The Eternal Blade Saga Book 2, Chapter 22: Relative Information

Alone in the Raven’s Reach’s galley, I leaned back against a set of cabinets and let my mind wander. The gentle mechanical hum of the airship’s engines provided a surprisingly calming background noise. However, I was only able to wander so far before my body’s aching screamed for attention. Even the scratch on my cheek still stung. I gently touched the wound and found it already starting to scab over. I grew heated as I recalled Lady Eira’s strike against my face. Hopefully it wouldn’t leave much of a mark.

I was still doing better than Clarkus though. The charr’s arm required a number of stitches and his shoulder had become dislocated in his struggle with the wolf. Harrisson, Danae’s resident muscle as well as medic, hoisted him up and braced our warrior against his own sturdy frame before taking him back to their makeshift infirmary room on Danae’s airship. I had met the hulking charr briefly before, on the walkway to the Raven’s Reach where he stood guard. His size seemed even more impressive inside the smaller space of the airship.

The infirmary was small, but functional. It was basically a small room with a large chair and a few cabinets for medical supplies, but it worked. As Harrisson helped him into the chair and prepped a needle and thread for stitching, I lingered outside in the galley, not wanting to look upon the result of my responsibilities that had caused him so much pain and injury.

I sighed again, thinking of Quint’s arm. The way he clutched his limb to his chest, his face scrunched in pain, it broke my heart. Was exposing them all to all this really worth it? Was it worth having their blood on my hands just to include them in my mission? I wrapped my arms around myself, needing to feel some sense of security. However, if it wasn’t for the others being there, I don’t know if I could say that I would have made it out of there alive.

Danae strode quickly into the galley and I straightened myself, slightly startled by her sudden appearance. “Ah, there you are. Turning into a hermit again?”

“Funny,” I mumbled. I relaxed a little but kept my arms wrapped around myself. “Where are the others?”

“Still on the bridge,” she replied. “Markus is showing them some new contraption he’s been working on. A gear-o or something. I dunno.” She shook her head, an amused grin on her lips.

“You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here,” I said.

The airship captain placed her hands on her hips. “I told you, rescuing you. Your norn friend back at your hall told us where you were. When we got here, we saw Inquest outside and you know how those guys like to make trouble so we busted in and saved your backsides. Good thing we did too. Your charr friend was looking a little worse for wear. Too bad those bastards got away. Their stealth technology is still frustratingly superior. Oh, and I found this.” She reached into a panel on the inside of her coat and pulled out a small mechanical object in the shape of a hand.

I shook my head. Of course. That’s how Torx was able to hold the gun. I knew something was off then, but my focus was elsewhere.

“Why were you at the hall?” I asked, narrowing my gaze. There was something slightly off about the way Danae stood there so stiff and defensive with her hands on her hips. “Did you find her?”

She nodded and clenched her jaw. “I did.”

“And?”

Danae’s engineer Markus entered the galley and our conversation ceased. He wore a dark brown leather longcoat with cream-colored fur lining on the collar as well as the underside. But it was his swollen cheek sporting deep shades of blue and purple that caught my eye.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s alright Markus,” Danae replied.

“Oh gods,” I uttered. “Did she do that to him?”

He winced. “Which one are you talking about?”

I blinked, looking back and forth between the two. “Which one?”

Markus and Danae had a silent exchange before she nodded. “Go get them both.”

Grimacing, Markus begrudgingly nodded and left the room, leaving Danae and I waiting in silence while he went to get whom I assumed was Seren and one other person. When I had asked Danae to find her, I expected there to be a little hassle. But if Seren hadn’t injured him, then who had?

I flashed Danae a concerned look, but she merely shrugged her shoulders and smirked.

After a short while, Seren stepped into the galley. Her long earthen hair hung messily past her shoulders and there were dark circles under her eyes. It looked like she hadn’t slept in a few days. Her usual armor attire seemed to be lacking as well. Instead of her usual plated armor, the young guardian wore a simple scale mail coat and leggings over panels of worn leather and linen. As soon as she saw me, her lips set into a deep frown.

“What are you doing here-,” she demanded, but before I could answer, the second person mentioned walked into the galley. I stopped abruptly and blinked.

“Salara?”

The sylvari was holding a large bundle of scrolls, pages of parchment, and tomes in her celadon-barked arms. She was enveloped by an oversized fur coat, but her head was completely uncovered and her visage was unmistakable. Looking over her shoulder, she eyed Markus with malice I hadn’t ever seen from her before, and I couldn’t help but be taken back by it. I had always known Salara to have a calm and sweet disposition. Rhys had always praised her patience, which I imagined was needed for her work with the Priory. Going through all those books must have required an enormous amount. Swiftly, she stepped up to the large table in the center of the galley, where she unloaded the armful of her materials.

“Nienna,” she began, her malice melting away to heavy concern. “I need to speak with you immediately.”

“You know her?” Danae asked, waving a hand at Salara.

I nodded and answered simply, “yes.”

“This is nonsense,” Seren claimed as she sharply waved her hand through the air. She then leaned back against a row of cabinets and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re mistaken and there’s nothing to talk about.”

“What’s going on?” I asked hesitantly.

Salara looked over at me with fear in her crystalline eyes. But she cleared her throat and straightened herself before organizing the materials in front of her until she was satisfied with their placement.

