“Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

“Kai!” shouted mother after us. “Get back here.” She hollered as we continued to flee up the mountain.

I ignored her as Arawn turned to me with a frown on his face. “Really?” he questioned. It was difficult to tell if he was amused by my escape or cross at being commanded. He could hardly be happy with having his free will usurped over what was arguably not a matter of life and death.

“What? You know that line of questioning was going to lead to more questions.” I shrugged perhaps a little hypocritically. I had just convinced him to tell the truth but here I was still hiding my past life from my parents and actively fleeing from facing the consequences of it coming to light.

“You convinced me to come and tell them the whole truth, why not have the courage to do it yourself?” He quizzed still running up the side of the mountain acting out my last command.

“You needed to tell the truth to fix the bridges you’d burnt. My bridges are still fine.” I argued back. “Or at least they were, besides why aren’t you out of breath yet?” I quizzed suspicious of his ability to question me while running up the mountain. He had run out of stamina far quicker last time we fled from the tangle and that was running along the contour of the cliff not crossing them in an ascent like this flight.

“Who knows?” He asked with an evil grin and my suspicions coalesced into certainty.

“You were faking it!” I shouted at him. “I could have died,” I screamed in frustration. How many times was he going to threaten my life for some ephemeral gain in experience?

“Well, I had to leave enough in the tank to catch you if you couldn’t stay airborne. How do you think I managed to keep up with them and pick them off one at a time when you were flying back?” he asked in turn. “Besides I bet it was good for your skills and experience.” He added unrepentantly. He seemed to take great glee in the karma already inflicted. I suddenly felt less guilty about commanding him to facilitate my escape despite the fact that I had broken a promise.

I gave up arguing with him but he hadn’t given up arguing with me. “You’re only digging yourself a deeper hole the longer you make us run.” He pointed out, unfortunately accurately.

“You had your moment to contemplate what you were going to say. Give me mine.” I groused. “What do I even say?” I asked equally terrified of losing my family to half-truths as he had been only a few hours earlier. Our situations were not the same at all but they did have similarities.

“Simple,” He shrugged. “One day you told me to do something and I did it despite clearly being against it. Then you worked it out from there.” He simplified the question to the most basic answer, a truth that concealed all the circumstances surrounding it.

“And then what? I decided not to tell them?” I mused considering his answer. That was hardly going to put me in the best light. Then again mother was not exactly impressed with me at the moment anyway. But at least it might be an improvement.

“We all know how you like to keep your secrets. It is hardly new! First, there was the secret that you had a status, second, the secret that you could understand and remember everything, third your skills and traits that it took you crippling yourself to finally confess to having them. All of that before you even get to the secret that you are a reincarnated soul from another world. The fact that you could command me through a blood oath tattoo is honestly one of your smaller secrets and less yours than mine.” He continued seemingly calm enough as he crested the top of the mountain and stepped into the caldera. “There you go there’s Aleera she is doing fine.” He said stopping as soon as he came into sight of her and pointing her out working her way around the far side of the cauldron caldera.

Then before she could turn and see us his hand whipped forward pressing it against my mouth as he hauled me back out of sight over the top of the ridgeline. My breath left my body as my momentum forward was suddenly checked and my chest compressed as I was pulled in the opposite direction.

I did not feel scared he was my grandfather an honour-bound guardian but I was alarmed when his whispered voice sounded harshly in my ears. “Now I cannot keep my hand over your mouth for the rest of your life.” He said to my widening eyes and flaring nostrils as they struggled to inhale enough air from the sudden movement. “But I want you to know that as entertaining as it might have been to skip out on your parents, I did not find the way in which you forced my hand to be very funny.”

He paused to see if I was listening to what he was saying. I nodded to show that I was. Struggling was futile with the difference in our stats and the size of our vessels but that did not stop my hands from coming up to grasp his arm.

“Now just to make sure this doesn’t become a habit of yours I would like to list the multiple methods I have thought of to prevent you from doing such a thing. Option one, I protect you from afar. As long as I am out of earshot you cannot tell me what to do. The problem with this is I might not always be there when you need me in time to save you. For example, our recent outing with the clergy could have become a complete disaster if I had been further afield. Would you like me to make that choice?” he asked already knowing the answer.

I shook my head as much as his hand would allow. It was impossible to say whether he was overreacting but it was obvious he was cross. I had broken my promise.

“Option two I seal my ears. A little bit drastic but again if I can’t hear you, you can’t command me. Again, it will decrease my capabilities to protect you but would be worth it to avoid frivolous commands. You’d also have to explain to your parents why I could no longer hear them. Which again would create added complications for you. Lady Acacia in particular might find it particularly enlightening.”

