Page 90 of Waking Roslyn

It was all there, and it made me ache for all the lost time. I wondered if this ache would ever leave, or if it would just become a part of me. Another hurt unhealed, another story buried deep. I didn’t want it to become that, but I was not yet willing to share that ache with my mother. She was already carrying so much regret that I couldn’t bring myself to add to it.

I was only left alone in my room for a short time before Everly joined me.

“It’s a beautiful home, miss. I mean, my lady.”

I smiled, not blaming her for the slip-up at all. She’d been with me since Winhaven, and Miss Rose felt just as much like me as Lady Roslyn did. Though neither fit exactly right.

“Shall we ready you for dinner?” she asked.

“Yes, please.”

I did my best to let the routine of dressing set me at ease. But everything felt so familiar and yet so foreign that it was hard to relax.

Once I rejoined my parents, it got easier, and as the next few days passed, my home started to once again feel like a true home.

Being with my parents was…almost indescribable. My mother was constantly putting an arm around my shoulders or reaching out to squeeze my hand. The constant reminders that she was there and that she loved me were filling a void inside of me that I hadn’t recognized was there before now. I could look back now and see that that same void had been eased by my time with Emeline and the others at Sutton. It had even been filled a bit by John’s mother. But having that aching void ease once in a while was so different from having it filled by my own parents and the sense of safety and security that I felt here.

So I soaked it up. I sat by the fire, embroidering or sewing with my mother, and read in the library with my father. We roamed the grounds, and my mother got the castle’s gardener to show me all of the new flowers that were in bloom. There was an entire corner of the garden that was new and which had been dedicated to me. Each time my mother had become distraught with missing me, she had worked with the gardener to choose another plant to add.

The cook made me all my favorite dishes, many of which I hadn’t eaten since leaving here more than four years ago. And we laughed together when we discovered that my taste had changed enough that some of my old favorites were no longer appetizing. My mother treated it like a great game of exploration to discover all my new likes and dislikes.

Meanwhile, my father seemed both awed and saddened by the changes he saw in me.

“You’re staring again,” I said at dinner on my fifth night at home.

My father smiled. “It’s going to take me a good while to get used to this version of you. You just look so different.”

I smiled. There was nothing I could say to that. I knew I looked different, and we’d had this conversation several times already.

“It will be lovely to see you all dressed up for the ball next week,” my mother said.

I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“What’s the matter? It’s going to be wonderful.”

I almost smiled at my mother’s forced optimism. “It won’t be wonderful. It never has been.”

“But things are different now,” she stated.

“Are they?” I challenged. “Do the nobility suddenly hate us less?”

“It’s not all of them,” my father argued.

“Just the most powerful ones.”

“You cannot spend your whole life running. That’s no way to live,” he said in a way that told me this was something he’d thought about long and hard. “We will make a good impression on the king and queen, show everyone how thrilled we are with the birth of the little prince, and things will settle.”

I took a deep breath as that same old fear started to tighten my chest. “I worry we are being naive.”

My father’s eyes were understanding but confident. “I believe everything will work out. It’s been years since the threats were made. Prince Marcos remains in good health. The little prince is healthy and strong. And you cannot be in hiding forever.”

His surety eased some of my worry. “I know. And I am so glad to be home.”

It was time for bravery, I supposed. Because he was right. I could not hide away, scared, for the rest of my life.

It was time to start living.

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