“Okay, please don’t be angry with me,” she began. “Rhys had asked me to look into all this before he—before he left us.”

Intrigued, I pushed myself away from the cabinets and stepped closer to the table. The spread of documents was a curious mix and I quickly scanned for any text I could read to make sense of it all. I didn’t get far before some of the others started to file into the galley. Immediately, I withdrew from the table and settled myself back against the cabinets. Quint was the last to walk in. Our gazes met as he chose a place to stand directly across the room from me. Nonchalantly, he waved his previously injured arm and offered me an assuring nod. I frowned and replied in kind. The ice had disappeared from his arm a few moments after Danae and her crew arrived, but the damage was still done. I let my gaze fall to the floor.

“Salara!” Alena cheered, and her ears perked up as she flashed her a toothy grin. “What are you doing here?”

The sylvari brightened. “Oh, hello Alena. I’m here to help,” she said very matter-of-factly, but then her tone softened. “At least I hope. I’ve kept Seren alive thus far so I imagine I’m doing a pretty good job.”

“Salara, what exactly is going on?” I pressed. My patience was waning.

Her gaze flitted nervously between me and the others before focusing on the materials on the table. She cleared her throat. “Rhys wanted me to look into your family line.”

This caught Quint’s attention and he crooked an eyebrow as he looked over at Salara. “Why her family line?”

“He wouldn’t say,” she explained, shaking her head. The long, wine-colored leaves of her hair rustled gently. “He only told me to look for anything-interesting.”

I clenched my jaw while in thought. Rhys had never mentioned asking Salara to look into my family history and I was puzzled as to why. What was he hoping to find?

“And did you find anything interesting?” I asked.

She hesitated, her composure seizing up.

“Salara,” I pressed.

“I did,” she finally confessed. “I started with you and your parents and surprisingly didn’t have to go much further.” She paused and pulled out a faded blue tome that was longer than it was wide and opened it. With a quick scan of the pages, she put her finger down next to a row of text. “Here. Rhrya and Viktor Valar.”

My parents’ names.

Moving closer to the galley table, I glanced down at the open page. It was rows and rows of names and monetary amounts. I read the columns next to my parents’ names. There was an amount of fifty gold, an assigned number, and a notation that it was for a boarding donation. What exactly they were boarding, it didn’t say, but that wasn’t the only interesting thing about that information. It was 6 months after my parents left me with my aunt and uncle on their farm in Queensdale. What had they been doing in that time after I last saw them?

“What book is this?” I asked Salara.

She closed the tome and showed me. ‘The Queens Heart Orphanage’ was letter-pressed in faded black ink on the cover. Once I had a chance to read the cover, she opened the tome back up to the same page.

I took in a deep breath and stepped back. Although it didn’t outright spell it out for me, I had a good idea what the donation was. But how could that be? Did my parents find an abandoned baby and bring it to the orphanage? I didn’t remember my mother being pregnant when they brought me to my aunt and uncle. But if it was 6 months later, a pregnancy might be easy to conceal.

Did I have a sibling?

Salara must have seen the trepidation on my face, because she moved closer to me and spoke in a soft, hushed tone.

“It was a baby,” she confirmed.

I looked at Salara, forcing myself to ask, “was it theirs? Do you know?”

Salara didn’t say anything and instead she pushed the orphanage’s ledger aside and pulled out a piece of parchment from an old folio. It was an adoption certificate from the same orphanage. I carefully looked over each line, searching for anything that stood out and when I got to the adaptors’ name, I froze.

“Is this right?” I asked, holding out the parchment to Salara in my trembling hand. “Is this real? How did you find this?”

“It’s a matter of public record,” she explained, “but it was suspiciously buried in a strange place in the archives, as if someone was trying to hide it. I only managed to come across it by luck, or perhaps divine intervention.”

The silence in the galley was deafening aside from my thundering heartbeat pounding in my ears. I hadn’t even noticed that Quint moved around the table until he joined me at my side.

“What does it say?” He asked gently.

I looked up at him, all recollection of what I had done to him gone from my mind. It just didn’t matter at that moment. There words were on the tip of my tongue, but they wouldn’t come out. Instead, I just handed him the parchment and let him read. I knew he had discovered the important piece of information written on the document when his eyes widened and he looked up at me and then over at Seren.

“What is it?” Alena asked, her tone edged with excitement as she stood on her tip toes to look at all the materials on the table. “What’s it mean?”

“Alana and William Quinn,” Quint revealed.

All eyes immediately turned to the young guardian.

Seren shook her head. “It can’t be right. This has to be some sort of mistake or some stupid and horrible joke.”

“The numbers match,” Salara pointed out quietly. “And there’s more information here.” The sylvari began pulling out other pieces of parchment and a tome, lining them all up on the table for me to look at.

I looked up at Seren who’s expression was set in severe displeasure. We stood there for a moment, just staring at each other. I searched every inch of her, looking for familiar resemblances. Her arms were tightly crossed over her chest and I immediately thought of all the times I did the same. There was a change in her facial muscles, as if she was about to open her mouth to say something, but instead she abruptly walked out of the galley. All I found myself able to do at that moment was watch her go: the young woman who might possibly be my sister. Perhaps this was the mystery Grenth wanted me to know that day during the siege of Lion’s Arch when he appeared over her.