Chapter 65: The Subject of the Rumors
Yaha Miller had never met his father.
His mother told him that his father had gone somewhere far away.
She was smiling when she said it. The smile was light and faint, like wildflowers blooming on a field path in spring. One breath of wind and it was gone.
Yaha was young then and didn't know what that smile was hiding. He only knew that his mother looked beautiful when she smiled.
Later, he understood. That wasn't a smile. It was a silence deeper than any crying.
They lived in a small village on the kingdom's border.
His mother had been the most beautiful girl in the village. Beautiful, kind, and pure. And it was precisely that beauty that had made her a target for the lord of the territory, the baron who rode through occasionally on his inspections, and who raped her.
That was how Yaha came into the world. He carried his mother's family name. There was no one else in the house.
Even knowing what blood ran in him, his mother gave him everything she had.
She scraped her own portion of food into Yaha's bowl and told him she wasn't hungry.
She used what little she earned to mend and sew his clothes. The oil lamp threw her shadow against the mud-brick wall, swaying.
In the coldest part of winter, she put the single blanket over Yaha and left half her own body uncovered. The white breath she breathed out gathered into a thin frost in the dark.
The children in the village knew one thing about Yaha: he was a bastard with no father. Fair game. They threw stones at him and called him names, called his mother a broken-down wreck who'd been used and thrown away.
He couldn't fight four or five of them alone. He could only curl up on the ground with his arms over his head while the stones came down.
Every time that happened, his mother would come running from the house. She moved fast, skirt catching in the wind like a tattered flag.
She pushed through the group of children, bent down, and covered Yaha completely with her own body.
The stones hit her back with dull, heavy sounds. She didn't move. She only held him tighter.
"Don't be afraid," she said. Her voice was shaking, but she worked to keep it steady. "Mama's here."
Yaha hated his mother for being like that. Too good, too yielding, incapable of fighting back. But he also hated himself. Hated that he could only crouch on the ground. Hated that he needed to be protected this way.
Then one day, an old man in the village told him the truth about who he was.
He said it with pity. Yaha's father was the baron who held this land. A man with a wife, children, and a comfortable life in the capital.
Yaha's mother had simply been that man's amusement, for a moment.
Yaha stood there and didn't move.
Why.
Why did that man get to live a dignified life in the capital while his mother was humiliated in this village? Why did that man get to have everything while his mother didn't own a single decent piece of clothing?
As Yaha grew older, perhaps the old baron's conscience stirred at last. Gradually, Yaha was given some authority over the management of the village.
He didn't go after the children who had thrown stones at him. His ambitions were larger than that.
He managed the village well. The irrigation channels were repaired. The fields were replanned. The harvests grew better every year.
Travelers passing through, adventurers, even minor nobles, all noticed the change in the village. They saw the orderly fields, the clear channels, the granary stacked full with wheat, and the faces of people who had once been blank slowly coming back to life.
Yaha Miller's name, and his reputation for integrity, kindness, and ability, spread gradually through the capital.
The baron heard the talk and sent people to bring Yaha to the city.
It was the first time Yaha had seen his father.
The old baron sat in his study and looked at this young man who resembled him in some ways but was considerably more handsome than he had ever been. He was quiet for a long time.
Then he made a decision that was against every rule of the nobility: he kept his illegitimate son by his side.
The noble circles of the capital had things to say about it, of course. A bastard. A country boy. His mother a low-born village woman.
Those words drifted through banquets and salons like wind.
But Yaha's honesty, his decency, and his ability silenced the talk quickly. The nobility began to praise this young man's gifts. Even the royal family had heard his name.
The baron became increasingly certain that the title should go to this eldest son. Yaha's position grew more secure with each passing season.
But Yaha had not forgotten his mother.
He was going back to the village to bring her to the capital. He would put her in a spacious, bright house. He would dress her in soft, clean clothes. He would let her hold her head up and live like a person.
The weather was good on the way back with his mother.
The carriage moved slowly along the dirt road, wheels grinding over loose stone with a steady, rhythmic creak.
His mother sat inside, lifting the edge of the curtain to watch the fields sweeping past outside. She had never been this far from home before.
The people around him were still offering compliments.
"The baron has an excellent eye."
"Young Master Yaha has a great future ahead of him."
"My lady will have the life everyone envies once she reaches the capital."
Yaha listened, and a quiet satisfaction rose in him. He had done it. His mother was about to have a good life.
He was still imagining that future when the mercenaries came.
Shouts broke from the trees on both sides of the road. Arrows cut through the air with a sharp, piercing shriek. The guards drew swords and held their ground, but there were too few of them against the shadows pouring out from every direction.
The people Yaha had brought were not enough to hold them off. He grabbed his mother and jumped down from the carriage, running for the trees at the side of the road.
His mother couldn't keep up. Years of hard work in the village had used up her body long ago. Yaha held her hand and pulled, and he could feel her breathing growing heavier and her steps turning unsteady.
"Yaha. Go ahead without me."
"Don't talk." He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip.
He could hear the footsteps behind them getting closer. The faint creak of a bowstring being drawn back.
The arrows came.
In that final moment, Yaha let go of every ambition he had ever carried.
All of it, the title, the position, everything he had wanted, shattered in that instant as though it had never existed.
He turned and pulled his mother into his arms.
The arrows went through him.
Pain spread from his back with the smell of rust. His body shook, but he didn't go down.
He used the last of his strength to stay on his feet, and held tight the thin, trembling body in his arms.
The way his mother had once held him.
"Don't be afraid," Yaha said.
His voice was shaking, but he worked to keep it steady.
"I'm here."
His mother shook violently in his arms, making a sound that was broken and small.
Yaha lowered his head and pressed his face against her hair.
He had hated her for being weak, once.
Now he understood.
That wasn't weakness. That was the courage it takes to bend yourself down for another person.
Yaha began to feel, faintly, that he wished he had never learned who he was.
If he had never known from the beginning, perhaps he and his mother could have lived poor and happy together, at least.
The strength left Yaha's arms. His body slid slowly down. His mother caught him from behind and held on, held on as tightly as she could, as though she could press herself into his blood and bone, the way she had so many years ago.
"Yaha. Yaha."
She called his name, again and again.
"Mama."
But he had no strength left.
The boy died.
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