by Harmon, Amy
“Go to the tournament. I w-will await you there. Bring the men you must have. But leave most behind. The people will want to m-make the journey for the festivities; do not d-dissuade them. They are safer on the m-mount than in their own beds these days.”
“I fear that is not true, Chief. Not with Banruud as king,” Dred worried.
“I will go with the Dolphys,” Dakin insisted again, speaking of Bayr as though he were a precious urn.
“Dakin, you will stay with Dred,” Bayr said, tolerating no argument.
Dakin glowered in protest.
“You will c-carry on as though I am just a glade away,” Bayr ordered before turning to the peddler. “Bozl, you may travel as f-far as you wish with my men. You are welcome in my clan and in my village.”
Bozl nodded, suddenly tearful, and he climbed back on his mule like he couldn’t wait to leave.
“If I d-do not return,” Bayr said, eyeing his men one at a time, “do not make Daniel your chieftain.”
His warriors brayed in raucous relief—even Daniel—their tension easing as they turned toward home.
“Long live the Dolphys,” Dred shouted, his hand on his braid, and the warriors around him took up the call, howling as they left him. But Bayr’s eyes were already trained toward the temple mount, rising up in his mind’s eye. In a mere two days’ time, he would see his family, and his heart left his chest and fled on ahead, unable to wait.
23
Dagmar was facing north in the bell tower when he saw him coming, a rider that could have been anyone, a dark speck on a green landscape littered with plow fields and homesteads, still a good distance beyond the cluster of cottages that huddled against the base of the temple mount. The day had threatened rain, but the clouds had continued to swell and gather without releasing a drop.
He should have come from the east, but Dagmar did not question it. Even without a rune to improve his vision, he knew it was Bayr. He wanted to run down the long road, sprint through the village, and hurtle over the fields to reach him, but he made himself wait, watching as the speck became a tittle, and the tittle became a jot. When the jot widened and lengthened, becoming a minuscule silhouette, he could no longer hold back his tears. He rang the bells in jubilant welcome, bouncing from the heavy rope like a drunken fool, crying and laughing. He stumbled down the tower steps and ran to the north gate, swiping at his blurry eyes, frantic that when he joined the sentry on the gate overlook, he would not be able to find Bayr again.
But he did, and his emotion grew with the approach of his boy, now a man, who rode his horse like the chieftain of a clan, back straight, one hand on his thigh, one hand wrapped in his stallion’s hair.
Dagmar found he could not call out, could not even speak, and the sentry at the gate—a man who had never known the Temple Boy—called down in greeting and inquiry.
“I am Bayr, Chieftain of Dolphys, here to see King Banruud,” he said, and though he paused every third or fourth word, he did not stumble.
“Open the bloody gate!” Dagmar bellowed, clambering down to the winchmen who controlled the grates.
“The king is not here, Chieftain. But Keeper Dagmar has vouched for you and has bidden me open the gate,” the sentry replied good-naturedly, and, with a bellow slightly more subdued than Dagmar’s had been, granted Bayr entry.
Then he was coming through the gate, his eyes trained on Dagmar, who had placed himself directly in his path. Dagmar wouldn’t remember who took Bayr’s horse or how they traveled from the vast courtyard to the temple steps. He would only recall the joy of Bayr’s return, the feel of his heart pounding in his chest, the way Bayr swept him up, laughing and saying his name.
“I see Dolphys in you—the clan is in your blood—but you are still Bayr, though you are more boar than cub,” Dagmar choked, laughing through his tears.
“I am no bear. I am a wolf, Uncle. Though I do run a bit b-bigger than most of them.” Bayr’s grin was blinding, and Dagmar found he could not release him, though his girth—hardened and honed—felt strange in his arms. Bayr embraced him in return, kissing his bristled pate with all the affection of the child he’d once been.
“I s-see gray in your whiskers, Uncle,” he growled, and Dagmar laughed again.
“Your stutter is much improved! And I am not yet gray because I am not yet old.”
“He has always been old,” Ivo cackled from the shadows of the temple steps, and Dagmar made himself let go, though he followed at Bayr’s heels, unable to abide any distance between them. Bayr strode forward and enveloped the Highest Keeper in an embrace that should have reduced him to dust, but Ivo curled his arms around the chieftain and uttered not even a peep of protest.
“We’ve been waiting, Bayr of Saylok,” he murmured, as Bayr released him.
Dagmar knew Ivo had a great deal more to say, but the Highest Keeper urged Bayr into the temple to see the others who were gathering to greet him. Ghost and the clan daughters hurried down the stone steps on the east side of the grand entry, having heard the commotion from the upper floors. From the west staircase, a stream of keepers began to pour, voices raised in welcome, hands clasped in excitement at Bayr’s return.
When Ghost reached out a hand to Bayr in greeting, her smile as careful and quiet as it had always been, Bayr bowed above it, kissing her pale white knuckles. Her smile became sunlight breaking above the eastern hills.
“You are s-still beautiful, Ghost,” Bayr said softly, and the final pieces of Dagmar’s composure crashed to the floor. Of course Bayr would think her so. That he would tell her without artifice or awkwardness was a reminder of the sensitive boy they’d known and the confident man he’d become. “Thank you for l-looking after him,” Bayr added, casting a brief glance at Dagmar so there would be no question to whom he referred.
“Your uncle looks after all of us,” she replied, and pink suffused her alabaster cheeks. Watching them thus, the two people he loved most in the world, was a joy so searing and sweet, Dagmar had to look away to find his breath.
