Page 28 of Legacy of Thorns (Kingdoms of Legacy #3)

Daphne

D imly, Daphne was aware of Fin trailing behind her, repeating her name in an urgent but low tone. But she was too focused on her goal to stop and talk to him.

When she reached the far end of the ballroom, she came to a stop in front of an elderly gentleman with a slightly bowed back but a bright, keen gaze. He immediately broke off his conversation at her breathless approach, and when she pulled off her mask, his whole face lit up.

“Daphne!” he pulled her into a hug, patting her back in a way that sent tears pricking at her eyelids. Her actual grandparents had passed away before her family’s return to Glandore, so Lorne was the closest thing she had ever known to a grandfather.

“My poor girl!” he murmured. “Whatever has happened to you?”

“But what are you doing here, Lorne?” she asked at the same time.

They both broke off and chuckled. Glancing to either side, Daphne gestured toward a convenient alcove in the wall of the ballroom—one half obscured by a large potted plant.

“Perhaps somewhere more private?” she suggested, and Lorne raised his eyebrows but offered no protest.

Fin shadowed them to the alcove, his face closed off and still since her mention of Lorne’s name. He made no attempt to intrude on their conversation, taking up a post outside, just out of earshot.

As soon as they were seated, Lorne lowered his voice. “Your companion seems to be standing guard. Should I be concerned?”

“About Fin? Oh, no. He’s just making sure we’re not disturbed.”

“I see,” Lorne said in the kind of tone that suggested he didn’t see at all.

Daphne laughed shakily. “It’s a lot to explain.”

“That much, at least, is apparent.” Lorne shook his head. “But how do you come to be here tonight? Lord Castlerey knows I’m searching for you and mentioned nothing about inviting you here.”

Daphne grinned sheepishly. “That’s because we weren’t actually invited. Officially speaking. Or, in fact, unofficially either.”

Lorne’s brows rose. “How very?—”

He broke off, his head dropping forward as he fell into instant sleep.

Daphne watched him in silence, memories of her childhood rushing back.

His sudden moments of sleep had been rare then—so rare she had nearly forgotten about them.

And yet they still occurred. She swallowed, trying not to think too deeply about what that meant.

“—thrilling it all sounds,” Lorne said, waking abruptly after thirty seconds and resuming his sentence without missing a beat. But when he caught sight of her face, he paused and took her hand.

“My dear Daphne, did I do it again? I assure you there’s no need for distress. It’s a pesky habit, but it does me no harm, nor anyone else either.”

“But you still fall asleep like that after all these years?” Daphne asked. “It never goes away?”

“It fades as the years pass,” Lorne said.

“But then the itchy feet get the better of me, and I end up popping across the border. I don’t travel for long these days, but it always causes the sleeps to flare back up.

” He smiled, clearly unrepentant. “My poor daughter quite despairs of me, I assure you. But then she never did have the wanderlust.”

“I thought my naps would just disappear completely as soon as I crossed the border,” Daphne confessed.

Lorne patted her hand. “It happens that way for some, your own parents among them. But the result of returning is different for each person, just as the original burden is different. For those who were away a particularly long time—or who went at a particularly young age—it can linger. And you were so young when you left.” He sighed.

“Your parents have written to me of your affliction several times. It weighs heavily on them.”

“It weighs heavily on me!” Daphne cried, with more heat than she had intended. “I’m the one who suffers for it. I left my family and friends and came to Oakden to be free of it—but it was no use. The Legacy just keeps gripping me harder.”

She dropped her head into her hands, horrified by the tears on her face.

Lorne patted her shoulder. “It is a difficult burden for the young—and for those who didn’t choose it for themselves.”

Daphne forgot her tear-stained face enough to look up at him. “How could they do it to me, Lorne? My own parents?”

He sighed deeply. “They wanted to return while you were still a toddler, you know. Did they ever tell you that? They endured for years longer, believing it their duty.” He sighed again.

“But everyone has their limit. If you had been in pain, I believe they would have returned to Oakden, but when it was only sleep that afflicted you…”

“Only sleep?” Words failed Daphne as she thought of the underlying fatigue that had shaped every part of her life. Of the strange looks and whispers that had always accompanied her. “I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered into the silence.

“No, you did not.” Lorne’s voice was heavy with grief. “But your parents do love you, Daphne. They are humans—flawed humans—but they love you deeply.”

“I know.” Daphne wiped away the tears, her voice thick.

“They’ve always done their best to be there for me in every other way.

I don’t even know why I’m crying.” She flashed a look at Fin.

“A friend told me recently that I need to let out my feelings more, but I didn’t realize it would be so messy and exhausting.

” She wrinkled her nose at the final word.

Lorne laughed. “That it is. But you will find the feelings ease as you share them. They won’t always be so potent.”

“I certainly hope not,” Daphne muttered, scrubbing away the last evidence of her tears. “I just…I’m just frustrated. I came to Oakden to discover who I truly am, and I’m even further from that than I ever was. Everything is a mess!”

