing second.
“You didn’t ask me here to talk about Kozor,” Maud said.
“You’re not very good with silences,” Ilemina said. “Something to work on.”
Maud reached out, took a skewer of small yellow berries and slid one into her mouth.
“What are your intentions toward my son?” Ilemina asked.
Maud considered the question. What the hell were her intentions? She settled on honesty. “I don’t know.”
“What’s there to know?” Ilemina fixed her with her stare. “You have feelings for him. You followed him across the Void. He has feelings for you. He brought you here. What’s the holdup?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“But it is. You’re both adults. I see the way you look at him when you forget to guard your face.”
What?
“He asked you to marry him. You said no. What are you waiting for? What is it you want? Wealth? Power? Marry him and you’ll have both.”
She thought Maud was a gold digger. A familiar irritation stabbed at her, like a burr under her foot. “I don’t need Arland to earn a living. I’m the daughter of innkeepers. I speak dozens of languages, I’m trained for combat, and I’m at home at any trade hub. If I wish, I can return to my sister’s inn anytime I want.”
She could. Given that Dina’s inn had access to Baha-char, the galactic bazaar, if she wanted to take jobs, they would be plentiful, and the pay would be great.
A small triumphant light sparked in Ilemina’s eyes. “And yet here you are. Subjecting yourself to the humiliation of being a human in a vampire House and bearing a blank crest.”
Maud almost bit her tongue.
“Clearly, a strong bond pulled you across space.”
Maud said nothing.
“Do you love my son?” Ilemina asked.
“Yes.” The answer came with surprising ease.
Ilemina stared at her. “Then do something about it.”
Maud opened her mouth and clicked it shut.
“It’s a problem that has a straightforward solution. There is no need to make a hissot out of it.”
Fantastic. Her might be mother-in-law just compared her feelings to a ball of wriggling venomous snakes.
“It’s not just me,” Maud said quietly.
Ilemina leaned forward. “Do you honestly think your child would fare better on Earth? She has killed, Maud. She has fangs. She’s a vampire child if I ever saw one. We can do so much with her. Humans can do nothing. You will have to hide her for the rest of her life. Can you do that to your daughter?”
“What do you want from me?” Maud growled.
“I want to get to the bottom of this. Stop pretending to be an idiot and tell me what’s holding you back, because my son is miserable and I’m tired of watching the two of you dance about each other.”
“I’ve been on the planet for three days!”
“Three days is plenty. What is it you want, Maud of the Innkeepers?”
“I want Helen to be happy.”
Ilemina sighed and drank her wine. “My parents had no use for me when I was growing up. Their House was a war House. There was always a battle they were fighting or preparing to fight. They didn’t notice me until I grew enough to be useful. I exerted myself to my fullest, I excelled, I volunteered for every action, just to get a crumb of their attention. When I met my future husband, I was the Marshal of their House. I talked to Arland’s father for less than an hour, and I knew I would walk away with him if he asked. For the very first time in my life, someone saw me as I was.”
The words sank deep. She’d shown Arland exactly who she was and he’d admired her for it.
Ilemina smiled. “I did walk away with him and then I fought a war against my parents’ House when they tried to punish me for finding happiness. It was the ultimate act of selfishness on their part. So when my daughter was born, I swore that I wouldn’t be my mother. I paid attention to my child. I was involved in every aspect of her life. I nurtured her, supported her, encouraged her. I trained her. So did my husband. Some might say that my husband and I neglected our own union for the sake of our daughter and they wouldn’t be wrong.”
Ilemina paused, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger. “When my daughter was twenty-two years old, she met a knight and fell in love. He was everything I could ever wish for in a son-in-law. My heart broke anyway, but I didn’t want to stand in her way. She married him. She lives halfway across the galaxy and visits once every year or two. Arland was ten years old when she left. He barely knows her. I have grandchildren I almost never see.”
Maud had no idea what to say, so she stayed silent.
“Children leave,” Ilemina told her. “It is the greatest tragedy of motherhood that if you have done everything right, if you have raised them in confidence and independence, they will pick up and leave you. It is as it’s meant to be. One day Helen will leave.”
Anxiety pierced Maud. She swallowed, trying to keep it under wraps.
“If you try to hold and restrain her, you’ll be committing an irreparable sin. We shouldn’t hobble our young. We do not cut their teeth. One day it will be just you, Maud.”
“I understand,” Maud murmured. Thinking about it hurt.
“Where do you see yourself when that day comes?” Ilemina asked.
She knew where she wanted to be but getting there was so complicated.
“So I’ll ask again. What is it you’re afraid of? Are you trying to out-vampire us? It’s futile. Nothing you do will change the circumstances of your birth, and if my son had wanted a vampire, he has a veritable crowd of women with ancient bloodlines falling all over themselves to love him. Are you ashamed of being a human? Do you hate your species?”
Maud raised her head. “I have no desire to pretend I’m a vampire.”
“Then what is it?” Ilemina raised her voice.
Something inside Maud snapped like a thin glass rod breaking.
“House Ervan threw me away. They threw my daughter away like we were old rags. We had no value to them outside of my husband. All the time we lived among them, all the things I’d done in service of the House, all the friendships I forged, none of it mattered. They didn’t fight to keep us. They wanted to be rid of us.”
The words kept pouring out of some secret place she’d hidden them and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop them. “I lived a lie. I can’t take that chance again. I won’t. I don’t want Arland to marry an outsider who is barely tolerated. I want him to marry someone who is valued by his House. Someone who is indispensable. I want that marriage to be seen as a boon for House Krahr. I don’t trust any of you except Arland. I want to ensure that you will never turn on me. That my daughter will have a place here not because of your son, but because of me and eventually because of herself.”
She’d said too much. Where did it even come from? She’d had no idea that’s what she wanted until the words came out of her.
Silence lay between them. A light breeze stirred the vala tree.
Ilemina arched her eyebrows and took a sip of her wine. “Now this? This I understand.”
Maud marched across the bridge, fuming. She’d let Ilemina get under her skin. It was a strategic error. Understanding your opponent was the most important advantage one could have in a conflict. Numbers, strengths, and luck mattered, but if you knew how your opponent thought, you could predict her strategy and prepare.
She’d given Arland’s mother enough ammunition to manipulate her. Stupid. So stupid.
What the hell was she thinking, baring her soul to a damn vampire?
The memory of kneeling before Stangiva and begging for Helen’s life stabbed her, hot and sharp. If only she could get her hands on that bitch, she would’ve snapped her former mother-in-law’s neck. And to think she spent years trying to mold herself into a perfect vampire wife for the sake of Melizard, and his mother, and their whole damn House. She twisted herself into a pretzel to become exceptional in every way, all so she could be paraded before the visitors with an unspoken context of “Look what an exemplary House we are. We have taken a human and shaped her into a vampire. Listen to her recite the ancient sagas. Watch her perform for your amusement.”
And she, she was the idiot who had willingly put on that bridle and dragged the cart forward. For what? For love?
She laughed at herself, and the sound came out sharp and brittle.
Love. How could she have been so young and stupid?
Ugh. Rage coursed through her. Maud wanted desperately to punch something.
A sharp chittering sound made her turn. She’d come to a T-shaped junction. On her right, another bridge branched from the first at a perfect right angle. The end of the bridge led onto another garden plateau. Trees and shrubs obscured her view, but Maud was absolutely sure of what she just heard. The high-pitched, short bark of a lees backed into a corner.