Sìle sighed heavily, then walked away with a variety of things muttered under his breath that Morgan was just certain couldn’t be either complimentary or polite. But he walked away just the same and made his way around the table to stop behind her chair. He pulled her chair out for her, then held out his hand.
“Come, Granddaughter,” he said very gravely. “Your lord awaits.”
Morgan was appalled to find her hand was trembling as she put it into her grandfather’s.
There was absolute silence in the hall.
“Not too late to bolt,” Sìle said loudly as they walked along the edge of the hall, then out into the center.
“Isn’t it?”
He squeezed her hand. “I would tell you that it isn’t,” he said very quietly, “but I think if you left that poor lad standing there in front of the table, you would break his heart.” He paused. “You could wed him for pity’s sake, I suppose.”
Morgan managed a smile. “I’d rather wed him for love.”
“That’s what I feared,” he said, but he smiled as he said it. He led her over to stand in front of the high table, then he sighed once more before he put her hand in Miach’s.
“I can’t fathom why, but she loves you,” Sìle said. “Here she is, lad. Yours. Again.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Miach said gravely.
Sìle clapped a hand on his shoulder, winked at him very quickly—likely so no one would think he’d gone soft—then walked away. Morgan looked at Miach and tried to ignore the fact that everyone in the hall was watching them. His hand around hers was warm, though, so she took courage from that. He bent and kissed her hand, then straightened and took both her hands to pull her close.
“You can’t be serious,” she whispered quickly.
“About what?”
“You aren’t going to kiss me here. In front of everyone.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to.”
“New traditions are always welcome.”
“But—”
She wasn’t sure what was louder as he pulled her against him and kissed her thoroughly, the blood thundering in her ears, the howls from disappointed parents, or the very undignified cheering of his brothers and her mercenary companions. He kissed her far longer than he likely should have, but he didn’t seem inclined to stop and she wasn’t about to insist.
She did feel a little flushed when he took her hand and led her around the table. She sat very gratefully in the chair he pulled out for her.
“Your proper place, Your Highness,” he said with a smile as he sat next to her.
She leaned close to him. “Is it time to go flying yet?”
“Dancing first.”
She smiled. “Enforcing the royal edicts already?”
“Aye,” he agreed cheerfully. “There’s little point in spending all this energy trying to balance this enormous crown on my head if I can’t have the reward of a collection of musicians to do my bidding now and again, is there?”
She had to agree there wasn’t. She watched him as he poured wine for her, then handed it to her. She drank, then set her cup aside and simply watched him as he received congratulations from those who approached the high table. There was a feeling that tugged at her, a feeling she couldn’t identify. It wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary, it was quite lovely. Unfortunately, every time she reached for it, it eluded her grasp.
Miach reached for her hand under the table and laced his fingers with hers. She put aside her thoughts and turned to smile at him. There would be time enough for thinking later.
It was well after sunset before the newly made king of Neroche exercised his prerogative to leave the festivities early. Morgan went with him, accompanied by several very stern words from her grandfather about what were and were not appropriate activities to engage in whilst he wasn’t sitting five paces away from them.
“We’re eloping tomorrow,” Miach said, rather less quietly than he might have otherwise.
Morgan had pulled him away before her grandfather could respond. She happily ran with him through passageways and up and down stairs until they reached the stairs that led up to his mother’s private solar. He led her inside, shut the door, then locked it with a spell of Wexham that she was sure not even her grandfather could have broken through.
“At last,” he said with a heartfelt sigh.
Morgan smiled as he reached out and pulled her into his arms. “It has been a very long day. For you, especially.”
“It was worth every minute of it to have you here.” He kissed her softly, paused, then kissed her again. “You were lovely and graceful and gracious today, Princess Mhorghain. But, if you don’t mind, I would like an hour or two with your other incarnation.”
“As His Majesty wishes,” she said, feeling a little breathless.
“I wish it.” He reached up and very carefully took her crown off. Or tried to, rather. He frowned thoughtfully during the first few attempts, scowled through a few more, then finally cursed as he made her turn around.
“How’d they get this bloody thing to stick to your head?” he demanded.
She shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea, but it took a good hour to do so. And don’t ask me to help you. I don’t have any idea how to get it off.”
“Mistress Wardrobe and I are going to come to a right understanding,” he vowed as he plucked pins from the back of her hair and tossed them on the table near one of the chairs.
“You sound as autocratic as my grandfather.”
“When it comes to matters of removing your crown so you don’t poke me in the eye with it when I hold you in that chair over there, aye, I intend to sound that way.”
She laughed uneasily and looked over her shoulder. “You need a bit of dragon wildness to bring you back to yourself.”
He put his hand on the top of her head and turned her back around. “You’ll suffice me tonight. And you know I’m only saying the like to have you put me in my place. Hold still, Morgan, lest I pull your hair.”
She held still as he tinkered a bit more, then smiled at his exclamation of triumph. He turned her around, then very carefully lifted her crown off her head and set it aside. Then he took his own off and laid it down next to hers.
