Aithne balanced the tray on her hip as she stepped into the suite. Urag sat on the bed holding Chtonji in front of his face and making incongruent cooing noises. The baby smiled and gurgled and reached out a tiny green hand to grasp Urag’s tusk, and her Master laughed. Aithne paused a moment to cast a fond look at both before moving to the dining area and setting the table.

 

 Urag entered the room just as she finished and handed her the baby as he passed toward the bathing room. As she took him, a thought struck her.

 

“Sir?”

 

“Hm?” Urag turned in the doorway to the bathing room with upturned eyebrows.

 

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve been meaning to ask: how do I teleport to an area that doesn’t have a sigil?” Silence, then, as a quizzical look came over his features. Aithne hastened to elaborate. “I’ve just been using the pattern of the floor in the library but I’ve seen others…”

 

“You know how to teleport?”

 

She blinked and nodded as her words dried up. Was she not supposed to be teleporting? Old fears began to raise shadowy heads, but she tamped them down. This is now, not then. It had become her internal mantra when the doubts and fears fostered by her previous life attempted to exude into her thoughts, and she mentally repeated it as she responded.

 

“Yes, Ghint taught me. He also taught me the sigil in the kitchen but he was able to…”

 

He grunted. “I had no idea. I assumed you were reading just for the sake of knowledge and walking to the kitchen all this time. No wonder you were so quick. How long have you been able to practice magic?”
 

Another blink as her words dried up a second time. “Um.” Visions spilled into her head: Merks, chains, large heavy bookshelves. Fuu blap.

 

Urag’s rage.

 

Perhaps her Master didn’t need to know about her part in that particular incident.

 

Though it grated like broken glass over her soul, she bit back her automatic confession and tried a more subtle response.

 

“Not until I was broug…until I got here.” A sudden vivid picture of what might have been flashed through her mind. Oh, if she could just go back to that moment when Borkul had first appeared knowing what she knew now…

 

The thought left her feeling a little dizzy. Or perhaps that was from the lie she had just told her Master.

 

Well, so it wasn’t a lie. What she had said was true in the strictest sense. And she had left plenty of room for follow up questions if he wanted more details (that she hoped with fervent ardor he would not seek). So she had not done anything wrong.

 

She just wished she could convince herself to believe herself. Her mouth opened as if of its own accord and words poured out, the only outlet her mind could find to forestall the feeling of impending doom.

 

“Although I suppose that’s not actually true.” She only tangentially noticed she had just overrode Urag’s attempt at a response. “Yens says that magic ability is innate from birth, so that would mean I have always been able to use it. I just didn’t realize it until I got here. I suppose growing up on a ship didn’t really give me the opportunity to…”

 

She stopped as her brain caught up to the words it, itself, had forced through her mouth. Visions of ships on the open sea, dancing sloops, her father’s lumbering merchantman…

 

Her father.

 

Memories crashed through her mind like a tidal wave, a fitting simile since the ocean was prevalent throughout. Her father, his ship, her joy in discovering its smallest hidden secrets. One memory spawned another and led her further back to her mother, standing in the doorway of their stone home watching as Aithne and her father headed for the wharf. Of homecooked meals and laughter and sunlight and pure joy.

 

She didn’t realize she was weeping until Urag’s gentle touch brought her back to the present. Back to reality.

 

“I’m…sorry.” She choked back a sob and rubbed her nose with a sleeve as Chtonji shifted in her arms and, as if in empathy (although likely it was mere hunger), began to cry as well.

 

“There is nothing to be sorry about. Here, sit.” Her Master pulled out a chair and eased her onto it. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

 

Aithne shook her head as she gave her son a weak smile and began to pull the front of her robe open. Although the memories remained, hovering so close to the surface of her mind that she swore she could almost touch them, that’s all they were – memories. She had no right to them. The girl waving over her shoulder on the way to her first sea voyage was someone else, someone innocent and free. A different person entirely than the slave who now sat at her Master’s table.

 

This time the lie she told her Master was really a lie, but this time she did not feel bad about it – her past was irrelevant. One of the first things Borkul had taught her was that it didn’t matter what had come before. She was a slave and always would be, and nothing would change that immutable fact. Therefore, her past was not a burden she had any right to impose upon her Master.

 

“I’m sorry, I just…feel sad. Sometimes.” A book she had read a few weeks before sprang to mind. “The physician Mampchalb talked about this, I think. In ‘Annals of Birth and Motherhood.’ Sometimes women feel depressed after giving birth, even though there is nothing to be depressed about. It usually goes away within a few months.” She freed a breast and shifted Chtonji to it. His wails ceased as he began suckling.

 

“A few months?” Urag sounded concerned and she looked up at him. “What can I do to help?”

 

Help? He had already helped by forgetting the previous topic. Aithne passed her smile to her Master. “You can hurry up with what you were going to do and then eat before your breakfast gets cold. It’s your favorite today – steak and eggs with that sourdough that Sike only makes when she manages to have sex the night before.”

 

Urag glanced at his plate. “What? Is that true?”

 

Aithne laughed as she shrugged. “That’s the rumor in the kitchen. Sike’s many affairs are one of their favorite gossip topics.”

 

The Orc frowned and shook his head as he turned back toward the bathing room. “I’ll leave the gossip to them.” Two steps, then he paused in the doorway. “Oh, to answer your question, teleportation relies on the target area having some unique permanent feature you can focus on. Teleportation circles have those designs so people who have never been to that location can still get there. Most important buildings throughout Tamriel have at least one. But any unique feature will do.”

 

Aithne nodded. “That makes sense, thank you, Sir.”

 

She shifted the baby to her other breast as Urag gave his grunt that signified assent and entered the bathing room. Her memories were still present but the squall had receded. They hovered like storm clouds over the horizon, a threat only if she chose to sail their way.

 

It was course she was determined not to chart – she could not afford the damage such a storm would bring. She studied the dining area, searching for what Ghint might have used as his teleportation focus, distracting her mind and pushing the storm further out to sea.

 

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