Heart of Stone (6 page)

8.

Tristan

North Montagne, Gemmes

Tristan arrived in the village square in early evening, exhausted on all accounts, yet still eager to start searching for the stone he was desperate to find.

A diamond.

              He’d seen plenty of them before, of course. Any gem tracker with a decent record would have found a handful if they searched in the right spot, but this diamond was an eight-sided beauty that was rumored to be the lost diamond of Gemmes. A diamond gone missing generations ago, some say it was lost at sea, others say in the mountains. This was all assuming it was the same diamond the
Trésor de L’espoir
required.

“Tristan! Long time no see my friend!”

Tristan’s turned and saw Damian. A tracker he had spent several summers with in the south toward the mountains closest to the sea. It took brave men to hang dangerously from the cliffs on the waterside, but they found many of the best gems there.

“What are you doing here, you ass? I thought the boys were all headed south?” Tristan asked, not able to help but grin and clap this old friend on the back.

“Ahh, I’m finished with that rubbish. Moved on. Working a respectable job these days.”

              “Really, doing what?” Tristan cocked his head at Damien, a stocky man with a body built for hard labor and heavy lifting.

              “A little here, a little there. Dabbling, if you will.” He laughed heartily and slapped Tristan on the back. Tristan realized how long it had been since he spent time with friends his own age. Last year was spent with Uncle Rémy on the side of mountains, alone.

              “Hey, you want to grab something to eat? I’ve just arrived in town myself and am starved,” Tristan asked.

              “I would, my brother, but I have a girl waiting for me, if you know what I mean?” He smirked, and Tristan knew exactly what he meant. “I’m sure she has a friend, if you’d like to come along?”

              Tristan smiled, forgetting his meal, knowing the real delicacies in life had nothing to do with meat or cheese.

              “Brilliant!” Damien said smiling perhaps a bit too happily at the prospect of spending the evening with Tristan. “Where are you staying?”

              “I’m on my way to the
Aubérge
as we speak. Can we meet, say, in an hour?” Tristan asked.

              They made plans for their night of decadence, and Tristan made his way into the local
Aubérge.
He quickly acquired himself a room for the week. Simple quarters with the small luxury of a bath in the room, a feathered bed and a dining hall. He only lived in home-away-from-homes.

Tristan changed clothes and washed his face. He looked in the mirror and ruffled his lose blond curls from the tie that had held them back while he travelled. A cocky grin was planted on his face, ready for fun.

              Damien waited for him, just as he promised and he immediately began quizzing Tristan on the
Trésor de L’espoir
, the diamond, and the legend. As they walked, Tristan chatted amiably, but Damien’s questions grew specific and aggressive. Who was his source? Where was he going next? Why not look at the sea? Where did he keep his stones?

Finally Tristan grew uncomfortable with the direct line of questioning and cut to the chase.

“Man, what is the deal? Is this an inquisition? I want a night off from work.” Tristan tried to not be annoyed, but all he ever did was focus on the
trésor
… a night of focusing on girls was a much-needed reprieve.

“Of course, of course. I just wondered, do you know where you’ll look next?”

Tristan stopped walking, they were a block from the place Damien called home. He couldn’t help but feel protective, of himself and of all he and Uncle Rémy had worked for.

“Why did you stop tracking, Damien? The real reason?” Tristan asked, standing a full foot above his friend, looking at him intimidatingly.

“I work … you know I told you. A little--”

“No. Really. Who do you work for?” Tristan dragged Damien to the alleyway behind the building they passed and pushed him against the brick wall.

“Cool it, man. I’m your bud, your comrade. Your pal.” Damien coughed through the hold Tristan had him in.

“I’m not asking again, brother. Who do you work for?”

“You know who,” Damien squeaked, his face growing red through the chokehold Tristan had him in.

“Shove off,” Tristan said, angry for letting this ass in on his plans. “Tell the king that I know what I’m doing. You can tell the other informants that, too.”

Tristan dropped his hands from Damien, who scuttled away in the dark alley. Tristan flicked his hair from his eyes, shaking his head.

