A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

8. Saelyn

Chapter 8

Saelyn

I was ten, and I understood why my mother struggled to look at me.

Pah-Pah smiled my way, remarking, “My, my, Sae, each day you look more and more like your father. It’s as if I’m teaching him to whistle through the grass, not his daughter.”

The man who I thought of as my grandfather was sitting cross-legged in front of me, Thevin to the side.

“Who do I look most like, would you say?” Thevin asked, and I rolled my eyes, pulling a thick blade of grass to use as a new whistle.

“You know perfectly well you look exactly like your mother.” Pah-Pah raised a sharp brow, adjusting his hold on the grass.

“You just want to talk about you all the time, Thevin.” I shoved him and his dimpled smile lit his face in mischief.

“Do not.” He shook his head of golden curls and stuck his tongue out at me.

“Do, too!” I stuck mine right back out at him, making a face that I hoped he found disgusting.

“Children,” Pah-Pah scolded, interrupting our usual argument, “we are not bickering or making faces. We are learning how to whistle through the grass, and if I must, I will send you back to your rooms where both of your mothers can reprimand you as they wish.”

I sighed and settled back to my task, pulling the blade taught between my thumbs. “Tell me more about my father, Pah-Pah,” I spoke sweetly, knowing full well everything there was to know about him already.

“Your mother named you after your father, as you know. You have your father’s eyes and hair. His mannerisms, his humor. I miss him, but watching you grow up helps a little.” He blew between his thumbs and a sharp trilling sound flew through the trees.

“My mother misses him, too.” I looked down to my lap, recalling our last conversation at breakfast this morning. Her words had been short, her lips taut and thin. She hadn’t even looked me in the eyes.

My mother was powerful. It seemed to run through my family as I knew my father had been too. With each day, my own power grew. Even at ten, I knew it would one day surpass her own. I wondered if it would surpass everyone’s.

“Yes, my little one. Your mother misses your father, too.” Pah-Pah grinned as a dull noise came from my hands. It was not a true whistle yet, but at least I had made more sound than Thevin had managed. I grinned smugly at him and he shoved me away.

Thevin and I had grown up in Felgren together, both born in the forest and only a few months apart. Though, in the past few years he was often gone, traveling with his parents to distant places that I longed to see. Every summer, he would return, just as annoying, but just as fun as the last.

I shoved him back, this time so hard he fell over, and I let out a yell of triumph before landing on top of him to pin him to the ground, giggling in our usual game.

Pah-Pah sighed and threw grass on top of us as we tumbled and rolled along the open field, both trying to pin the other.

It was good to be ten.

It was good to be loved.

And as we rolled, I heard my name as it was whispered on the wind.