My eyes began to widen as I started to take in what he was saying. “Do you mean that…” I couldn’t finish.

“Valdyrstal is, always has been, and always will be a vassal to Sinnendor.”

Chapter 5

“Then why pretend? Why pretend to be loyal to Calandry?” I shouted, frustrated and secretly torn.

“Bah! We have never pretended to be loyal to those heathen pigs.” Bearen lunged forward and spat into the fire. “It is why we don’t go to the council meetings, and why we deny their heathen ambassadors entry onto our land. We are the direct descendants of the banished king of Sinnendor, King Branccynal II who was sent to the Shadow Mountains.”

My mouth dropped in confusion and shock. It finally made sense. The protectiveness my family had over pure bloodlines… but I wasn’t sure how it was possible. “How? How can that be?” I blurted out in confusion.

Bearen leaned back in his chair and grabbed his pipe before going on. “You know the story of the war between Avellgard which is now Calandry and Sinnendor. When Sinnendor’s King Branccynal II was defeated by the Denai, he couldn’t return home. His army was destroyed and his younger brother forcefully took the throne of Sinnendor. So the king and what was left of his loyal followers sought refuge in the cold, undesirable Ioden Valley to live a quiet life in disgrace.” Neither one of us spoke for a minute, as I let his words sink in.

“Look at our crest.” He pointed above the fireplace to a barely discernable warn out tapestry. On closer inspection I saw that it wasn’t a tapestry but an old and faded black war standard with a silver wolf. “We kept our family crest and renamed ourselves Valdyrstal.”

“Valdyrstal means wolf of steel,” Bearen chuckled. “ The crest is the same as King Bryanccynal’s II, who was my forefather. Therefore you have royal blood in your veins; you are his direct descendant. And I will fight for the right for you to rule our clan of Valdyrstal over my brother any day. King Tieren of Sinnendor doesn’t have anything of your heritage. If Branccynal had never been banished, then you would be the heir to Sinnendor. Alas, that is not the path chosen for us.  And it is why we live up here in the mountains and seclude ourselves from the Denai way of life and detest them so.”

“Does King Tieren know about us? Does he know that the line of Branccynal still lives?” I asked.

“Of course,” Bearen growled angrily. “It’s the reason we can’t go home to Sinnendor. They have made it very clear to us what they would kill us if we ever went back to Sinnendor. They won’t attack us because no one dares set foot in Calandry for fear of the Denai. But he keeps a careful eye on the Valdyrstal clan. Don’t be fooled Thalia, Tieren knows all about us. He has his spies.” Bearen coughed. I was worried that his healing lungs, but everything looked healthy.

“If only he knew that we have become content with our way of life. Thalia, we may still be vassals to Sinnendor, and live in Calandry, but we are our own people and have been for years. We are now just Valdyrstal clan,” Bearen said sadly.

I couldn’t believe it. The Denai must know that the Valdyrstal clan was from Sinnendor, yet they still acknowledge them as a part of Calandry and have even tried to give them a vote on the Council. This changed everything. I was about to say so to my father when he interrupted my thoughts.

“I hope you regain your memories quickly, because I’ve been doing my best to distract the men from asking too many questions about you.” Turning his beady blue eyes towards me, he held me frozen in his gaze. “They know that something’s different about you. Because no matter how much I try and deny it, you are not my daughter that went missing from here months ago. You look the same, but you’re different.”

Pulling my hand from the arm of his chair into my lap, I looked at my hands, head down. “Is different bad?” I asked quietly.

Leaning forward, he rested his large hand on my head. “Oh, Thalia, what am I to do with you?”

Those words rang over and over in my head throughout the night and most of the morning.  I got up at the first ray of light that peeked through my green shutter and went downstairs to start breakfast. I was very grateful that Tearsa had put me to work in the kitchen and had been hard on me. Turning over the ham on the fire and pulling out a fresh batch of sweet corn cakes from the oven. The old Thalia would never do this, I thought. But I didn’t care; I wanted to do this for my father.

The sound of the door opening and closing with a thud made me almost drop the bread as I turned in surprise to see a girl about my age, dressed in blue with a red fur cloak. Pulling the hood back revealed dark braids pulled up intricately and secured with ribbons and the darkest brown eyes.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late, Thalia. I wasn’t feeling well last night and I just heard the news you came home this morning. I won’t do it again.” She stammered, rushing over to me, stopping when she saw the bread in my hands.

The heat was soaking through my towel and I needed to turn and drop it quickly on the oven before I burned myself. Turning back I saw her mouth quickly close and she smoothed her skirts down. “Why, umm,” she went on.

“It’s okay, Siobhan. I can handle breakfast for father.” I smiled at her and I saw one petite eyebrow raise in question.

“No, really, I’ve learned how to cook over the last few months,” I said reassuringly. Her eyebrow rose even higher and I felt myself burst out laughing in response. She was shocked by my outburst and slowly let herself start to laugh with me, when my father’s voice boomed out from above.

“What’s going on down there? Can’t a man get any well-deserved sleep?”

“Not if you want any cooked ham, fried eggs and fresh baked corn cakes!” I yelled back.

“CORN CAKES!” was the only retort I could hear, followed by a loud scuffling upstairs. What followed could only be described as the sound of two bears fighting followed by a loud thump before a door was thrown open and Bearen lumbered downstairs in a slow and somber manner.

“Well, ahem, if you made corn cakes then we shouldn’t let them get cold,” he said in his most nonchalant voice. “How about I, uh, help you put them on the table.” Reaching for a hot cake, he jumped back and put his large fingers in his mouth. “MFFFHOT!”

“Of course they are hot. I just pulled them out of the oven.” Rolling my eyes, I caught Siobhan looking at me as if I had sprouted horns. Oh dear, I thought. I failed again. Sighing, I brought everything to the large table and set it out for everyone to eat. Siobhan stayed to eat at my insistence, but she seemed ready to bolt at the first chance.

She asked me if I would need her today and I couldn’t think of a reason to have her stay, but I decided to invite her to stop over tomorrow. She left looking confused and relieved at the same time.

“Well, so much for taking this slow and not scaring everyone off,” Bearen grumbled, the evidence of corn still apparent in his black beard.  “Keep cooking like this and soon everyone in the village will know that you are not the same girl, I guarantee it.”

“Father, I don’t know how to be that girl again.”

He just grunted in affirmation. “I have business to attend to with the elders.”