He paused again to see if I was taking this in, I shook my head again signifying that was not an option I wanted him to go with.

“Option three I use your blood to break the binding it would destroy my status but I would get to live out the rest of my years unbound and free.” He outlined the third nihilistic option. “Playing with promises has consequences.” He left me with a final lesson.

I thought about the third option, that was a scary thought. To break your binding was to break your status, I’d never heard of such a thing. He was our protector the physical force that supported house Silversea from the shadows. Without him, we would be vulnerable to any militant force or even just an individual that any noble house might attack us with. With or without the church's support I was not sure that we could survive his absence. We needed him in more ways than one.

“I’m going to take my hand away now. I hope we are not going to have a repeat of what just happened.” He slowly removed his hand. There were a lot of things I could attempt to say but a lot of them would just make things worse. I had crossed a line and all I could do was apologise.

“Sorry,” I whispered shocked by the speed with which things could change as if the lesson with the Mosau eels had not been recent enough for me to remember.

“Right, don’t do it again.” Seemingly a lot calmer now that he had said his piece without being interrupted. Although I was fully aware of how quickly that could change.

“I won’t,” I said shaken. Intellectually I knew that I had never been in any danger, he was ultimately blood bound to protect me. But the jarring stop, the quick manhandling and the intense conversation left my heart pumping fast even though I had been carried the whole way.

“You do know that in doing that you just confirmed your father’s answer to his question.” He added to make my day that little bit more special. He seemed to delight in life’s small struggles when they were not ones that he had to face.

“I know. You made your points very well.” I whined. “What will you get up to now?” I asked, eager for some time apart to consider what I would say when my parents found me.

“I think I will go and check on the northern entrance to the depths. I keep it trapped and clear it out whenever there is any pressure from below on the defences I have created. Honestly, it is the only reason I have been able to keep levelling here on this island without fishing or crafting.” He answered. “It is also the reason I am given the level of respect I am on this island. They might not know exactly what I do to protect them but in time they connected my appearance to the goblin’s disappearance. It is just not something they like to think about too much.”

“And my parents? What will you say if you see them?” I asked worried about what I could get away with when answering the questions, I was sure would follow when I next met up with them. It was only a matter of time.

“Simply that you told me to do something one day and were able to work it out that you could command me from that.” He replied putting my mind at rest. “That being said you need to think about how you want to address the Troll in the room. It will come out one day when you least expect it. Especially if you are going to insist on your independence and the right to decide your own actions sometimes against the will of your parents.” He could not help but through in a final bit of advice.

“The elves talk about old souls,” I started before pausing, “I thought I would lead with what Lady Acacia has already proposed. I am an old soul with a few memories of a former life. I thought that I could pass off any technological ideas as remembered memories based on dwarfish or gnomish technology.” I answered with the idea I had been ruminating on for a while.

“It’s your life and your lie.” He replied. “But a word of caution, coming hot on the heels of someone who has just had his half-truths uncovered. The truth will out in the end.” He turned and started walking down the mountain to his boat that would carry him across the lagoon.

My brain pondering the food for thought, my body set forward over the crest of the caldera stepping down into it to see Aleera. It would be nice to have a casual conversation without worrying about the consequences. “Aleera, hi!” I yelled down into the cauldron caldera and she turned to look up at me.

. . .

It was nice to hang out with Aleera while we worked a little on our inspect, observe and analyse skills as well as attempting to block them before collecting some of our harvest alongside Des and Sinis who had also joined us later after harvesting enough salt for the morning. Before returning to town with our collection to sell at the market. It was challenging to say what the market might be like today with the whole town preparing to face the depths, create a guard and maintain the sentinels. Then again they might sell out quicker with fewer people able to spend time on producing food the economics of the town was bound to shift through probably not as soon as today.

However, the peace was not to last forever, consequences always catch up to you sooner or later. In this case, it was sooner than later.

“Kai!” My mother’s voice shouted from the top of the ridgeline. They had not followed straight away seeing as how much we had managed to harvest but it did not look like she had cooled down a lot on her hike up the mountain. Despite clearly waiting a while before heading for this confrontation.

We stopped to turn and look at her and father as they started to make their way down the stepped garden. “Where is your grandfather?” she asked force of habit keeping her referring to him as her father and my grandfather despite her now knowing the truth to the opposite.

“He went to go and look at the northern entrance to the depths.” Happy to have an easy question to start but it was about to get a lot harder. Kaius looked proud to have his prediction proved true.

That did not stop though from asking, “How long and how often have you been commanding him to do your bidding?” It was the question they had climbed up here to ask rather than wait for dinner.