“It does seem a little messy,” Lorne murmured with a slight smile. “But what do you mean about discovering who you truly are?”

Daphne shrugged. “I have so few memories from before the Legacy’s burden hit me.

I want to know the true Daphne, the one unaffected by Oakden’s sleepiness.

But ever since I arrived, the Legacy’s power has been gripping me even more tightly than ever.

I can already feel I’ll need to nap right here before I can stand again. ”

Lorne frowned. “It’s getting worse? That sounds unusual.

” He hesitated. “I think you’d better tell me exactly what’s happened since you arrived in Oakden.

But before you do, I have to ask. Do you truly think that you’re not the true Daphne now?

” His voice grew even more gentle. “Because I can assure you that you are.”

“But this wasn’t supposed to be my life,” Daphne said. “How can it be the true me?”

Lorne sighed. “A profound question. I’m not saying that what was done to you as a child was an easy thing or a fair one.

But there is no person alive who is unaffected by outside influences.

We all have people and circumstances that affect who we become—whether we wish them to or not.

And it is not granted to any of us to know who we would have been without those external influences.

That would have been to live a different life. ”

“You’re saying we have no say over who we become?” Daphne asked, defiant.

Lorne shook his head. “Far from it. We can make choices about how we react to the influences in our life. And sometimes we can do things to change those influences. But sometimes we can’t control them—and then our choice is to accept that reality or not.

In those cases, we can only wield our influence upon ourselves.

You cannot escape pressure, Daphne, but you can choose whether or not it turns you into a diamond. ”

She let out a shaky laugh. “If I was a diamond, would I pretend to fall asleep to avoid awkward situations?”

“Oh, but that’s the very best time to fall asleep!” Lorne winked at her. “I would know.”

Daphne’s laugh grew more natural. “Does it work for you, too?”

“Quite disrupts the flow of conversation,” he assured her.

“And see! You’re already finding ways to use those naps to your advantage.

The napping is just another part of who you are, Daphne.

And maybe one day the naps will stop—if you dislike them so much, I hope they do—but the effects of bearing them all these years will linger.

They are a part of you now—for good or ill—and your history with them will always be a part of who you are, even as you become a new Daphne.

We’re all of us constantly growing and changing.

Or we should be. The other option is to calcify, and I’ve never seen the fun in that. ”

Daphne smiled at him. “No one could accuse you of standing still.”

He smiled back but fell silent, giving her space to sit with his words.

She let them sink deep into her mind. Hadn’t she told Finley something similar?

Hadn’t she told him that even though his father had wronged him, he had still helped shape who Fin became?

If she would never say to Finley that his true self could only be uncovered if he’d never known his father, why was she saying the same thing to herself?

But could she accept that her naps weren’t obscuring her true self but rather were part of her, as difficult as they were?

She and Fin had promised each other that they would try to see their pasts differently, and she had to at least try. She drew a deep breath, her shoulders straightening and her face relaxing.

“Thank you, Lorne. I should probably have worked that out for myself, but maybe I needed to hear it from someone who had walked the path before me.”

“It usually helps, child.” He glanced at where Fin still kept watch. “But now, I think we must both tell the other what brings us here, and perhaps we will each know more than we do now.”

“You should start,” Daphne said, “because I think my story will be longer. How is your son? Is he recovered?”

“He is back to full strength, I’m happy to say.”

“What a relief that must be for you!” She beamed at him.

“In fact, he has been out of danger since the early days after the accident, which is why I sent for my housekeeper to relieve me in the nursing duties. You can imagine my dismay when she told me about meeting you on my doorstep and abandoning you there! I returned to Ethelson immediately to find you and was even more dismayed to find no trace of you at all. I’ve been searching for you ever since. ”

“You’ve been searching for me all these weeks? On your own?” Daphne’s heart sank. Despite his love for travel, Lorne was growing too old to be jolting all over the kingdom looking for her.

“Not on my own, no.” His eyes twinkled. “Some dear friends have been assisting me. But I couldn’t do nothing. How could I write to your parents and tell them I lost my goddaughter?”

Daphne relaxed a little, relieved to hear he hadn’t been alone.

“I stopped in to see Lord Castlerey,” he added, “who is an old acquaintance. And since he was soon to host a ball, he suggested I stay a little longer than planned. And then I turn around and here you are.”

“Here I am,” Daphne murmured, shaking her head as she thought of what had brought her there.

“Compared to your story, my tale may be a little hard to believe. But I swear it’s all true.

” She proceeded to tell him everything that had happened since she had broken into his house and found Finley there.

When she finished, Lorne turned for another look at Fin. When he turned back, his eyes were twinkling.

“I’m extremely fond of all my grandchildren,” he said, “but I’m afraid none of them have such rakish good looks.”

Daphne blushed. “If only I’d known that at the start of the spring.”

“Or perhaps,” Lorne murmured, “it’s a good thing you didn’t know.”

“Yes,” Daphne whispered back, her eyes on Fin’s profile. “Perhaps it is.”