Chapter 12: The Spare Daughter

Hesper would not come inside.

She stood on the pier in the flat afternoon light with her hands wrapped in her cloak, and she kept her eyes on the boards.

Ilsa leaned in the doorway.

Behind her, Oren sat on the cot with his shirt open and a blanket over his knees, watching Hesper.

"You have five minutes," Ilsa said.

"I want you to understand that I came alone," Hesper said.

"No one knows I'm here."

"Not Tuva, and not the Hall."

"Then say it."

Hesper drew a long breath.

"The Sacred Whale does not choose a mage because she is gifted," she said.

"He chooses a Cronstedt."

"He has chosen a Cronstedt woman every thirty or forty years for four centuries."

Ilsa's stomach turned over.

She had known it, and hearing it was different.

"And they die at twenty-eight," Oren said from the cot.

Hesper flinched.

She looked at him once, and quickly looked away.

"Yes."

"My aunt was the last," she said.

"She was twenty-eight when she walked into the sea off the south cliff."

"The Hall said it was a fever."

"I was nineteen."

"I held her hand for three days afterward."

"I was next in line."

"But the whale had taken her, so I was spared, and the Cronstedt seat was given to my father in thanks."

"Everything we are, we are because of her."

Ilsa kept her face still.

"And when I was born," she said.

"When you were born, I knew," said Hesper.

"You were the elder."

"You were strong in the tide before you could walk."

"I watched you grow up and I knew exactly what was waiting."

"So you did nothing."

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