Free Souls of Aredyrah 1 - The Fire and the Light by Tracy A. Akers

that—"
    “Do not turn this on me,” Brina said, pulling
away.
    “I am turning this on you. You know I would
have had someone else do it. Why did you insist on carrying the
burden yourself?”
    “I would not have the last eyes my child ever
saw be those of a stranger!” Brina turned aside. “Please, let us
not speak of this anymore. It is too painful, and it will not bring
Keefe back to us.”
    Mahon nodded and reached to embrace her. She
rebuked him and stepped away. “It is time you left,” she said.
    “You still have not answered my earlier
question. Are you planning to see Reiv tonight?”
    “Yes,” she replied.
    Mahon exploded in fury, raking perfume
bottles, hair clips, and combs from the dressing table, sending
them crashing to the floor. “I will not allow it!” he screamed.
    Brina winced and backed away, wondering if
she, too, would be raked to the floor. She lifted her chin with
shaky determination. “I will not be kept from him, Mahon. He needs
me.”
    “ He needs you? What about me? I am
your husband. I need you.”
    “The sort of need you have is neither so
great nor so important as the one Reiv has.”
    Brina walked slowly toward him, noting how
his body was poised as if in a fight for his life. She placed a
hand on his arm. “Mahon, please try to understand,” she said with
forced control. “You did not sit by the boy’s bed night and day
listening to his screams as the bandages were pulled from his
hands. You were not there when we thought the fever would surely
take him. You were not there to listen to his pleas for Cinnia and
his mother, neither of whom even bothered to come and see him. You
were not there to see his face when he learned Cinnia was betrothed
to Whyn, his own brother. And you were not there to hear his sobs
when he found out he had been disinherited by his family in a mock
court that took not only his inheritance, but his future. How do
you think he feels to have lost everything, including his very
name? To have been called Ruairi, the Red King, for fifteen years,
then to be forced to take the name ‘Reiv’, the name of a servant.
Gods, Mahon, where is your compassion? Have you no room in your
heart for the boy?”
    “What happened he brought upon himself.”
    “Brought upon himself? Gods, he was saving
Cinnia’s life.”
    “From a fire he started!”
    “It was an accident, Mahon.”
    “Perhaps, but he had a history of so-called
accidents. No, he got what he deserved.”
    Mahon paused, surveying Brina’s stricken
face. “I am sorry that Ruairi—that Reiv has suffered,” he offered.
“But what is done is done. Be thankful Labhras provided him with a
respectable job. Foreman over the fields would be considered an
honor for any Jecta.”
    Brina cringed at the word.
    “Brina, Reiv is Jecta now,” Mahon said. “You
have to face it. Things could have gone much worse. You know this.
At least he was not banished to Pobu. Considering the boy burned
down Labhras’s house and endangered everyone in it, I would say the
man has been more than generous. Reiv has been provided an
apartment within the city walls and he will certainly never go
hungry. What more does he need?”
    “He needs his life back,” Brina said.
    But in her heart she knew he would never get
it, and after the wedding of his brother, Whyn, to Cinnia in three
days time, she wasn’t sure Reiv would want any life at all.
     
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Chapter 5: Peace Offering
     
    A nother terracotta
pot streaked across the atrium, trailed by a spinning ball of dirt
and a once well-rooted marigold. The missile found its mark and
crashed against a pillar that divided the centrally located
courtyard from the rest of the apartment. Shards of pottery, clumps
of soil, and what remained of the plant exploded against the stone,
the noise of it drowned out by the scream of the boy who had hurled
it.
    Reiv stood poised as if for battle, his
trembling hands clenched within leather gloves, his face as red