"I was not looking dreamy."
"You were. Everyone can see it. Kellin said you've been useless all morning."
Evran makes a mental note to have words with Kellin. Eira's hands find his cloak and grip the wool, and her chin trembles once before she sets it firm.
"Swear you'll be safe," she says.
"I swear."
She searches his face with the fierce scrutiny of a girl who has decided she is responsible for his well-being and will not be satisfied with anything less than total honesty. Whatever she finds there satisfies her, because she lets out a breath and throws her arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around her small frame and holds her, and she smells of soil and green things and the rosemary she tucks behind her ear when she's working, and the thought of being away from her for weeks makes something clench behind his ribs.
"I'm in the best hands possible," he tells her, quietly, into her hair.
"I know," she says, muffled against his shoulder. "But I'm still going to worry."
"That's your job."
"Someone has to do it."
He laughs and kisses the top of her head and lets her go. Eira wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving another streak of dirt, and straightens herself with the dignity of a small queen composing herself before court.
"Bring me something?" she asks.
"Aether already made me promise the same thing."
"Then you'd better not forget or you'll have two cross women to contend with."
She backs away, watching him, and then turns and runs back toward the garden with the quick, sure stride of a girl with plants to tend who cannot afford to waste any more time on sentiment. Evran watches her disappear around the corner of the terrace wall and breathes out slowly. The warmth of her, the fierceness of her concern, lingers in his chest and mixes with the weight of Aether's cloak on his shoulders and the press of the braid at his temple, and for a moment he stands in the courtyard and lets himself feel the full, improbable gift of being loved by these people.
"Ready?"
Vaike's voice, behind him. Evran turns and finds his husband already mounted, sitting atop a dark grey stallion with an ease Evran is not going to be capable of replicating. Evran allows himself a moment to simply look because he is allowed now, because that is one of the many quiet privileges that come with being married to this man, the right to stare openly and without pretense. Vaike looks extraordinary. Dressed in riding leathers and a heavy fur-lined cloak, the Drakkari sigil stamped into thepauldron at his shoulder, his brown hair pulled back from his face and his jaw set against the morning cold, he looks exactly like what he is: a Warlord preparing to ride into a world that is entirely unprepared for it.
Evran pulls Aether's cloak tighter around his shoulders and goes to his horse.
The mountain horse assigned to him is a dun mare with a calm eye and a temperament that gives away that she has carried inexperienced riders before and has no particular feelings about doing so again. Evran swings into the saddle with false confidence and is pleased when he does not shift off the other side onto the ground. It has been a long time since he has ridden, but the muscle memory is there, buried beneath months of gardens and looms, and his body remembers the seat even if his thighs will be screaming about it by nightfall.
The riding party assembles at the gate. Bran and Leona take the lead, Bran on a massive draft horse that still looks slightly too small for him and Leona on a lean, quick-footed bay that matches her hair. Behind them ride six of Vaike's elite warriors, armed and watchful, their cloaks bearing the Drakkari colors. Evran recognizes all of them by name now and is greeted with friendly nods and the occasional raised hand as he passes.
He settles into place beside Vaike, and the column moves.
The stronghold falls away behind them as they take the northern trail into the mountains. The fog begins to thin as they climb, burning off in pale ribbons as the sun finds its footing, and the world opens up around them in a way that still, after all these months, takes Evran's breath and holds it.
He has lived among the mountains, has seen them from the stronghold walls in every light and weather, has watched the seasons change their colors from the garden terrace. But being in them is different. The trail winds through stands of pine and bare-limbed birch, following the contour of the ridge, and oneither side the land falls away into valleys still holding the last of the winter snow. Water runs everywhere, over rocks, down cliff faces, pooling in hollows where the ice has only just retreated, and the sound of it is constant, a rushing murmur beneath the clop of hooves on stone.
Leona was right, and spring is the most beautiful time to see them.
The wildflowers are just beginning, pale purple and white, pushing up through the rocky soil in clusters that look too delicate to survive the altitude, and yet here they are. Evran sees them clinging to ledges and filling crevices and carpeting a south-facing slope in a wash of color that makes him think of Eira, who would be beside herself at the sight.
He rides beside Vaike and tries not to sneak glances at him, and fails miserably at this as well.
The braid is a constant weight at his temple, swaying gently with the motion of the horse, and every time it brushes his jaw his hand itches to reach up and touch it. He catches himself doing it twice in the first hour, fingers finding the beads, tracing their smooth surfaces, reassuring himself they are real, and forces his hand back to the reins with a discipline that takes more effort than it should.
The third time, Vaike notices.
He does not say anything, because he does not have to. The corner of his mouth pulls up, just slightly, and his eyes slide to Evran with a look that is warm and knowing and entirely too pleased with itself. Evran flushes and fixes his gaze firmly on the trail ahead.
The braid sways against his neck. He does not touch it again for at least ten minutes, which he considers a meaningful improvement.
