Page 117 of The Crown’s Temptation

“Are you ready?”

I stared down at it. “This does not look like one of my mother’s stones,” I said.

He nodded. “It was in the parcel. Perhaps it is a memory, but one that is not hers but that she wanted you to have all the same. The witches of the Witchward can see anything, they say.”

“That frightens me,” I admitted.

He smiled. “Well, I’ll be here to tell you how much you snore and drool while sleeping when you awaken.”

“Lies,” I said with a small laugh.

Then I took the stone and leaned back in the chair, eyes closed.

My mother did not go to the king when she returned for the amulet that day.

She knew what would be waiting for her when Orsin emerged from his council meetings. She had broken his rules, left without permission, intervened in something he considered his. The punishment would come regardless of what she did now. She went to the harem instead.

Hara was already packed.

She was standing in the center of her room with a bag at her feet and her daughter on her hip and a look of quiet determination on her face.

"I heard what you did," she said when Ryaran walked in.

"Then you know I don't have much time."

"Neither do I." Hara looked at her. "You have always been good. Since the day you arrived here you have been good when you did not have to be." Her arms tightened around her daughter. "I am taking her and leaving. Whatever comes next I will not let her grow up here."

Ryaran looked at Asharin in her arms. At the small face, still too new to the world to understand what world it had arrived in.

"My brother," Hara said quietly. "He is the Baron of Veynar. I ran away as a teenager. She sighed. “Orsin convinced me he was a simple merchant until I learned I was pregnant. Then he brought me to the harem, and it was too late to leave.”

She paused. "My brother only knows I was married to a man who mistreated me. He does not know the rest." She looked at Asharin again. “The Baron is not a good person. But his wife is kind. She will look after them both, if you want.”

"His wife?"

“Yes.” Hara said it with the certainty of someone who had not yet received news. "I will write him from the ship. Tell him I am bringing my cruel husband's illegitimate daughter to raise as my own." She met Ryaran's eyes. "He will not turn her away. I am his weakness. And once they are there I will always be close. I will always watch over them."

Ryaran looked at her daughter for a long time.

Then she placed her in Hara's arms.

Hara arrived with both children at the Baron's estate on a cold morning.

The Baron's wife had died weeks ago.

He stood in the doorway of his own house in mourning black, his young son clinging to his leg. He looked at his sister. He looked at the two small girls. He looked at Asharin with disgust.

He did not understand why his sister insisted on raising her husband's bastard alongside her own legitimate daughter, especially since the husband had beaten and mistreated her. He said so.

Hara said it was not a discussion, and made him promise to house and raise her.

He gave his word, but did not want a whore’s daughter near his niece. She would have to stay in the servant’s quarters.

Hara disagreed and demanded he prepare the guesthouse for her and the two children.

They were arguing about it near the edge of the manor.

Just then the Threns came out of the woods.