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Chapter 11 ~ A Similar Freedom

Rígan

Bryn was here . And she had the most perfect Cunlaran accent to match mine. She laughed at something Brí said, eliciting a soft whimper from me. But I stood rooted in place by the tree. Brí didn’t react as though she recognized my sister; surely she would have said something by now, especially being both a princess and a commander for the country my father’s was most allied to. I shook my head. I’d already established that Brí didn’t know us, and Bryn was a common Cunlaran name. I had no reason to worry. And I wanted to hug my sister, desperately.

I ran to her.

áine tracked the movement first, hand drifting to one of her daggers. She stopped when Bryn let out a gasp, forgetting propriety and dashing for me. I met her in the middle, our arms flinging around each other. It took everything I had not to cry.

Bryn had no such qualms. When she pulled back, tears painted her cheeks, a few strands of my hair clinging to them. I laughed and grabbed at the strands, wiping some of her tears away as I did, my own slipping free.

“What are you doing here?” I choked out.

“Looking for you.” Her eyes shone as she took me in. Last she’d seen me, I’d been fit from training, but I’d still been a princess, first and foremost. I wondered what she saw now—the more prominent freckles from my work in the sun, the arms that were more toned than before. A fierceness that I never had to strategically hide from the people around me.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Brí said. No hint of recognition from her. I reined in my relief.

“I’ll see you soon, Your Highness,” I said. She stood straighter, a leader waiting for an explanation. “We might work together.”

Dawning struck and she nodded, guiding áine to the nearest door. I dragged Bryn further into the garden. Once I was sure we were alone, I sat us down on the edge of a bricked-in garden bed.

“Why did you come looking for me?” I asked, unsure if I should be happy or concerned. Bryn was the only one in our family—the only person, period—who knew the details of my double life. My parents believed I was learning history at a prestigious institution deeper in the continent, close to Qianhú. It was incredibly remote, and it had a tendency to hound their scholars to the point where visits were impractical. The occasional diverted letter home was enough to placate them.

So what was she doing here?

Bryn worried at her skirt. “I missed you.”

Only half the truth. “Then why aren’t you looking at me?”

She dropped the skirt and sighed. “I didn’t know how you’d react. I haven’t spoken to you properly in three years and didn’t even know if you were still in Ardanna, since I haven’t gotten a letter in a while”—I always enclosed a separate letter for Bryn in my letters home, written in a secret code we’d come up with years ago—“and I didn’t know if me coming would put anything from your life at risk. But things have happened at home—nothing you need to worry about,” she added, noting my brow furrowing. “Just things that brought up something you said before we started training.” She looked to the sky, breathing deep. “You said, ‘I want to be able to protect people who need protecting.’ No one at home has needed protecting, but the conviction behind those words . . . I’ve felt stuck. The suitors . . . It’s still hard.”

My heart turned leaden, and I grabbed her hand.

“Anyway. I thought of you, and how you wanted freedom to be yourself. And I want a similar freedom—just one to find myself. I tried at home. I really did. And I was close, but something was missing. And I thought, maybe, I could find that something here, away from our parents and our sisters and their children—there are five of them now, by the way.” She smiled genuinely at that, and I gave one of my own. There’d only been four last time I’d gotten news.

Bryn bit her lip. “I hope me being here doesn’t mess things up. If it will, I can get on the next ship—”

“Stop. You’re not getting on any ship. You’re staying right here, with me.” If Bryn needed freedom to figure her life, herself, out, who was I to stop her? Everyone here knew I had a sister, anyway. But as soon as the words were out, I remembered why I was here , specifically. “Let me change that—I don’t want you to go. Not if you want to be here. But I’m not working small assignments anymore. Dàibhid hired us for a long-term job.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “And you accepted?”

“I did. All three of us did. He doesn’t recognize me, and this work, Bryn, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of doing. But it takes up time. Likely weeks on end, away from here. And it’s fine if you don’t want to be part of that.”

“What kind of assignment are we talking about?”

I bit my tongue. I wanted to tell Bryn everything, but this was bigger than just me. “I’ll see if Dàibhid will talk to you about it, or let me. I probably already crossed a line.” I quit speaking when I caught her fighting a smile. “What?”

“You know what.”

“Ugh.” I leaned back on my hands, putting distance between us. “Don’t start. You’re as bad as Lou and Maya.”

“Except they don’t know ten-year-old Rígan had a crush on him.”

“Or that it was dashed to pieces a year later.”

She sobered. “Of course. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Don’t worry about it. He is, unfortunately, a rather attractive human being.” Not to mention kind, and funny, and considerate, and quite honestly charming, though I wasn’t sure if he knew that . . .

Don’t start, Rígan.

I dusted off my hands to focus. Bryn bumped her knee into mine, and I bumped hers back. She was here, with me. In Cunlaran.

The island of Cunlaran.

“Wait, Bryn, you left the continent.”

“Yes?”

“You had to take a ship.” I grabbed her shoulders. “You took a ship to see me. You crossed deep water .”

She grimaced, her shudder running through me. Her fear of drowning ran deep. “Don’t remind me. But consider it a testament of my love for you.” She shuddered again, and I gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Speaking of Lou and Maya, I’d like to meet them. You’ve told me so much!”

Excitement thrummed below my skin. “I’m sure they’d like to meet you, too.”

“Tell me everything you’ve told them about us. I don’t want to forget a single detail.”

The thrumming died, and I frowned as reality sank in once again. “This implicates you in my lie, you know. Even more than before.”

She shrugged. “I’ll do anything for you, as long as it means you get the life you deserve.”

I choked back more tears and launched into the story of us.