Home > The Last Legacy(3)

The Last Legacy(3)
Author: Adrienne Young

I frowned. If Sariah were here, she’d give me a knowing look. My temper was the one wrinkle she hadn’t quite ironed out of me.

I didn’t like the idea that Murrow might know me in a way that I didn’t know him. I’d grown up with tales of the Roths, but what stories had they heard about me? Maybe none. My great-aunt hadn’t spoken to the family since we left, except for essential correspondence with Henrik about their overlapping business.

Her residence in Nimsmire and her ability to run her family stake away from Bastian was a privilege granted by her brother, Felix, but now that he was gone, it was sustained by Henrik. From what I could tell, she knew better than to tempt my uncle’s wrath by refusing him anything. It was the reason she hadn’t hesitated to pack my things when his letter arrived. That said more to me about the Roths than the whole of what she’d told me over a lifetime.

Murrow led me down the dark hallway, past the kitchen, where a small woman stood at a butcher block kneading a round of dough. Strands of icy-gold hair fell into her eyes as she glanced up at me, but Murrow didn’t stop, breezing past the opening. I followed him around the corner, and he waited before a set of doors that were painted black and fitted with bronze handles.

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how quiet the house was. It didn’t have the feeling of being lived in or a sense that there were people between its walls. It was unsettling, as if the rooms had been empty for years, the hearths cold. When Murrow reached for a handle, I stopped him, setting two fingers on the crook of his arm.

“What’s he like?” I asked, trying to keep my tone more curious than wary. The truth was, I was half-terrified. And I wasn’t even sure why. I’d been invited here, but the unfamiliar atmosphere of the house made me feel like an intruder.

Murrow let go of the handle and he turned toward me, his face only half lit by a beam of light coming from a high window. “Henrik?”

“Yeah.”

For a second, he looked almost suspicious of the question. His head tilted a little to one side, but when his mouth twisted, I realized he was really thinking about his answer. “He’s … serious. Resourceful. Intelligent. Nothing matters more to him than loyalty.” There was a calm honesty in the words that almost put me at ease. But when he reached for the door again, he hesitated. “But, Bryn?”

I looked up into his face, smoothing my hands over my skirts. “What?”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t ever, ever cross him.”

A stone sank in my stomach as the door swung open and the heat of a fire came rolling out into the hallway, wrapping me in gooseflesh. The room was a study, with a polished wooden desk set before an illuminated fireplace. Stacks of unused parchment were neatly arranged at one corner of the desk, a quill and pot of ink at the other. At its center was a small leather book.

The light didn’t quite make it to the edges of the room, leaving everything slightly dark despite the roaring fire, and the mantel was littered with pipes and mullein boxes, a trinket left here and there. But my gaze was pulled to the wall behind us as we stepped inside. Portraits in gilded frames hung on the short wall, clustered together like a chaotic constellation. The most prominently placed among them was a painting of my great-grandfather Sawyer, who had built both the house and the business that was run in its workshop. To its left was a portrait of his children, Felix and Sariah. Sariah’s son Jori was beneath it, her only child who was lost at sea as a young man. But the place on the wall next to that portrait was missing, leaving behind a discolored circle on the wall.

The painting that hung over the fireplace was the most recognizable to me. Three young men and one young woman were posed together, the tallest of the boys standing behind the others. I guessed it was Henrik. The others had to be Casimir, Noel, and my mother, Eden.

Henrik, the oldest, was followed in age by Casimir and then the youngest of the three brothers, Noel. Eden had been the only daughter, born third in line.

There was something about those faces that felt familiar, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I recognized them or because I wanted to. Everything I knew about my mother had been spoken from Sariah’s lips and only in reverent whispers. When her son, Jori, died, Sariah had taken to Eden and they’d been close when she died. Sariah had once told me it felt like losing another child.

In the portrait, Eden was dressed in a green frock with her brown hair unbound and falling over her shoulders. I took a step closer when I spotted the tattoo on the inside of her arm. The ouroboros, two entwined snakes eating one another’s tails. It was the same mark every member of the Roth family bore. Even Sariah. Only one of the snakes’ heads was visible in the painting, the rest hidden against her frock.

There was no portrait of my father. Only those in the direct bloodline had a place here. In the same way, I’d been given my mother’s name instead of my father’s. It didn’t matter which side of the parentage you had, anyone born in this family was a Roth.

The door on the other side of the study opened and Murrow straightened beside me, clearing his throat. In an instant, he lost his easy, lazy manner and his chin lifted in the air, his shoulders pulled back. Impossibly, he looked even taller.

Across the room, a man I would know anywhere was framed in the open doorway. Not because I remembered him, but because his presence flooded the study around us, filling its dark corners like black ink. His cinnamon-colored hair was combed and tucked behind his ears, his face cleanly shaven except for a thick, curling mustache. His sharp gaze focused as he surveyed me.

“Jacket, Murrow.” His gruff voice was too loud for the small study.

Murrow immediately reached for the buttons of his jacket, rebuttoning them. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat.

A rag was clutched in Henrik’s big hands, and I bristled when I saw the knuckles of his right fingers. They were covered in healing cuts, the skin red, as if they’d recently landed blows on someone’s face.

I stood silent, waiting for him to say something. I knew how to take my cues from others. How to match my behavior to theirs. But this man was difficult to read.

After several agonizingly silent moments, a small smile lifted beneath his mustache. It lit his eyes, changing their shape. “Bryn.” He said my name as if it was heavy on his tongue, but it wasn’t without affection.

I let out the breath I was holding.

He finished wiping his hands and dropped the rag onto the desk before pulling the leather apron he wore over his head. Underneath it, he, too, wore a crisp, white shirt and his shined shoes caught the light. He handed the apron to Murrow, who stepped forward to take it and hang it on the wall.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Henrik said, reaching out to shake my hand. On his third finger, a merchant’s ring for the Narrows looked up at me. It was set with a polished round of tiger’s-eye.

I glanced to Murrow, confused by the sudden shift in his temperament, but he stood silent against the wall. I took Henrik’s hand and he covered my fingers with his, squeezing. He didn’t let it go. “Back where you belong.”

When he finally released me, he leaned into the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s been a long time.”

“A very long time,” I echoed. I wasn’t sure what the rules were for a greeting like this one and Henrik wasn’t giving me any indication of his expectations.

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