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Rest while you can, for trouble has a way of multiplying.
~Skymnian Proverb
4059 AI
Cahar, Muintir
6126 AI
“YOU DID WHAT?” Lugh didn’t wait for the door to shut behind him before he bellowed.
Hest sat down at his desk and straightened his papers, allowing the jiddee’adar to vent.
“Goshkeah tells me you raced your horses to the ground and then mounted your arc lukesure and left!” Lugh paced fumbling with his hands. “Do you realize the implications? You could have fallen off, you could have been crippled, or died! What then? What of Muintir?”
“Are you finished?” Hest looked up as Lugh paused. When the jiddee’adar nodded, Hest continued. “I was perfectly safe the whole time. As for racing Beskallare, he needed the exercise. Do you realize how long it’d been since I’d been outside the city limits and free to roam? And as for the flying, Usheen kept me perfectly safe, and even within sight of Goshkeah, the whole time.”
“’Perfectly safe,’ that’s what I’m afraid of. You’re growing complacent with the laubrach. Need I remind you of what you’ve done—and become—while you were in it?
“Did Shawnahur never fly with Keenah?” Hest sighed, holding out his hands for Lugh to examine. “Look, I have all my limbs intact, my mind is better than it’s been in several lunar cycles, and you have your king back safe and sound.”
“Aye, but how sound? The servants are saying your eyes were pure silver.” He leaned across the desk to stare directly at Hest. “They are more silver than blue.”
“No, they’re not!”
“Nay? Then why do you turn your gaze away?”
Hest looked up. “I’m not avoiding you. See for yourself.”
Lugh was silent, then sat down in a chair across from the desk.
“Satisfied?” Hest leaned back, glad to have finally dissipated the jiddee’adar’s wrath and ended the lecture.
“What about your parchment? How often have you been reading it? Siobhan knew nothing of it.”
“I’m reciting it daily.” Hest picked up a quill and began to fiddle with it, trying to put more conviction into his words than he felt. If he was honest with himself, he more often than not was interrupted when he tried to recite the parchment instead of sitting down and reading it.
“As I thought. Boiwith, you’re more important to the country than you realize. If you leave us now, Siobhan would become queen, reigning in her father and your stead. She’s barely more than a child herself.”
“Lugh, we’ve been over this. I’m fine. Each morning I read or recite the list. The laubrach is as strong as ever, but not overwhelming. I know what overwhelming is. I. Am. Fine.”
Footsteps echoed off the walls as someone passed in the hallway. Lugh sighed, his frame visibly slumping with the escape of air.
“’Tis my place to worry, and you give me plenty to be concerned about.”
“What do you mean?” Hest tried to keep his composure. He hadn’t asked to be dragon king, after all.
Lugh ruffled Conry’s feathers. “You’re the dragon king.”
“Aye.”
“And as such everyone has an idea of what such a man will be—regal, loyal, authoritative, and kind. Yet, what we have...” Lugh smoothed the rumpled plumage. “What we have is a boiwith who’d rather go galivanting across the countryside than sit and hold court. Who skirts his royal duties for the company of a dragon, and who lashes out at the duene at the slightest provocation.”
Hest came half out of his chair, then plopped back down. No use proving the jiddee’adar’s point. But still it rankled to hear Lugh clearly repeating back the worst versions of events. He kept his tone carefully even. “So now you’re listening to palace gossip? I thought more of you than that.”
Lugh’s face reddened. “Gossip?”
“Aye, gossip. ‘Twasn’t this why we decided to hold a ball for the duene? So they can see me and know who I am—not some image of a dragon king that they have in their heads?”
Lugh pursed his lips and took in the room before meeting Hest’s gaze. “You’re right.” He blew a deep breath out, then continued. “I’m a jiddee’adar, that means anything out of the ordinary is my concern. An arc lukesure is definitely not in the realm of normal. You’ll tell me if anything seems different?”
“I promise.”
Lugh held his gaze for several heartbeats and then stood. “Enjoy your step.”
“Chay la Jeeah, Lugh.”
The jiddee’adar paused, but a smile softened the worry in his face. “Chay la Jeeah, Moregot. Chay la Jeeah.”
***
AFTER THE LAST MEAL, Hest remembered his decision and offered Siobhan his arm. “Care for a walk in the courtyard?”
She smiled up at him, her grey eyes sparkling in the candle light. “Aye, kind sir.”
“Kind sir? That’s one I’ve not heard before.”
She laughed playfully. “’Tis how I was trained to greet princes who may come looking for my hand in marriage.”
Her words hit him in the gut, and he had to steady himself before he raised a brow and asked, “Were there many?”
