With Father holding the door open for us, Jonah, Torin, and I filed into his office. As we walked into the room, it was like walking into a timeless moment of Guild history; every Tavern Chief has used this office. Upon entering, I was warmed by the stone fireplace that was centered on the back wall. Two large wooden chairs were set up around the hearth of the fireplace with several pillows laid out. Father’s desk was set in front of the side wall. Like the table in the main longhouse, this one was also covered in notes and stones.

We all settled in around the hearth. Father and I got comfortable in the chairs with Jonah sitting on a pillow beside me and Torin standing beside the fire. He was pouring out glasses for everyone from, what I guessed based on the smell of spices in the air, a bladder of mulled wine. As we got comfortable, Father leaned over and handed me the envelope he held out previously.

“Fancy paper,” I noted, turning the envelope over in my hands. Guild paper is made out of pressed plant product from the Farm, it is durable but by no means delicate. This was fragrant and woven paper made from fine strands. I showed the envelope to Jonah in amusement.

“The fanciest,” Father said, not making eye contact with me. He motioned back to the envelope. “Open it,” Father said.

I opened the envelope and pulled out a letter, the paper was heavy in my hand and the perfume briefly overwhelmed my nose. Upon unfolding it, the King’s Crest glared back at me. My head instantly shot up. “The Crown?” I asked, looking to Father. “What do they want?”

“The High Prince specifically,” He said, with a hint of impatience. “Read and find out.”

I looked back and read:

Dear Chief Eurus Stone,

I am High Prince Olarik Godson the eldest son of King Charles Godson. I write to you understanding the gravity of each pen stroke. Our respective sides haven’t spoken in generations. But I write to you today to save the country we both serve from a terrible evil.

I am sure you are aware of the long cycle of ravaged settlements and markets throughout our beloved country. Unfortunately, we have been unable to rid our people of this peril working separately. As I ponder my future and how I can help make a true difference as the future king, I cannot help but believe that working collectively is the answer.

I have recently been made aware of Lord Leon’s lost treasure and its place within the Guild. May she act as proof of how our two sides can work together towards a common goal.

Respectfully,

High Prince Olarik Godson

My stomach dropped as I read the third paragraph of Olarik’s letter. I couldn’t help but read it over and over again, my skin becoming a blanket of nerves. Lord Leon’s treasure?

They know I’m alive.

“When?” I started to ask, but the words briefly got caught in my throat. “When did you get this?” Jonah, upon seeing my distraught reaction to the letter, reached for the letter and I handed it to him. Jonah read the letter as I stared down Father.

“Recently” Father replied cryptically.

“How recently?”I asked, the blanket of nerves seeping into me to turn into hot iron in my core. I couldn’t help the frustration growing in me at his blatant vagueness.

“Relatively,” Father replied.

“Relatively?” I asked skeptically. “So you’ve kept this from me,” I clarified. “ Why? This pertains to me. Lord Leon’s treasure?” I waved at him in sarcasm. “And an alliance between the Crown and the Guild? with me being proof that it could work! You are making decisions that will directly impact me and my work here, but chose not to tell me!” I was half shouting with anger.

“It’s the letters very mention of you and your birth father that we kept this from you,” Father replied stoically, despite still not meeting my gaze.

“We?” I asked in bewilderment. Torin cleared his throat, calling for my attention.

“I knew shortly after the Council weighed in but before Father responded back,” Torin said making eye contact with me.

I shook my head. This was all so much at once, and my hand shook ever so slightly at the building emotions. The Crown somehow knows I’m alive. The Prince wants an alliance and the Guild’s Council is in favor of inquiring. All of which Father and Torin have both kept from me. Fuck.

From the day I arrived at the Tavern, Eurus treated me as his daughter and through his name and love, he has protected me as fiercely as a father does his child. Outside of the Tavern, I am strictly referred to as Miss Stone, using his name instead of my own to keep my identity a secret, with me claiming him as my father as fiercely as he claims me to be his daughter.

Our bond through it all was what made our relationship so incredibly special to me.

I may not be the daughter of his blood, but I am the daughter of his soul. Which is why not being within his council on this matter hurt.

“So this has been going on since at least before the last snow,” I said trying to piece together how long this omission has been going on.

“Why do you say that?” Jonah asked.

“Did you know?” I whipped my head around to confront the possibility of more lies. I had almost forgotten that he was sitting beside me. I was so invested in the letter and its implications towards me, that I forgot he was sitting beside me. Jonah’s hands instantly shot up in surrender.

