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He’d wanted to be a warrior, he thought, and had trained with pride and determination. He would have worked the land with Harken with pride if not as much determination as his brother.
Fate had handed him the sword and the staff, and so he’d carry them and all they stood for until his death.
But there were days like this when he wished, with all his heart, for a simpler life.
He yearned to just fly west, to home, to the valley, and, he couldn’t deny it, to Breen.
To simply bury himself in her and forget everything else for one blessed hour.
As he rode that cold, thin air he heard her voice, bell-clear through the silence.
Choice turns out to be duty for both of us. But I’m here, and I’ll wait. That’s a choice, too, but it’s not duty. I love you. It makes me afraid, and it makes me strong, but either way, I love you. So I’m here, and I’ll wait.
“Gods, that she’d speak to me now, say those words now. Or not,” he decided, as it might have been his own mind conjuring them up. “Down we go, Cróga. Today’s duties aren’t yet done.”
The feast and celebration ending and beginning the year equaled duty. He couldn’t shirk it.
He sat at the long table in the front of the banquet room. He ate, drank ale, had conversations he largely forgot five minutes afterward. He danced for duty.
Minga’s daughter, Kiara, held out a hand to him.
“You look lovely, as always.”
Smiling, she gave her head a little shake so the black curls and velvet ribbons cascading from the crown of her head danced like the people around them.
“For the compliment I’ll ask if we might step out in the air instead of taking the dance.”
“Now I owe you a dozen compliments.”
“I told Aiden I’d help you escape for a few moments.”
“Are you happy with him?” Keegan asked as they went out on a terrace festooned with colored lights for the celebration.
“So happy. I thought I would have a flirt with him, then he had my heart. I have his.” She looked out to where the bonfire burned gold. “It’s different now, everything for me. I know what love is, and I didn’t, I think. Not this kind. I thought… I was in the Judgment today.”
“Aye.”
“I thought, when I looked at her, listened… she’s like Shana. All my life I believed I knew Shana, and I loved her as a sister. I believedshe felt the same for me. But never did she, not in truth. Like the girl at the Judgment felt no love for her own family.”
“Odran corrupted her.”
“Aye, aye, but doesn’t there have to be something inside them, something that’s inside Shana, to open them to him that way?”
“I think there is. We’re not all made the same, Kiara.”
“I used to believe we were, inside, I mean. Sure there’s some that laugh more or cry more, or talk more. I’m one of those.”
He kissed her knuckles. “Never.”
And made her laugh.
“I thought, in our hearts and spirits, we were all good. We’re Fey or, like my mother, just good. But I know that’s not so, and because I know, the words you said today to the family? They spoke to me as well.”
“To you?”
“The blame, that there was none. I’ve felt blame about Shana, how I’d often help her in her little schemes. They seemed harmless, and for fun. But under it, they weren’t at all harmless. She isn’t harmless.”
“You’re not to blame for that.”
