“Thank you,” Adelais said huskily.“And I meant what I said.About playing fair now.I want to prove it to you, no matter how long it takes.”
“That’s one of the things I love about you,” she managed, and Adelais’s face opened with delight.
“You love things about me?”the Wolf asked, sounding giddy.
“I love you,” Tate said softly, simply, knowing it to be as true as the earth beneath her feet, as true as God himself.
Adelais shifted in place, her hands flexing, and Tate said, “You don’t have to stop anymore.You can come closer.”
Adelais moved fast enough to drive the wind from Tate’s lungs, wrapping her strong arms around Tate and crushing her close.
“I love you too,” whispered the Wolf.“I love you and I can’t think of anyone or anything else.Be mine.Be mine for as long as you want.”
Tate laughed, pressed her forehead to Adelais’s before pulling away to look up at her.“I’m an abbess first, remember?I’m Far Hope’s.”
“What if I’m Far Hope instead?”Adelais asked, and Tate sighed.
“That’s a sweet idea, but?—”
“I have an idea,” Adelais said suddenly.“For the abbey.”
“Please don’t feel like you have to?—”
“What if we made a new Far Hope,” Adelais said.“A new version of it like King Alfred did.Something that looks completely different but has the same heart underneath.”
Tate stilled, unsure of what Adelais was saying.
Adelais bit her full lower lip.It almost looked bashful on the seasoned warrior.“Like me,” she added.“Different Adelais, same heart.”
A ball lodged in Tate’s throat.But a good one, made of something bright andhappy.Made of loving her wolf.
“If I’m the lord of Far Hope—in practice, if not in name—then we could keep people coming to the cave.”Adelais went on, excited now, bouncing on the balls of her feet.“We could keep people coming on Christmas and Michaelmas and Martinmas and any other feast day you wanted.They’ll simply be my guests, and no one need be any wiser.It’ll be like how the pilgrimages work now: a truth that disguises the bigger truth.And instead of the abbey closing and not having anyone left to share its secrets—and instead of doing anything to provoke William’s wrath—we’ll turn ourselves into something so common no one pays any attention to them: naughty, misbehaving nobles.”
Tate took Adelais’s hand and squeezed it.“There will be no one to carry it on after we die,” she tried to explain.
“Not true,” Adelais said.“My son will inherit these lands.Perhaps after we die, we’ll arrange to have him told the true nature of the place.”
“That his inheritance is a hidden chamber for holy sex?”
Adelais shrugged.“He’ll have to learn which accounts are overdue and which fields are actually bogs in any event; learning about King Alfred’s favorite sex shrine will be much more interesting.”
Adelais had Tate there.
“It’s supposed to be a sacred place,” Tate finally said.“Set apart from ordinary life.How can a house—even a fine house belonging to a noble—be sacred?Set apart enough that people can be and change in ways they can’t in their daily lives?”
“Didn’t you tell me that you didn’t make those distinctions?Anything we want to be holy can be?We can keep the church open as a local church; we can welcome visitors to the healing spring.You are the pious lifeblood of the abbey, Tate, you and your strength and your belief in this place.You will bring that piety to a new Far Hope too.”
Tate thought.
And thought.
It could work.
But should it?Should a place that had always been different, divine, liminal become something as common and transient as ahouse?
It wouldn’t be just any house.It would belong to Adelais of the Maine.
Adelais, who was different and divine all on her own.Adelais, who was ready to play fair, Adelais, who knew more than anyone else how important having a place set apart from the world’s expectations could be.
