“She was different from any woman I’d ever known,” he said, staring off away from Rowan. “Pretty and quiet with these eyes that when she looked at me, the only thing I wanted to do was hold and protect her. She was, or seemed to be, a lost soul in need of caring, warmth, and love.” He turned back to face Rowan. “I married her. They couldn’t cast her out if she was my wife.”
“What happened?”
“She was always fearful that they’d find her, that they would come for her someday. I could always manage to calm her though. She became pregnant within a few months, which seemed to soothe her and during that time, she was able to integrate with the villagers and even make some friends. I thought the past was behind us, but I was wrong.” Silas sipped his drink.
“She was about eight months along when I had to go on a trading mission. I hated to leave her but had no choice. She stayed with Rose and her husband Gregory, a sweet young couple who had adopted one of the babies cast off by the colony. They had become friendly as Ellis, the child, was just a baby then and Ina liked holding her. I had thought the colony would assume Ina was dead. That was one of my mistakes, that and leaving her unprotected. Somehow, they learned that she was here, that one of their breeders, the only one who had ever escaped to my knowledge, was living here. They came for her while I was away.”
Silas’ eyes watered and he looked up to the ceiling, rubbing a hand over his mouth, his chin, his throat. He then turned back to Rowan.
“And they didn’t just take her back. They made an example of Rose and Gregory, executing them that night in the square. At least they spared Ellis. I was told Ina tried to intervene, to save them, and was injured in the process, but she was alive when they took her. But days later, as if murdering Rose and Gregory wasn’t enough, they dumped Ina’s body in the square.”
“Oh… Silas…”
He wouldn’t or couldn’t look at her.
“The baby, your baby… you thought he had died in the process?”
Silas nodded. “The way her body looked, what they had done to her… I didn’t think the child could have survived that.”
A chill made Rowan shiver. “Silas,” she said, her eyes wide, her expression one of shock and disbelief, her soft touch on his arm warm, compassionate.
“How long ago was this?”
“Six years.”
“Where is Ellis?”
“Living with another family. She doesn’t even remember her original parents,” he said, the guilt in his eyes almost overwhelming.
“You couldn’t have known, Silas. It wasn’t your fault.”
His expression told her he didn’t accept that.
“They forgave me, the villagers. Comforted me even.” Silas sucked in a long breath and closed his eyes. “I did not deserve either.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I should have gone away with her. Instead, I hid a breeder in our village, and innocent people died because of it.” Silence hung in the air between them.
“Am I like her?” Rowan asked quietly. “Do I remind you of her?”
He smiled a tender smile. “Sometime in the way you look at me, I see her. There’s a gentleness there.”
“Do the villagers know about your son? That he may be alive?”
Silas studied her, she was clever. “Aside from the elders, no. And they won’t know until I bring him back. It will only incite fear and it’s taken us all too long to recover from what happened.”
“You carry a great weight.”
“I wonder if I had sent her back if her fate wouldn’t have been better in the end after all? Rose and Gregory would be alive. Maybe Ina would still be alive too.”
“The life of a breeder is no life,” Rowan said.
“Still, it’s life. If only…”
“The past is the past, you can’t change it. And besides, you fell in love. You have no control over that.”
Silas looked into her eyes when she said it, her voice so soft as if a feather floating on the breeze. But there was something else in her words too: a longing. And it seemed as though the moment he read that, she could not stand for it to be known. She lowered her lashes, shielding her eyes from him.
“I’ll do what I can to help you get your son back,” she said.
He reached out a hand to lift her chin. “I’m sorry for you, Rowan.”
“Do you have a photograph of him? Some proof that he’s yours?”
“Blood tests prove it. And only this,” he said, reaching for the tablet. “He’s looking away, but the resemblance is uncanny.”