Read Seeker for Free Online

for days if you felt like it.
    Her back to Quin, Fiona asked, “Has he asked you to marry him?”
    “Well, no, not yet. But we understand it, I think.”
    “You’re very young,” Fiona said softly. “I’ve never known— I’m still a bit surprised it’s John you’re choosing.”
    Quin wasn’t sure what her mother meant by that. Who should she choose, some stranger she’d never met? Some older man her father picked out? But she went on quickly anyway: “I don’t mean now. Someday. Do you think Father will mind?”
    Fiona turned to her, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes looking anywhere but at Quin’s face. “I think your father will have strong opinions on the topic, yes. And a lot has yet to happen between now and the time when you’re ready to get married.”
    “That’s not really an answer.”
    “But, Quin,” Fiona went on, as though Quin hadn’t spoken, as though she had to say the words immediately or they would disappear, “it doesn’t matter what he thinks. Your life is yours.”
    Mildly astonished, Quin looked closely at her mother’s expression, which had a nervous edge to it. Briac was, well,
Briac
. His absolute authority was part of the strange and privileged life into which she had been born.
    “Ma …”
    “Your life is yours,” Fiona said again, almost urgently, taking a seat next to her. She glanced toward the window, then back. “If you … if you wanted to go to John right now … if you wanted to leave the estate with him … have a different sort of life together, right now. I would understand.”
    It was such a strange thing to say, she decided her mother must be more drunk than she looked.
    “I’m not drunk, Quin.”
    “I didn’t say that! But … now that you mention it, I do smell something in your mug.”
    “I’m not drunk,” Fiona repeated.
    “I never said you were.”
    “You did.”
    It was pointless to argue about whether or not she’d said those words, so she didn’t bother. “I’m going to take my oath
tonight
, Ma. Didn’t Briac tell you? I can’t leave the estate.”
    “He did tell me.” Fiona put a hand on top of her daughter’s hand and held it there firmly. “But I am telling you this: you take your oath only if that’s truly what you want to do.”
    Quin was momentarily speechless. Finally she managed, “What—what have I been doing here my whole life? Of course it’s what I want to do. I—I know how lucky I am.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Quin smiled as she would at a child with an irrational fear. Her mother had never taken the oath. Fiona taught them languages, math, and history, subjects with no direct ties to Seeker-hood. Though her mother did not like to speak of it, Quin had gathered, from comments made by Briac, that Fiona had completed all the training, but something had prevented her from becoming a sworn Seeker. Sometimes apprentices did not make it, and this had, to some extent, ruined her mother’s life, perhaps even caused her fondness for alcohol. Quin loved her, though, and didn’t want her mother to be sad on this particular day.
    She clasped Fiona’s hands gently. “I’m sure,” she told her. “And I’ll make you very proud of me. I mean to do great things.”
    Her words did not have the desired effect. Her mother’s eyes searched hers for a moment, quite urgently. Then her gaze dropped back to the table, and she nodded to herself.
    “Of course you will,” she said, moving her lips into a smile. “And I wish you every happiness in your life, my darling girl.”
    Fiona got back to her feet and turned to the stove. Quickly, soquickly that Quin could not be sure it had happened, her mother wiped her eyes. Quin whisked Fiona’s mug off the table, sniffed the remaining cider inside, and dumped it down the sink before her mother could drink any more.
    Quin could hear the aircar taking off outside, and she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, then ran to the front door. From there she watched the car