“
Merde
,” he said, walking back to the
Aubérge
, alone and unsatisfied and utterly played by a pitiful spy.

Once in his room, he laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling trying to calm himself. He sure as Hedge wasn’t about to let some stupid informant to the king ruin his plans to discover the
Trésor de L’espoir
.

In the morning he’d find his porter, then find the diamond … then get the Hedge out of the North.

9.

Sophie

Village Montagne, Gemmes

For all the times Sophie felt stuck by what life offered her, she never felt more trapped than she did now. Backed in a corner she could have easily turned and left, laughed it off with Henri, gone back to making merry … but she couldn’t. The moonstone and the shift in the air terrified her.

“Jou-Jou, wait.” Henri was by her side, as they slipped through the trees. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“I am mad at much more than you. Why would my mother never have told me I wasn’t born here?” The words fell from her mouth. In her slip, she realized that bothered her most, that her mother intentionally misled her.

“I’m sure there is some fine explanation, just ask. But, Jou-Jou, you can’t go off with these
Bohèmes
. It’s not safe.” Henri took a deep breath. “I’m not saying stay with me. I get it, you don’t like me the way I love you. Fine. But forget me for a second, why believe everything Miora says?”

They were nearing the edge of the forest, their village within sight. The cobblestone roads that led to their homes were only a few yards away.

“I just want to believe something.”

“Believe in us.”

“I’m not interested. Hedge. Give it a rest, Henri!” She huffed past him, and her boots hit the road, they were back in the village. She stopped and turned back to Henri, and continued, “You know what, dear old chum. If it makes you happy let’s go ask my mother together. Ask her where I was born. If she gives me a straight answer, then I can dismiss Miora. Because you’re right, I mean, she was a kook with a glass eye, but if she stumbles, if she doesn’t tell me the whole truth, it’s over. I’m doing what Miora told me. Running.”

“Fine, Jou-Jou.” Henri smiled at her, revealing his dimples, and Sophie let out the breath she seemed to be holding. She hated fighting with her only friend.

When they arrived at Sophie’s house, it was near ten o’clock at night. Sophie’s mother sat in a comfortable chair in the living room, knitting a scarf for the winter that wouldn’t arrive for another six months.

“Is that you, Sophie?” her mother called as the door opened. “Back so soon?”

“Yes, just Henri and I.” She remembered the fight they had when she’d left earlier this afternoon. Something about crossing her arms and huffing. She drew her hands to her side, not wanting to prove Henri wrong or right. She wanted only the truth.

The two friends walked in the living room. The living room Sophie always thought of as her one and only home. In the unadorned room she searched for clues that maybe she hadn’t always lived here. Not that she knew what to be looking for. She sat in a chair opposite her mother, patting the one beside her for Henri.

“So what do I owe the honor of your company, Sophie? I can’t think of the last time you intentionally chose to be in my presence.” Her mother looked back at her knitting, as if waiting for a sharp retort from Sophie. When there wasn’t one, she paused from her needles once more. Realizing there was a pained look on Sophie’s face, she set her yarn in her basket and leaned closer.

“What is it, child?”

“I had something I wanted to ask you. I mean it’s silly of course. Just something I needed cleared up….” She brushed her hair out of her face and bit her lip.

“On with it.”

“Go on, Jou-Jou,” Henri prompted. She rolled her eyes at him, bolstered by having him there. Sophie knew that sometimes the only thing to do was forge ahead.

“Where was I born?”

Her mother’s popped her head up in surprise. Shaking her head, she stood, as if flabbergasted by the simple question. “You were born here. Of course. Why would you ask such a ridiculous thing? I never!”

“Well, Henri said he heard you mention to his mother that maybe I was born somewhere else….” She didn’t want to drag Henri into this, but she also wanted to be sure. Her mother’s reaction did feel quite strange.

“Henri. Oh, well … you know how mothers talk. I … um … tea? Would you like some tea?” She clapped her hands at the idea.

