The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(30)

Now she had no choice.

Naelin sped toward it, up the ladder, and inside. She threw herself into the kitchen and her arms around Erian and Llor. "Pack quickly," she told them. She kissed both their foreheads. "Only what you need."

"Mommy, I don't wanna-" Llor's voice pitched into a whine.

His sister shushed him. "Don't you know her serious face?"

Llor screwed his face up like a shriveled apple. His lower lip quivered, and Naelin realized she'd scared him when she burst inside. "Everything's all right, sweetie, but we have to take a trip. Just for a little while. You can bring Boo-Boo."

He brightened and scampered to fetch his stuffed squirrel, the one Erian had sewed for him out of old bedsheets and extra buttons. Its tail was an old scrub brush that she'd cleaned and dyed. With the boy on a mission, Naelin retrieved three sacks from the rafters and began to stuff them with clothes, charms, bedding, and medicines. To hers, she added a few kitchen supplies: a paring knife, a tea strainer, forks and spoons, a ladle that had been her mother's. As she packed, she tried hard not to think about anything but practicalities: there wasn't time to sift through the layered memories, to linger over the lopsided owl carving that Erian had made or the shredded baby blanket that had been Llor's or the pastel sketch of her wedding day. She still had the dried circle of roses that she'd worn in her hair, and up in the rafters, neatly packed away, was her wedding dress with the beaded embroidery on the bodice that had taken her grandmother six months of sewing every night . . . I'll go to my home village, she decided. Ever since the day her parents died, she hadn't gone back. She rarely even mentioned the place. No one would ever guess she'd gone there. With luck, her old house would be uninhabited, though the roof had probably caved in by now-

She heard her husband stomp his feet at the door, knocking off the debris, and she felt a lump in her throat. There was no point in keeping the dirt out, not anymore. Stop, she told herself firmly. She didn't know she wouldn't come back. All she had to do was find a place to lie low until this blew over, until the spirits forgot, until the neighbors moved on to other scandals, and then she could return. A month, maybe more, and then it would all return to normal.

Or mostly normal.

"You won't be coming with us, Renet." She didn't turn around.

"You're leaving?" She heard the shock in his voice, as if she'd hit him with a frying pan, and all she felt was tired. He couldn't be surprised. He'd set this in motion. How did he expect it to end? Naelin blinked hard and told herself firmly that she would not cry. Over her home, yes. Over her life here, the cozy comfortable life she'd carved out for herself and her family, yes. But later, not now.

"You went too far this time, Renet. I can't forgive this." She bustled over to Llor and added a blanket to his pack, as well as warm socks. She checked Erian's pack and added her brush. Erian's eyes were overbright, trying hard to be brave. Naelin squeezed her hand and tried a smile, failing dismally. She then loaded the pack onto Erian's back. "Did everyone make a pee? Llor, do you have to pee?"

Lip still quivering, he shook his head. She watched him wiggle on a chair, and then she pointed to the bathroom door. He scooted in, and she crossed to the window over the kitchen sink, the one with a view toward town. She didn't know if the champion and the guard would come after her again, or if they'd give up on her as too much trouble. She didn't have much hope for the latter. Regardless, the spirits wouldn't forget this place so fast. You know you have to leave, she told herself. Quit dithering.



       
         
       
        

Renet was standing in the middle of the kitchen, running his hands through his hair as if he were totally blindsided by this. "Naelin, be reasonable. You're overreacting."

She faced him finally, and in a low voice she never thought she'd need to use, said, "I'm not going to do this in front of the children. I'm not going to talk badly about you in front of them, not now and not later. You can be the sweet, doting father in their memories. But you cannot come with us now. We aren't safe with you." And with that, she shepherded Llor and Erian toward the door and left Renet with his mouth hanging open, his face slack, his eyes as stunned and hurt as a shot deer.

I won't cry now.

Carrying their packs, they climbed down the ladder and hurried across the forest floor. Llor was whimpering. "Why can't Father come with us? Where are we going? I don't want to go. I want to go h-h-home, with Father."

Erian clutched Naelin's arm. "Mama, look."