Zevulun shared the laugh with Persephone and nodded, agreeing. “It definitely does.” So much had happened in the last nine years it was a whirlwind. Time blended and pulled apart at random intervals. “I swear one day my boys were knobby kneed colts and the next I looked at them and their fully grown stallions.”
He reflected on what she’d told him of Sabran being born during the war. “My family returned briefly and spent a season in the Peak at the end of the war. We missed it entirely while we were away.” Another thing to shove Mariael deeper into the hole of self-hatred she’d begun digging herself into. A war had been launched on the islands against mare-led hers and she, one of the first leading mares, hadn’t been here to help fight for it. Zevulun exhaled a low sigh and tried to shove thoughts of his sister away. He was tired of the way he both missed and hated her at the same time.
“I often find myself thinking…” He trailed off, looked at the Forest queen, then looked away. “I know it’s impossible to change the past and I swore I wanted to focus on moving forward, but sometimes I find myself wondering what might’ve changed if my family had stayed on the islands.”
Again those words Ysabel spat at him came back to sting, but so did the hushed request of his white-striped late night companion.
Why would you leave her in that place? Because of you she was miserable, I grew up miserable. You just left the islands not knowing what might happen to your unborn child!
I know that you don’t deserve to live with this burden. Promise me that you’ll forgive yourself…
“Maybe eventually I’ll find the answer for why it had to happen the way that it did.” Maybe he never would. But with a few mares he’d covered growing new life in their wombs, he couldn’t help but think the new generations of his children would be the reason for him coming home.
Zevulun took a deep breath and exhaled it with a heavy sigh. “Enough of that, though. I’m glad you made it through. As did your daughters.” He concluded as he pulled himself from his self-centered thoughts. He knew the war would have gone on, it seemed destined to, but he couldn’t help but feel that with himself and Mariael at the borders of the Bay, they could have kept a closer eye on Warsaw. “This Forest wouldn’t have been the same without you here protecting its borders.” He admitted, smiling as he looked back at her. “Hell, neither would Luthien.”
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