Bradana knew this man now. She knew his heart. He would plunge into this fight.
But for the moment they hung there in their wee boat like the inhabitants of a far dream, no one upon the shore noticing them, though they floated in clear sight.
Wen gave a whine that seemed to break Adair’s paralysis. He seized the oars tight.
“We cannot land here. ’Twill be certain death.”
He began to pull on the oars. Bradana hung over the side, unable to look away from the settlement as they scuttled past. Her mind would not work right. She half expected Adair to turn them around and row back to Erin.
He did not.
Instead he took them farther up the coast, where he beached the little boat on the stones of the shingle. He and Wen both leaped out, and he dragged the boat ashore.
“Adair—”
They could hear the clamor of it now that their feet had met Alban soil, the terrible screech and cry of attacker and defender.
And suddenly, suddenly Bradana knew what her lover was going to do. She knew that all of their tale, from the moment they’d met to this very instant, had led to the action he would now take.
She seized hold of him and stared into his face. That beloved face she knew so well. Every freckle. Every smile and frown. The eyes that could brim with laughter.
Stark and cool now.
“Ye will stay here, Bradana. Hear me? Stay here where ye be safe till it all goes quiet.”
Till the battle ends, he meant.
“I am coming wi’ ye.”
“Nay.”
“Adair, I am always wi’ ye! Where’er.”
He seized both her arms and shook her gently. “Think o’ the child. Ye must think o’ the child.”
“But—”
“Once it falls quiet, ye must creep close. See whose men are in charge. Right? If they are Mican’s men”—his gaze turned still colder—“I want ye to put back out to sea. Can ye do that? D’ye think ye can make it back to Erin, or down the coast to your stepfather’s holding?”
Because he would be dead. That was what he told her. He went to fight, and he would not quit till he was either victorious or had spent his life.
“I canna lose ye.”
“You are strong, Bradana. Live for our child. I will live on in him.” He kissed her. One kiss, fierce and bright as the flash of light on a war shield. “Ye will stay here. Promise me.”
She wept now, the tears running down. “Aye,” she said, for she could deny him nothing.
He turned to Wen. “Stay wi’ her. Guard.”
And then he ran with all his might, his sword already in his hand. Straight back down the shore into the dark horror that was, in truth, no dream.
Wen whined. Bradana could feel how he wanted to follow this man he loved. That she loved.
They stood, the hound quivering and the woman weeping till Adair disappeared around a curve of the headland.
Then Bradana looked around herself. Naught but the tiny boat, still holding their possessions. The misted land and the gray sea.
The soft voice of Alba beneath it all.