“You what?” Aleera asked shocked at this new revelation.

“Turns out that a few minor heirlooms were not the only things brought here after the fall of the Silverwood family. Arawn is or at least was my mother’s bodyguard and bound by blood to obey the last lord of the Silverwood family which the magic finds to be little Lord Silversea, your brother.” Mother outlined the situation to her. Still clearly unimpressed with me not passing this information on at any time before today.

“You could have commanded him to stop at any time during our training?” Aleera shot straight to the most useful aspect of this for us. We could have told him to stop at any time. It looked like she was less than impressed with me too. Especially when she moved on to her pet peeve, “That is so unfair. Why not me too?”

“I didn’t know then.” I defended. “I only found out recently more by accident than by design.” I did not add any more to that or answer her final question that it was probably due to the male hierarchy for the Noble houses of Maestro. That would hardly have improved my sister’s ire. Especially as she already unconsciously knew the answer to that one.

“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Mother asked, still hurt by the secrets that had already been kept from her before today. This was just another one on top of them all.

“It wasn’t my secret to tell. It was his.” I had thought hard about the best words to use while picking the fruit and vegetables and felt these were the best I could use. Hopefully, they would show that I was not hoarding secrets for myself but protecting another’s.

“That’s very . . . grown up of you.” Conceded mother. Visibly struggling to argue with what was on the surface a conscientious reason to withhold the truth. If I had ever said anything it would have brought to light the fact that Arawn was not our grandfather far sooner and it had not been my secret to tell.

Success, I thought for myself for a second as I heard her response. Or not, “You just wanted to add another secret to your hoard.” Aleera ratted me out. Always quicker to see some of my more self-interested motivations even if she missed the mark on this one she was still correct in that I had ulterior motives for keeping this hidden.

“What hoard?” Stupid question. Stupid question. When was I going to learn to keep my mouth shut? I had never had a sibling before and something about our relationship often made me stupidly defensive or defensively stupid. A change of topic would have been a far wiser decision.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed your disappearing acts. I’m not ignorant! You’ve obviously added secret tunnels to the rooms you two are carving from the mountain. Even though I can’t find the entrances.” She added annoyed. Once more proving that she was far more observant than she should have been. Then again, a lifetime of looking out for me probably had her predisposed to checking on my whereabouts even though I was a little older and independent now.

“Kai?” Mother queried once more as a new buried secret was uncovered.

“Is that the time?” I querulously looked up at the sun, “I should go . . .” I started to say.

“Not this time young man.” Father had stepped forward to pick me up when I had turned to confront my sister. I also no longer had a grandfather to whisk me away.“You need to answer your mother. You can’t keep running away from your family every time they ask an uncomfortable question.”

“Um, I might or might not have been adding some extra tunnels to our work,” I answered. “Just to help me get around mind . . . I have little legs.” The comedy helped with my father who laughed at my answer. Not so much with my Mother or Sister.

“See!” my sister said vindicated. Turn him upside down and I swear secrets would fall out of him like treasure.” She told on me to my mother.

I started to sweat a little. I was aware that neither father nor I had mentioned publicly our little haul the other day. It seemed father might have agreed with me on that. As he added, “No reason to go quite that far.” He smiled jovially as he put me down and patted my head.

“No, I guess not, but Kai, at least let us check these tunnels out and make sure they are safe.” Mother commented as always more concerned with our safety than anything else.

“They are.” I defended my extracurricular mining efforts. “Besides they are child-sized, you might have a little difficulty walking through them.”

“Then show Aleera and your father.” She replied. It was subtle her slow transformation under Lady Acacia’s guidance to be more gentile and ladylike but with the new news of her heritage, I could see her becoming more convinced by the change and assuaged with the truth of it.

“Speaking of tunnels. I hear you have added something else to the core tower under the Elendil tree to allow for a speedy descent.” She directed us forward as a family under the tree passing through the blue glow of the Silversea Lodestar into the passage behind.

“Yes, I call it a slide,” I said when we arrived at the spiral staircase and gesticulated at the circular slope carved into the wall of the tower. I had made it large enough even for father in case it was ever needed.

“Well, I think it is time for tea.” She surprised us all by sitting down and disappearing with a shout into the darkness. The mana mote lanterns lit up as she speed on by them down the tower highlighting the speed of her descent as we looked over the walls down the well. A lady in truth she might have become but that did not mean she could not have fun.

“Last one down is peeling the potatoes,” Father said to his distracted children as he too darted onto the slide. More familiar with his wife’s more gregarious side than we were. A short scuffle saw the two of us climbing into the slide at the same time and sliding down together. Screaming as we went it seemed that all had been forgiven if not forgotten.