“Nay. ‘Tis why I was so surprised that father gave me to you. I had dreamed some prince would steal my heart away and then ask father for my hand in marriage.”
“Instead, I came.” The words came out as deflated as Hest felt.
Siobhan stopped, and turned him to face her. He caught a glimpse of Goshkeah’s discreet nod that the hallway was clear before his wife placed her hand on his cheek.
“You came and stole my heart away. I was only angry at father because he didn’t ask me—that, and insulted that you weren’t a prince.”
“I can’t change who I am, Siobhan.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to, Moor’neen. My annoyance was shallow and childish. You are my all, and I would not have another.” She let her words fill him as they resumed their walk.
Her all. Could it be that she felt toward him as he felt about his bond with Usheen? If so, why was she so adamantly against the laubrach? He pondered this through the halls, his footsteps echoing ‘why’ from the stone walls.
Light streamed through the doorway, and Hest squinted. Even after a synod in Muintir’s constant light, his eyes still couldn’t handle the strength of Graen.
“The tree’s in full bloom.” Siobhan pointed. “It’s been too long since I walked here.”
“Aye. We should come every step.”
“Let’s.”
Hest allowed Siobhan to lead him to the tree. She spread her skirts and rested her back against the trunk, pulling him down beside her. They relished the silence, punctuated by the soft buzzing of insects.
“Why are you afraid, Siobhan?” The question popped out without Hest really considering his words.
“Afraid?” She tilted her head. “I’m not afraid.”
“No? Why do you stare at my eyes every time we wake and before falling asleep? You’re still searching for silver, signs that the laubrach has deepened.”
She stilled, resting her hands into her lap. “Aye.” She was quiet a moment longer, and Hest could tell that she was composing her words. “You’ve lost those who are close to you. Remember what it feels like?”
For the second time, her words left him without air to breathe. He didn’t want to remember those moonsteps of darkness when he’d lost his parents, the long, aimless, desperate cycle before Malene had taken him in.
“Over the synods, I’ve not been privileged to have close friends. My maid, Allya, is the closest I have, and she’s been raised as a servant her whole life.” She picked a blade of grass. “Suddenly, I’m told I can have a friend, someone I want to be friends with. He’s my whole life, but he’s not all mine. At any provocation, he could leave me for someone else, someone who gives him power and freedom that I never can. Don’t I have a right to be afraid of that?”
Hest leaned his head back against the tree, feeling the bark bite into his scalp. She wanted to be friends; how could he convince her?
“I want to be friends as well. Why do you think I agreed to your father’s crazy plan?” He chuckled. “Put a foreigner with no experience on the throne, marry him to the princess. Because that is obviously the best option for making everything work.”
“It can if we make it work.”
“Aye.” He took her hand in his. “We can, but you must trust me. I won’t hurt you, moor’neen. You have my heart, my all. If I lose you, I’d be alone, lost in a foreign land.”
“Nay, you’d have Usheen and Sydur.”
He shook his head. “That’s not the same and you know it. If you lost me, you’d have your parents and Lugh. Tell me that’d be enough.”
Tears pooled in her eyes and slipped down her porcelain cheeks as grief squeezed her lashes together. “Nay.”
Hest wiped away the next tear that fell, but left his hand there, allowing the warmth of her breath to fill him. Ever so slowly, he drew her lips to his, tasting the salt there as he kissed her. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to her.
“Never leave me,” she whispered, her voice quick and desperate and laced with a tenuously-held sob. “Promise me. You’ll always be here.”
“Aye, moor’neen, aye.”
He meant it. As much as he loved the feel of flying and being safe with Usheen, he needed this more. Her arms, her love, her acceptance of who he was. This was what he needed.
I’m sorry, Usheen. I need her.
There is nothing to be sorry about, heart of my hearts. She is a part of us. Hold her dear. Care for her.
“What does he say?” She pulled away, some of the old distrust seeping into her eyes. “Will he allow you to keep your vow?”
“Aye, moor’neen. We have his blessing; just as on our wedding step; he has no wish to separate us. Will you trust me?”
She searched his face, his eyes, and whatever she found must have satisfied her, for she closed her eyes with a sigh and nodded.
“For as long as there is breath in me, I will trust you.”
Peace flooded his soul. He hadn’t thought it was possible to know the bond of an arc lukesure with another human, but that was what he felt at her words. One with her. He pulled her to him, cradling her against his chest, and resting his head on hers. She settled into him as if designed to fit in his embrace.
She was, heart of my hearts. A princess fit for a marcah.
Hest closed his eyes and savored the moment. The world could crash in and destroy everything else, but this he would hold to his last breath.