“No, he didn’t,” Father said behind me. I turned back to face him. I finally saw a flicker of sadness cross his face.

Does he regret keeping this from me? Or regretting the pain it caused?

“You are his Lead Bastard. It would have pained him to keep this from you so I chose to not put Jonah in that position,” Father said. Jonah scrunched his face at that.

I looked to Jonah in apology, he simply lowered his hands and patted his right on my knee in solidarity. He understood how I felt. When we were younger, the Chief would test us three siblings in ways of strategy, and knowledge, using the goings of the Guild and the Tavern as lessons and examples. Not including all of us on such a large issue stung him as well.

He was a far better brother than the one I was born with.

When my father died, my birth brother, Lanzo Moor, struggled with his new title and responsibilities. My brother’s bad decisions with the power cost our family everything; clearing our coffers to feed into his addictions and his wife’s expensive tastes. He was never told the word no, therefore he and his wife lived luxurious lives. He would buy beautiful horses and drink away his hefty coin purses in a single night. Due to his inability to manage my father’s lands, my brother’s debts got too high. When the money ran out, he would make deals to clear his debts. With me being an “unfortunate consequence” of one such deal.

I looked back to Jonah and addressed his previous question. “It would take time to put something like this into motion, especially if the entire Council was consulted. Each Chief would meet with their Advisors to deliberate and then send back their vote on the matter,” I said

“And any additional correspondences between us and the Crown would take time as well,” Jonah added, coming to the same realization as me.

“Exactly, so the last snow, at the earliest,” I said. It was mid-spring now, so this took me at least two moon cycles. I looked to Father, unable to contain my frustration and sense of betrayal at the amount of time that has passed.

“I know you are upset that I kept this from you,” Father said, looking from me to Jonah “from you both. But as your Father, it’s my duty to protect you fiercely from the world; as your uncle, it’s my duty to show you how to stay strong in the world we live in. What is a man to do when he is both?” He reaches over and took my hands in his. “I kept this from you, for you. As your Father, I wondered if your fears would come back. And as your Chief, I didn’t know if the Prince’s acknowledgment of your survival would cloud your judgment on the matter.”

His words cut me to my core, the iron there quickly cooling to hard and heavy stone, sinking into my gut. A knife wound would have hurt less. However, what stung the most was that he was correct. After joining the Stones at the Tavern, I was in constant fear of those around me. What if someone knew who I was? Would they send me back to him? I went days without speaking, with Jonah and Torin quietly keeping me company. As I slowly came to realize that I was safe, I opened up and became the Bastard I am today. But I have always known what discovery would mean for me. Death or worse.

“Self-preservation is a perfectly reasonable response to this. “ I acknowledged the inner gnawing feeling I had since reading the letter. “But,” I sighed “putting that aside, history speaks for itself. This is a horrible idea, and as one of your Advisors, I would have said as much.” Father patted my hand before reclining back into his chair.

“Do you feel that way because your afraid of being found or because you actually think that discussing an alliance with the Crown is so terrible a thing?” Torin asked.

I couldn’t help the doubt and sarcasm that laced my words. “Think of everything the Guild lost when it split from the Crown. The people who died fleeing the city. We lost the entire Guild sect in the capital that night. All because the Crown no longer believed in the code. Do you think a hundred years is enough time to remove the blood they smeared across the Guild? Or that they have suddenly become better people?”

“No,” Father admitted. “but the only way we will know is if we find out for ourselves,” Father said, extending a new letter out to me. It would seem he carried all of the letters from the Crown to ensure no one else found out. I handled the envelope again, hesitating to read on. The information here is about to change everything. The weight of that fact stopping me from opening it.

“Bronie, I understand where you are coming from,” Father said sympathetically, noticing my pause. “ I wrestled with the same dilemma.” He motioned back towards the new letter he extended out to me. “But I had to ask myself an important question. Do their motives truly matter when their swords will mean more support for the people we have been entrusted to protect?”

With father’s question in mind, I read the Prince’s final correspondence.

Dear Chief Eurus,

Thank you for your invitation. I would be delighted to join you at The Guild to learn more about how our respective sides could come together. I will ride with a small company and arrive within the fortnight to the location you specified.

Respectfully,

High Prince Olarik Godson

I silently folded the letter back up and handed it back to Father. So much was decided without Jonah and me, but we will have to live with and enforce it regardless.

“So?” Torin asked.

