The tea had gone cold by the time Winestone began to speak.
I sat across from him at a small round table near the window, my feet not quite reaching the floor. The afternoon light filtered through the curtains, dust dancing lazily in the air. It was quiet... too quiet for a lesson, which was why I had thought this would be simple. A story, he had said. Two, actually. But something in his posture told me this was not going to be light.
He held his cup with both hands, fingers steady, eyes distant.
"You know your mother as the Duchess of Ayer," he said at last. "As Lady Melinda. But that is not where her story begins."
He paused, as if weighing something unseen.
"It begins with a woman who chose love over duty."
Melinda was born of two worlds that were never meant to touch.
Her mother, Lady Seraphina of House Santos, had been raised within the marble halls of Lunaris County. She knew etiquette before she knew freedom, politics before affection. From childhood, her life had been planned out: who she would marry, which alliances she would strengthen, and which name she would one day abandon for another noble house.
But somewhere between the lessons and the expectations, she fell in love.
Not with a knight. Not with a noble.
With a peasant.
His name was Elias. A man with calloused hands, a quiet smile, and no ambition beyond living honestly. They met by chance, one story said it was during a festival, another during a visit to the outer farmlands, but it happened, it was enough to change everything.
On the day Seraphina was meant to leave Lunaris to join her new family, she ran.
She abandoned silks and jewels, status and certainty, and fled with the man she loved. The House of Santos searched for her, of course. Threats were made. Names were cursed. But they never found her.
Instead, Seraphina and Elias settled in a modest town not far from Lunaria itself. A rural place, surrounded by open fields and forests, far removed from the polished cruelty of noble life. There, Seraphina learned to live without servants. To cook. To clean. To laugh without restraint.
Years later, Melinda was born.
She grew up in warmth, not luxury, but something far rarer. Love without condition. Her parents worked hard, but they were happy. Elias taught her how to read the land, and Seraphina taught her letters and numbers by candlelight, careful not to waste what little they had.
For ten years, the world left them alone.
And then it remembered them.
Near the town lay a mana stone mine, its lifeline. The stones drawn from it fueled tools, trade, and modest prosperity. It also drew attention. Dangerous attention.
The attack came at night.
No warning. No negotiation.
Men cloaked in darkness, wielding magic twisted by greed and ideology, descended upon the town. Terrorists, they would later be called. Radicals who believed mana should belong only to the strongor the chosen.
Homes burned. Screams filled the air. The mine was their target, but the town paid the price.
Melinda remembered the fire most vividly. How it painted the sky red. How the air itself seemed to scream.
Her parents died protecting her.
Elias fell first, struck down while trying to lead others to safety. Seraphina followed soon after, shielding her daughter with her own body as magic tore through the ground.
Melinda survived.
Not because she was strong.
Because someone pulled her away.
Winestone.
He had been their neighbor, a quiet man with sharp eyes and a mind always a step ahead. Before the attack, Seraphina had entrusted him with something: a medallion bearing the crest of House Santos.
"If anything happens," she had said, "take her home."
And so he did.
The journey back to Lunaris was long and silent. Melinda barely spoke. She clutched the medallion as if it were the only thing anchoring her to reality. Winestone told her stories along the way, not to distract her, but to remind her that the world still had shape.
House Santos received them with shock.
And calculation.
The truth could not be denied. The medallion was authentic. The bloodline is undeniable. Melinda was welcomed back not as an equal, but as a problem reclaimed.
Winestone stayed.
He was trained as a mordomo, instructed in noble customs, schedules, and expectations. But more than that, he became Melinda's shadow. Her shield. Her witness.
Melinda grew quickly.
Too quickly.
She was taught magic, etiquette, history, and everything a noble child should know. And she excelled. Not out of ambition, but because failure meant vulnerability. Because being weak meant being controlled.
Her uncle noticed.
A man whose smile never reached his eyes, whose kindness felt measured. He saw her talent. He saw her lineage. And he saw a threat.
So he decided her future.
Marriage was proposed. Carefully chosen. Far enough to remove her from the main house. Close enough to keep her under watch.
Melinda listened.
Then she ran.
Again.
This time, she did not look back.
She was already a mage by then, young, gifted, and utterly unanchored. She sought refuge in a magic tower, believing the structure might bring peace. She studied, trained, and rose quickly.
But it wasn't freedom.
It was another cage.
So she left.
She became an adventurer. A mercenary. A blade for hire, a spell for those who paid. She traveled across the continent, through ruins and battlefields, through the Great War itself.
And there, amid blood and steel, she met Patrick.
He was different from the others. Recently graduated from the Royal Academy, disciplined but unpolished. Idealistic in ways the war would eventually strip away.
They fought together.
Survived together.
And when the war ended, they chose each other.
They married quietly.
No grand ceremony. No political audience.
And some years later, Richard was born.
Winestone stopped speaking.
The room felt heavier somehow, as if the air itself carried the weight of all those years.
I didn't speak right away.
I thought about running. About choice. About how both my parents had fled expectations placed upon them by blood and title. About how neither of them had truly escaped the consequences.
"So," I said finally, my voice smaller than I expected, "Mother… never really had a place where she belonged. Not until…"
Winestone looked at me then, surprise flickering across his face.
"Until now," I finished.
He smiled faintly.
Winestone exhaled slowly.
"As I said before, I had intended to tell you this years from now," he said, setting his cup down at last. "When you were old enough to hear it as history, not as something that might weigh on you."
He looked at me again, more carefully this time.
"But history has a way of arriving early."
I didn't answer right away.
My fingers rested against the porcelain, feeling the faint warmth it had lost. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel. Pity didn't seem right. Admiration felt incomplete. What lingered instead was something quiet, an unease I couldn't name.
"So they ran twice," I said eventually.
Winestone nodded. "Yes."
"Not because they were weak."
"No."
"Because staying would have meant living someone else's life, not only a lover like in Grannie's case, but themselves."
That made him pause.
He studied me for a long moment, as if reassessing the room itself. "That," he said carefully, "is not a conclusion most children would reach."
"I'm not judging them," I added. "I think… I think they were brave."
He smiled, but there was something strained in it. "Bravery is rarely comfortable, Master Richard. It leaves consequences behind."
I thought of my mother as she was now composed, warm, and attentive. I thought of how often she watched me without realizing it, as if confirming something only she could see.
"Did she regret it?" I asked.
Winestone's answer came without hesitation. "No."
The certainty in his voice startled me more than anything else.
"She mourned," he continued. "She questioned. She doubted herself more than once. But regret?" He shook his head. "Never that."
Silence settled again, heavier than before.
"And you?" I asked. "You followed her every time."
He gave a quiet chuckle. "Someone had to make sure she made it to tomorrow."
That answer stayed with me.
Not because it was noble but because it was simple.
After a while, Winestone rose, straightening his coat as if returning to a role he had momentarily set aside.
"That will be all for today," he said gently. "You should rest. Training resumes early tomorrow."
I nodded.
As he reached the door, I spoke again, without quite meaning to.
"Winestone."
He turned.
"Do you think," I asked, choosing my words slowly, "that running is something inherited?"
For a moment, he didn't answer.
Then he smiledsoftly, knowingly.
"No," he said. "But the courage to choose is often learned by watching."
When the door closed behind him, I remained where I was.
I didn't feel burdened.
But I did feel something shift.
For the first time, my parents' pasts didn't feel like distant stories or lessons meant for later. They felt like roads that could, one day, intersect with mine.
And that thought was neither comforting nor frightening.
It was simply real.