Dragonlands(245)

Bastian shrugged. "We've all changed."

Hazel's eyes clouded over. "True. But for the better. We're all stronger."

Bastian nodded, then left the kitchen with Elinor.

Not much later, the large group assembled in the courtyard. The children played and yelled, excited to be going home again. Hazel, Lily, and the two healers rounded the kids up, trying to keep them focused. The townspeople of Ashoom offered them gifts, though Bastian felt they were just happy to see them leaving. Despite having a tyrant for a ruler, they'd lived a fairly quiet, simple life until Bastian, Tressa, and Connor came to their town. Now the threat of war hung over them.

Connor stood off to the side, Fotia and Vatra prancing around him. Bastian had decided it was for the best if he didn't leave in dragon form. Let the people of Ashoom think their dragon was still in the castle, watching out for them.

"Are you ready?" Elinor asked Bastian.

"Should I give some kind of speech before we go?" he asked.

"No, let's just leave. Few here will care. I think they will be more distressed over losing three of their healers than seeing you go," she said.

Bastian looked through the crowd. He'd lived there for a quite a while now, and didn't recognize anyone. He had been too busy running all over the Dragonlands chasing a ghost, a life that was forever lost. Bastian glanced at Elinor and smiled. He'd found a woman here, one who had helped him move on from Tressa. Bastian smiled, then looked up. His eyes locked with a woman he knew. The woman he’d spent the night with when Tressa rejected him for Jarrett.

The whore winked at him. She licked her lips, then waved.

Bastian didn't return the gesture.

Her eyes clouded over, then she pointed down at her stomach and rubbed it.

No. No. She couldn't be. His eyes grew wide with fear.

She nodded, her hair spilling over her shoulders.

He'd gotten her pregnant. Bastian had been so lost that night over losing Tressa that he couldn't even remember if he'd thought to use a lambskin sheath. He'd been too busy drowning his sorrows between that woman’s legs.

He looked back at the children. His daughter Farah played dolls with another little girl. So she'd no longer be an only child. Part of him was happy, but another part horrified. How would he explain to his daughter that he’d had a child with a whore?

Elinor tapped Bastian's shoulder. "Ready?"

How could he explain it to Elinor?





Chapter Thirty-Four


They arrived in Hutton's Bridge just as the sun was falling behind the treetops.

"We made it.” Bastian leaned against the door to his old cottage.

"This was your home?" Elinor asked.

Bastian nodded. His time with Vinya flashed in his memory, but he pushed those images away. For Farah's sake, he'd never speak poorly of his dead wife. It did no justice to the living or the dead to rehash her constant verbal abuse. Farah would grow up loved. It was all she would ever know. And his other child, the one with the whore ... well he'd deal with that later. If the baby was even his.

"Should we head back to Ashoom tonight?" Elinor asked as they walked toward the town hall.

Bastian looked up at the sky. The stars sparkled above the forest bathing the small village in soft light. The same stars he'd gazed at his whole life. Unchanging. Static. Just like Hutton's Bridge. He no longer felt this cottage in front of him was his home. Bastian wasn't sure he could call any place home now.

"No, I think we should spend at least one night here," he said. "Just to make sure everyone gets settled. Once we reinstate the fog, we won’t be back until it’s time to take it down again."

"Bastian!" Hazel waved at him from across the town square, where she stood in the doorway of the village hall, her oldest son peeking out from between her legs.

"Is there enough space for everyone?" Bastian asked. They'd decided all the children and their caretakers would live together in the village hall, which used to be the old inn before the fog. The children would share rooms and the adults would sleep on the ground floor, to assure none of them ran out during the night.

"There is." Hazel nodded. She reached down, ruffled her son's hair, and then pushed him backward. "Go on inside.” She looked at Bastian again. "Farah's been asking if she can go home with you. I thought perhaps it would be best if you talked to her and told her your plans."

"Of course," Bastian said. "I meant to anyway." He hadn't thought of it, actually. Parenting was never something that had come easily to him, and on the rare occasions he did have a thought, Vinya would squelch it. It was her idea, or it wasn't allowed. Eventually, he'd given up. He let Vinya make all the decisions and only interacted with Farah when it was necessary.