“So what?” I asked back sarcastically. “You know what it says. Prince Olarik is coming here, to The Guild within the fortnight” Jonah scoffed at the Prince’s misnomer beside me. I handed the new letter to him. “You have decided and taken action without our council.” I motioned to Jonah to include him in the hurt. “But we serve the Guild and The Tavern is our home. We will do what we can and what we must. Even if we would have advised otherwise.”

“You saw what these things are doing with your own eyes. Why is this such a terrible idea? Are you against more support?” Father asked.

“Think you can take on all the baddies yourself?” Torin added for levity.

“Of course not.” I stopped, unable to contain the insult I felt at his words. “its idiotic to think I would be against more help. The Guild needs more fighters if we are to protect the people from an enemy that we don’t know or understand. But the Crown and its people are selfish. This alliance isn’t about the deaths of innocents to them. It’s about the loss in revenue.”

The silence was the only response. I was right. For a few minutes, the crackling fire filling the empty air. Each of us left to think.

Jonah was the first to cut through the silence. “The Prince sounds sincere,” he said

“In a letter. Anyone can sound sincere with the right wording in a letter.” I countered.

“Is that something they teach little lords and ladies?” Torin quipped.

“Oh yes. We read from an epic tome called Fancy Words to Use to Confuse the Common.” I retorted. Our momentary joking started to have its planned impact. Torin has always been one to use humor as a tool. I stopped focusing on the sting of being left out and looked at the problem. How else are we supposed to fight the monsters lurking in the dark?

“You knew him, didn’t you? Prince Olarik.” Father asked.

“Yes, though I was closer to his younger brother, Gaelin,” I said.

“Was he sincere then?” Torin asked.

I paused, remembering the times that my father Lord Leon would take us to tourneys. It was instances such as those that I got to become friends with the young princes. “.....yes” I replied.

“Then wouldn’t it stand to reason that he is sincere in this as well?” Torin asked, trying to push me towards acceptance. Regardless of what I might have advised, the time is past for anything to change now. As much as I don’t like it, I have to accept it and do what I can for the Guild.

“Possibly. These attacks have plagued the last ten season cycles of his father’s reign. He doesn’t want to same for his.” I admitted. Prince Olarik always seemed like a kind-hearted boy, but age and power can corrupt a person. “Even if he is sincere in regards to his intention with The Guild, how do we know he won’t send word to my Lord Husband that I’m alive? That he won’t ship me back to him like my brother? He mentioned my existence for a purpose.” My eyes bounced between each of them. Each displaying a different age of the same disgruntled scowl.

“We will never let that happen.” Father said, dismissing the idea just as quickly as I did Torin’s ‘baddies’ comment

“Okay,” I said disbelievingly.

“Bronie,” Torin started, stepping in front of me in the chair and lowering himself so we were at eye level. “I would cut down anyone who even entertained the idea of sending you back to him. Be they a beggar looking to advance their station or the future king.” Torin wiped at a silent tear that escaped from my eyes as he spoke.

Jonah rested his heavy hand over mine, giving me some of his strength. I looked at him and saw nothing but love. “We haven’t stood by your side for the last twelve season cycles, training with you and watching your back to let some high born twat ruin everything you have done, we have done, for The Guild.”

I’ve lasted this long through the strength the Guild and this family has given me. Who am I to doubt their strength now?

“So what now?” I asked. Each snapped out of our familial moment quickly.

“Do I dare ask when within the last fortnight you received this?” Jonah asked sarcastically. I couldn't blame him for his continued bitterness. I just concealed mine better after refocusing myself.

“The Prince will be arriving the night after tomorrow,” Father said. Jonah shook his head slightly at the news but said nothing.

Better to move us in a different direction.

“He says he will be traveling a with a small company. But who knows how many that actually means,” I said.

“The king is known for his extravagance. Perhaps the son is an echo of the father,” Torin said, taking the bait.

“Not all sons are,” I admitted darkly. “But we should bring up a few barrels of grains, ale, cheeses, maybe some dried fruit from the caves. Enough to supplement the additional mouths. I said.

We should get some Bastards on it tomorrow. Some will need to start working on the barracks, but we have plenty of Bastards in Tavern, Jonah said, joining us in the logistical decisions we are allowed to make.

Together we finalized the details of the Prince’s arrival and the tasks that should be assigned to ensure Olarik’s visit went smoothly. It’s a timeless family tradition, the three of us debating over Guild news that father shares with us. Father sat back and watched his children, his legacy, go round and round preparing for The Guild’s future.