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Marcus Everan Ariquis Tamaril sat on a ship eating a lemon and thought of names while the world ended. So many other matters should have been at the forefront of his mind but all he could do was repeat names to himself, roll them around in his head and see if they came together. Jernigan. Tamaril. Josaline. Dana Mic Lir. Laura Denali.
Names had power. He was taught this once but he hadn’t understood the lesson at the time. To name something was to know something. To become familiar with it. And yet those names all felt like strangers to him. Things he thought he knew well now seemed like the ghost of a memory…..memories. His mind trailed off. He had many memories, ones that had been buried.
His mind returned to younger days of being a child scared in his bed. A horribly scared and mangled creature trying to reach him. So disfigured it could barely be described as human. A recurring nightmare that his mind eventually dismissed as the overactive imagination of a boy with too much time on his hands.
Another memory came flooding back. Dinner with his father, the two of them separated on either end of a long table. Father rarely had any guests over so they dined alone. Servants dutifully stood silent by both of them. They knew his father had a temper and the entire staff had been on the receiving end of it too many times. Marcus had been six at the time. He had asked his father why he didn’t have a mother. The other boys had mothers. He saw them at court when his father could be bothered to bring him. John Tamaril had only barely glanced up at his son before speaking with a mouth full of food, a slight twitch of annoyance on his face at being interrupted from his meal. His answer was quick and biting. “She died making you.” Then he proceeded to keep eating.
That was the only answer Marcus had ever received about his mother. He had asked about it after this but the only thing he received for his trouble was a smack across the head. His father did not care to repeat himself. Or to be questioned in general. Marcus had never even been allowed to know what his mother’s name was. His father didn’t think it was important enough to mention.
Marcus remembered that he had cried that night. A little boy weeping because he killed his mother. Barely understanding what that meant. Only really knowing that she was gone because of him.
“She died making you”…. Laura Denali told a different tale. A tale of a scarred and disfigured woman giving birth to a healthy son and being delivered “safe” and alive into the “care” of a noble man. Marcus felt his eye twitch. A boiling rage that he forced down deep inside. He squeezed onto the railing of the deck to keep himself steady. Someone had lied to him. Either the captain or the man who made his son an indentured servant at the age of twelve to pay for his gambling debts. To pay House Jernigan………Jernigan.
Marcus seethed at the mention of that deplorable house. There was more to this than he had realized. First he had to get home and ask John Tamaril some questions. And then he would go look for his father. Because now he had a new name to search for, a vile name that seared his soul when he first heard it. House Jernigan owed him a debt. And he would get his due.
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