That evening Lily’s room was warm with firelight, but Eirran felt cold that settled deep in the hollow of his bones. They sat facing one another, the tennat board pushed aside.
“What was my mother’s name?” she asked.
“Noemi,” he said. The name scraped his mouth raw, but then settled like a stone at the bottom.
“Noemi,” she repeated slowly, then her gaze caught his. “What was she like?”
He needed an answer that could fit in one word; none was enough.
How does one describe sunshine in a storm?
“Brave,” he began, and at once felt the hollowness of it. He searched deeper. “She loved to dance. When she laughed, you could hear her through two walls. You laugh like her sometimes .” He smiled, although there was sadness in his eyes. “She was smart; the only person who was always three steps ahead of me.” A pause. “Her mother was a musician – a singer for the Houses, she performed even in Win’Tarra’s Towers, and she taught your mother her letters. She was good with them. And numbers.” Something about him darkned by a shade. “Especially numbers.”
Lily lowered her chin, blinked quickly.
“Did you love her?” She asked, voice thin as a leaf.
Something twisted in his throat – “Yes.” He sounded hoarse, even to his own ears. “More than she knew.” More than he knew, back in that dungeon, where he had seen her for the last time.
Only when he realized he would irrevocably loose her, only then did anger stood back for love. But it was too late.
“Why did she… leave?” The word broke in two: how and why.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He no longer chose the easier half.
“She didn’t leave,” he said slowly. “She gave birth to you…far from me. She died. I didn’t reach her in time.” He didn’t add how many times he had walked those halls in dreams, how many nights he had refused forgetting. How much he wished he had broken himself breaking into that dungeon instead of bargaining for crumbs from his father’s table. “It’s bitter,” he added, “but it is.”
She was silent for a long time, then reached inside her pocket and drew out several pieces of parchment, yellowed and frayed at the edges.
“You said,” she whispered, “you would read them to me.”
His heart stopped, then struck too fast. He took the bundle as if it were alive, and slowly, carefully, unwrapped the first letter.
The first page: “My dearest Lily…” His voice broke on the first syllable. He sat back deeper and read slowly, forcing each sentence as though through water.
She wrote of the small things, like the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of waves crashing into the cliffs. She wrote of the future she dreamed of, in which the three of them were family.
“Your father wanted to name you Eilleah,” he read, not daring to look at Lily, not wanting her to see the tearing inside him. “It means She Who Brings Light. I didn’t like it at first, didn’t want you to wear their name. But now…now I do. Because it isn’t just theirs, it’s yours, too, no matter what others say. So, now, when you are calm, I call you Eilleah. When you are wild… Lily. Like the flower that pushes out from a crack in stone.”
At that, Lily smiled faintly. “That’s what they call me.”
“I know,” he said. “And it’s good.”
He read on. One sheet, then another, then another.
“I’m sorry I cannot be there for you, my darling. But if you’re reading this, you live, you breathe, and that alone makes everything worthwhile.”
At last his voice gave out. Lily sat closer, her head resting against the chair’s back, eyes closed. Her tears were quiet; she did not hide them. When she finally slept, he rose and awkwardly scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He covered her as he had watched others do, and briefly pressed his lips to her hair. For the first time.
He returned only when the fire had sunk to embers. On the table, beside the stack of letters, one lay apart, thinner, edges darkened. It was not tied with the ribbon. On it: “For Eirran.”
The world tilted. He untied it carefully, as if freeing a butterfly. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a long, deep breath…And began to read.
“If you are reading this, it means you’ve found her. I know you will. Someday. That thought gives me strength to endure until the end.
Our little star is restless today, she will not stop kicking. If she is a girl, I will name her as you wished: Eilleah. But allow me this one selfishness, to call her Lily in my heart. Lily, like the flower that grows from cracks in stone… I see one now, just under the window, sprouting from the crack in the wall. Imagine, in such darkness and damp, something so lovely grows. Just like our child, growing in this shadow.
You once asked me if what we had was real. If I loved you. What could I answer then that you would believe? Nothing. Or worse; that you would believe me, and where would that lead you? To ruin. So I kept silent.
Now that neither of us has anything left to lose, now I can say: yes. I loved you. I loved you enough to let you hate me. It is both my curse and my salvation. I still love you. I will love you beyond the grave…”
The letter went on, but he could read no more. He dropped the paper to the table and pressed his palm to the wood. His wings spread of their own accord, folding him in a cloak. His knees touched stone, and at last his throat let out the gasp he had kept locked for too long.
He wept without tears, for the Ilari had none, and without sound, like those too long trained in silence. When it was done, something else remained: the loosening of the knot that had held for years. The poison drained away. Grief stayed: clean, heavy; the kind that does not tear nor fester but sits quietly at the bottom of the soul.
He lifted the letter again, kissed it through the ink, then folded it and placed it inside his pocket.
Rising, he went to the window. The moon hung low in the sky; wind nudged open a sliver of curtain. From the bed came the steady rhythm of a child’s breath. Their light.
“Eilleah,” he whispered, soft as prayer and sat in front of unfinished tennat board.
In that space between letter and game, between past and child, he sat quietly and let the fire finally warm his bones.
Outside, the night kept what needed keeping. In the morning he would read the rest of the letter. Drink another vial of the bitter. And then, as he had promised, he would learn the carrick knot. Lily would tie it at his wrist. And perhaps then, only then, he could say Noemi’s name without it cutting.
For now, it was enough to know: the lily had grown from the crack and endured. She bore the same name: Lily. And her true name was the one that held along: Eilleah. Light.
His gaze slid to the floor, where a thread of moonlight cast silvery sheen on a single fallen feather.
He bent, picked it up, twirled it in his fingers.
He should take it to the urn.
The bed creaked; Lily shifted in her sleep. Moonlight fell on her cheek, spilling into a web of silver.
Old ache ignited anew.
Without much thought, he placed the feather on the nightstand, and so very briefly, brushed his fingertips against the glowing skin of her cheek.
And as his hand lingered in the silver light, he knew: the feather was no gift. It was a vow. The only question left was how great the cost would be.
Author’s note: The letter continues beyond this point, but Eirran isn’t ready to face the weight of it all yet. Fragments will return later, when the time is right. It is Noemi’s final ask that will shape and seal all his future decisions.
Next chapter: https://earthbornnovel.com/2025/09/19/earthborn-chapter-22-the-laughter-of-five-mouths-spoilers/
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