“And now here we are, just you and I,” he said with a smile.
“So we are,” she agreed.
“Come sit with me?”
“Happily.”
A handful of minutes later, he was holding her feet with one hand and dragging the other through her hair, a fire burned cheerily in the hearth, and she was reasonably comfortable in a dress that was probably worth more gold than she would have made in a year’s worth of lucrative sieges. She reached out and put her hand against his cheek.
“Surviving?” she asked.
He smiled. “This is worth every moment of prior discomfort, despite the fact that I’m quite certain Sìle is sitting halfway down the stairs to make certain I return you, unmolested, to your bed-chamber before too many watches pass. How long did he say it would take to compile the guest list for our wedding?”
“Again, too long, though I’m sure the time will rush by, what with all your administrative duties to keep you occupied.”
He tugged gently on her hair. “That is cruel, Morgan.”
She laughed a bit. “I’ll hurry him along, if I can. I would like to have all the festivities over so we could sneak off to Aherin and just be ourselves for a few days, enjoying that sweet water you fashioned in the fall for Hearn’s horses.”
“I would, too,” he agreed. He wrapped his arms around her. “And speaking of passing the time pleasantly, I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”
“What is it?”
“A visit from someone you love.”
“Nicholas?”
“Aye.”
“In truth?” she asked, surprised. “How did you know?”
He hesitated, then smiled faintly. “I saw him packing his things. Actu
ally, he made sure I saw him packing his things.” He shivered. “I’m not accustomed to this seeing yet. I’m not sure how Master Soilléir manages it so easily.”
“Centuries of practice, no doubt,” she said. She smiled. “I will be happy to see Nicholas, though I wonder why he didn’t come to your crowning.”
He continued to trail his fingers through her hair. “His turn on the world’s stage is over, as he would say. I think he prefers a bit of anonymity, though it wouldn’t surprise me to have him terrify half the garrison by arriving on wing, as it were. He does make, as you know, a very impressive dragon.”
“Aye, he does,” she said with a smile. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, letting the feel of his hand on her hair soothe her. She could, without much effort, imagine they were in any number of unremarkable places, continuing to be unremarkable people.
Though she supposed Miach, at least, had never been that.
She shrugged aside the thought, then turned her mind to trying to decide what the feeling was that had been trying to envelop her since the moment her grandfather had put her hand in Miach’s. It wasn’t hope, though she felt a substantial amount of that too. She opened her eyes and looked down at Miach’s other hand that was covering hers atop her knee. The runes there that encircled his wrist and hers sparkled faintly in the firelight. Those runes had given her hope in many dark places over the past few days, but it wasn’t hope that she felt either.
She shifted on Miach’s lap so she could keep her head on his shoulder but look at the chamber they were in. The firelight flickered on the tapestries lining the walls, against the long windows, against the chair across from where they sat. No doubt Miach’s mother had sat there often, enjoying the same sort of evening she currently enjoyed with that mother’s son.
Morgan blinked in surprise. There had been only one blanket draped over the chair the day before; now there was another one laid over the chair’s back. It was woven in blues and greens, shot through with gold and silver. She realized with a start that the border was full of runes of the house of Tòrr Dòrainn and Neroche both.
“Miach, where did that other blanket come from?”
“Hmmm?” he said, sounding as if he was also pulling himself away from some pleasant bit of reflection. “Oh, that. ’Tis a gift for us from Mehar. She wove the red one for me after my mother died to give me comfort. The other, she wove for us.”
“Really? Why?”
There was a smile in his voice. “To give us peace.”
Peace.
Morgan stared at the weaving for several moments in silence, watching the runes swirl and dance in front of her eyes until they finally settled into a pattern that was similar to the runes about her wrist, but not identical. Something more had been added, something that spoke of deep roots and rushing winds, bubbling brooks and fresh-tilled earth. And through it all was a profoundly beautiful magic that wove itself in and out of her and Miach, binding them both to Neroche and its people.
A magic that whispered peace.
Morgan crawled to her feet to go fetch it, then brought it back and settled back into her place. She pulled it over them both, then looked at him.
“I was wondering after supper what it was I was feeling,” she said slowly. “After all the business was finished and there seemed to be nothing before us but perhaps troubles that wouldn’t come close to tearing us in two to face. It’s only now that I see what lies under everything Mehar wove that I understand what that feeling is.”
“And what is that, my love?” he asked softly.
She smiled. “Peace.”
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. “May we have long stretches of it, even if it is only something to be shared between us.” He kissed her softly, then rested his cheek against her hair. “May we have it in abundance.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. She had never considered the word or what it could mean, not during those long days in Gobhann where she had never thought to have someone to love, not during the past few months when dreams of darkness had continually assailed her, not even after she’d closed her father’s well and felt nothing but grief and pain as a result. She’d had a taste of it that evening in Ceangail, when she’d seen her mother sitting in front of the fire, looking at her with love, but it had been fleeting.