“No tea. Why are you acting so odd? What is the big deal? I don’t particularly care where I was born, but it’s odd if you kept it from me.”

“Well. In that case. I suppose you weren’t technically born here, per se.” Her mother glanced at Henri. “What all did you hear, boy?”

“What do you think I heard?” he responded smartly. Sophie looked at him and smiled. His comeback won him a few points.

“So, I wasn’t born here? Technically? You are making it rather confusing.” Sophie asked, standing next to her mother.

“Well, technically….”

“Technically, where was I born, then?” Sophie stared at her mother incredulously. The idea of being born somewhere else meant she’d lived somewhere besides this small village. It meant she’d lived more than she knew.

“Technically … I don’t know. What’s important is that I have you, and your father loved you so. That is all that matters.”

“How could you not know? That makes no logical sense. Where did you give birth to me?” Sophie pressed, her words growing icy.

“That’s the thing. I mean, the question I wanted to avoid. Technically, I didn’t give birth to you.”

“Technically who did then?” Sophie was now frozen over, completely. No warmth came from her as she heard her mother’s delicate story. She turned stone cold.

“I don’t know,” she said, then threw her arms in the air, as though saying it out loud gave her a relief she had waited for.

“You don’t know?” Sophie squawked at the woman who suddenly felt a stranger. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m so sorry, Sophie. I don’t know. I wanted a baby and then there you were. The only condition in taking you was to go away as far as possible and never return. So your father and I did that. It was like a gift from the heavens. The Saints looked upon me and knew I wanted a child and then you arrived.” Tears streaked her mother’s cheeks as she revealed a hidden history to her daughter.

“You lied. All those years you lied. To my face. Father too. I deserved to know the truth.” Sophie stated. She spoke with calculated composure. The part that offended her the most was the deception.

“But you must have known somewhere deep inside. You always held back. You never said I love you, or gave hugs and kisses like the other children your age.” The tears kept flowing; creating a river that divided the two women. Sophie’s face remained still as stone.

“Maybe I never gave them because you spent my childhood lying to me.” Her eyes were glacial, looking at this woman who had become a stranger so quickly with not a speck of hear break.

“I’m so sorry, Sophie. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

“I wish I knew more. I wish there were answers. Your father came home one day after mining, and saw a woman on the street with a baby. You. Your father stopped to speak with her, because she was upset, crying. She said she had to go somewhere and couldn’t take the baby. Your father offered to help. The woman said ‘you must take the baby and go far from here, where she would be safe.’ He brought you home, knowing how I longed for a child.”

“You took someone’s baby?” Sophie asked, stunned.

“I insisted we go back and find the woman, because your father wasn’t thinking straight. You can’t just take a baby. I know that. We tried to find her, but it was if she’d vanished. We asked around, and no one knew whom we meant, she disappeared.”

“So you did as she asked. You took me and fled.”

“We had no choice. If she was right, we didn’t want harm to come to you. Can you see how this is an impossible story to tell your child? You were abandoned, how could I tell my child that? You were also wanted. So very much.”

Sophie fell silent. This wasn’t a story anyone would want to tell. It clearly pained her mother to give the explanation now, so many years later.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I knew more, but I don’t.”

“Where did you live? Before here?” Sophie asked.

Henri exhaled with relief as Sophie asked the question civilly. If they worked this out, perhaps she would stay.

“We lived in the
Province de Seconde
. I grew up there, so did your father.”

“So near the Palace Royale?” Sophie asked.
Province de Secondé
neighbored the King’s city of
Éclat
. Also, the city farthest away from where they dwelled.

Sophie’s mother nodded her head, as if remembering a different life.

“Well, it’s settled. I’m going there,” Sophie said with finality. “Tomorrow.”

Henri shook his head, “No, don’t do this to your mother. Don’t do this to me.”

“It’s alright. If you fight to keep me here, I’ll hate you for it. You wouldn’t want that girl to stay. That girl would be very different than me.”

Sophie left the room, leaving the two people who knew her best grappling with the fact that she was leaving them.

In hopes of finding herself.