She should have known she would find it in all its fullness with the man holding her close to his heart.
She supposed this was what their lives would be like. They would see to whatever business his crown required, then he would likely stuff his crown in a drawer with his seven rings of wizardly mastery, and they would carry on as just they two, farmer and besotted village wench.
She shifted a bit and Mehar’s weaving whispered in reply.
Peace.
It had been worth the wait.
Epilogue
Miach leaned against the wooden fence that separated the lists from the more equine-populated parts of Aherin and watched as Morgan fought with Hearn of Angesand’s second-fiercest guardsman. The first was waiting his turn, bouncing on his heels and stretching his arms over his head, as if he prepared for an excessively taxing bit of sport. In that, at least, the man had it aright. Morgan was so far superior to anyone she fought, it was a wonder any of them dared face her.
They were a bit more ginger with her than they had been in the past, which he knew vexed her, but he couldn’t blame the lads. It was one thing to fight a stranger; it was another thing entirely to fight the queen of Neroche.
Of course, they’d used no such restraint when he’d been in the lists the day before, but perhaps Hearn’s lads weren’t as dazzled by his face as they were by Morgan’s.
He watched his lady wife destroy the man before her, then call for another victim. Since he knew how that would finish, he allowed his mind to wander a bit. Of course, those wanderings involved Morgan, but that didn’t surprise him. He was perfectly happy to engage in that sort of pleasant reflection.
They had wed over four months ago in Sìle’s private garden, with only their family in attendance. Sìle’s concession to the rest of the guests had been a more public sort of ceremony later that day in the great hall, a ceremony involving rings and promises of care and consideration. The feasting afterward had been spectacular and drawn out over several days. Weddings in Tòrr Dòrainn were few and far between and generally involved only a few select visitors.
For them, however, Sìle had thrown open his gates and allowed in a full score of souls. That he saw no irony at all in the thinness of his guest list had made Miach smile more than once.
Master Ceannard had come bearing gifts not for the bride and groom, but for Sìle himself, which Morgan’s grandfather had accepted also without a shred of irony. Nicholas had come, of course, as had all Morgan’s mercenary companions. Royalty had arrived from Durial, Ainneamh, and Camanaë. Master Soilléir had come as well, not only with a promise of spells delivered personally to Neroche when Morgan wished to have them but with Morgan’s brother in tow.
Miach hadn’t minded spending most of the first week of his marriage working with Morgan and Sìle to restore Rùnach’s hands and face. Perhaps he would always bear the scars of what had befallen him, but they wouldn’t be so severe. Rùnach had promised to divide his time between Seanagarra and Tor Neroche, which had pleased Brèagha and Morgan both.
After a suitable amount of time spent with one pair of grandparents, he and Morgan had traveled to Lake Cladach to spend another se’nnight with Eulasaid and Sgath before finally coming to beg a night or two in Hearn’s hayloft. They had then returned to Tor Neroche and to the business of settling the realm.
He couldn’t say it had been an easy transition for either of them. He still loathed even short meetings with self-important ministers and Morgan still fidgeted during state dinners. He supposed they would both learn patience eventually, but in the meantime he was finding ways to politely hurry people along and Morgan, well, Morgan could still be heard to recite W
eger’s strictures under her breath when things went on overlong. It cheered him to know that under all those exquisite court clothes he’d seen fashioned for her was still the woman he loved. He had endeavored to humor them both by providing dancing as often as possible after supper, and by happily flying with her after the dancing.
He watched with a smile as Morgan now did what she did best, which was leave every man in her vicinity on his knees in front of her. Hearn’s finest guardsman was indeed very good, but he would not in this lifetime or the next come close to besting her.
“She’s passin’ good, ain’t she?”
Miach looked to his left and found himself joined by two small boys. They were hanging over the top of the horse fence and watching Morgan with the same amount of awe he was wont to use himself.
“Aye,” he agreed, “she is.”
The elder of the two looked up at him. “We’re on our way to be pages at the palace,” he said, puffing his small chest out. “Me and my brother. We heard tell Queen Mhorghain was here in Aherin and Lord Hearn was good enough to let us come have a look at her.” He frowned at Miach. “Don’t suppose you’d know her, would you, sir, being but a soldier yourself?”
Miach caught sight of their father, standing on the other side of them, looking as if he would rather lay himself beneath Morgan’s very sharp sword and perish than be where he was. He started to open his mouth—no doubt to chastise his sons—but Miach shook his head with a small smile. He turned to face the boys.
“I’d say you’re from Istaur.”
The younger boy looked at him with wide eyes. “How’d you know that?”
“I travel a good deal,” Miach conceded. “What are your names?”
“I’m Gerald,” said the older. “And that’s Thomas.”
Miach shook their hands politely, then found himself being ignored in favor of watching the woman out in the lists. He joined them without hesitation. Morgan laughed as she wielded her blade and the sound was so beautiful, Miach thought he just might have to sit down soon.