“You are all . . . w-women,” Bayr stammered, raising his eyes from Ghost to the five females who had stopped a few paces behind her. Elayne, Juliah, Liis, Bashti, and Dalys, uncertain how they should greet their old friend, laughed and bowed in the way of the keepers, their years in the temple never more apparent than at that moment. Bayr gripped his braid as though he greeted the king, and his fealty and reverence were not lost on Dagmar.
In response, Juliah grasped the heavy coil that circled her head.
“Mine is not a warrior’s braid, but a warrior’s crown,” she said, a smirk twisting her soft lips.
“The Warrior Queen?” Bayr asked, and her smile widened.
“There has been no coronation, but I accept your title,” she said, lifting her chin like royalty, and her eyes caught on something just over Bayr’s shoulder.
“Bayr?” The voice came from behind him, and for a moment Bayr froze, as though he knew exactly who spoke. He seemed to brace himself before turning, but the shudder that wracked him was visible to all who observed.
“Alba?”
She was framed by the light of the gray afternoon. The heavy temple door had been pushed wide upon Bayr’s entry and never closed. Alba stood on the threshold, perfectly still. In that moment, Dagmar saw the woman and not the child. She was no longer the girl he’d watched grow, day after day, year after year. He saw her the way Bayr would see her, and his heart stuttered and stopped.
She was tall for a woman, taller than many of the keepers, and straight and strong in her carriage and character. She wore her hair loose around her shoulders, the pale gold waves like the long grass in late summer against her deep-blue gown. The light at her back shadowed her features, but Dagmar knew her eyes were as dark as the soil of Saylok, and they were fixed on Bayr’s face. A heartbeat later, she was hurtling through the entrance hall, her skirts clutched in her hands to free her flying feet, her hair streaming behind her. Then she was in his arms, caught up against him, her feet
no longer touching the floor, as though she’d leaped past the last few steps.
All was silent around them, a small crowd of stunned observers, watching a reunion that was as wrenching as it was wonderful. Bayr and Alba did not speak, didn’t chatter and preen excitedly the way long-lost friends often do upon finding one another again. They simply stood, locked in a desperate embrace, clinging to each other in quiet commiseration. Dagmar could see Bayr’s face, the closed eyes and the clenched jaw of a man overcome. Alba had begun to weep, her shoulders quaking, her face buried in Bayr’s neck. Bayr simply turned, still clutching her to his chest, her feet still dangling, and strode into the sanctum. He closed the double doors behind him with a shove of his boot.
Among the keepers and the daughters, there was not a dry eye. Ghost, who rarely wept and never admitted it when she did, turned and quickly climbed the stairs, fleeing the loss of her self-control. Dagmar wiped at his own face, wondering whom he should comfort, whom he should go after, or whether he could flee himself. Bayr and Alba weren’t children anymore. Bayr could not sleep at the foot of her bed or carry her on his shoulders. It would not be wise to let them spend time alone. But he could not find it in himself to deny them. To intervene in a welcome home so long awaited would be cruel, and he turned to Ivo, seeking guidance.
“The king is gone, and it’s just as well,” Ivo intoned, always perceptive. “For tonight we will feast in the temple, and Bayr can await Banruud’s return among us.”
Bayr didn’t release Alba, but held her locked in his arms, letting her tears dry and his own settle. The sanctum was a shadowed tomb, the dome spilling light on the altar in straight lines. The colored glass that depicted the story of the clans created a rainbow pattern across the stone floors. The sconces had not been lit for evening, but candles flickered and pooled on every surface. It had looked exactly the same the day they said goodbye, and for a dizzying moment, Bayr tightened his arms around the woman, remembering the child.
But the child was gone.
Alba wasn’t the same.
He wasn’t the same.
He set her on her feet and carefully released her, taking a step back, then another, suddenly shy. This was not his Alba. This was a woman grown, and he didn’t know what to say. He’d brought her into the sanctum so the keepers wouldn’t see him weep. He’d wanted to guard the moment, to shield it from view, to keep it for himself. He hadn’t wanted to share it . . . or her . . . with another soul.
She wiped at her cheeks with the base of her palm, a gesture he instantly remembered, and his sudden discomfort eased slightly. But when she raised her eyes to his, he forgot himself again, his disorientation rearing its spinning head.
She was so beautiful.
The softness of her child’s face had sharpened into hollowed cheekbones and a slim neck. Dark eyes, pale hair, warm skin, rose-petal lips. All of it, Alba. Yet not Alba at all.
“When you left you were a hill. Now you are a mountain,” Alba teased, though she feared her nervous swallowing betrayed her.
Bayr was huge, muscled and towering, and she didn’t like the marked contrast between them, a contrast that she’d never noticed before, oddly. He’d been her Bayr, her best friend, her confidant, her protector, the person she loved most in the world. And now he was so obviously a man, a man like her father, hulking and fierce, with no twinkle in his eyes or softness ’round his lips.
He laughed, his white teeth flashing between lips that weren’t harsh or hard at all.
“There’s my funny little Alba,” he said. “I thought she might be gone.”
“I am here. I never left,” she murmured, her heart quickening at his familiar grin.
“You’ve grown too. You were once a flower. Now you’re a sapling,” he said, each word a well-placed rumble. “I can hardly lift you. What will I do when you want to fly?”
“A sapling? I am an oak,” she said with mock outrage. “Another year or two and I will be as tall as you.”
He laughed again, the sound so filled with fondness that her tears welled again, and without hesitation, she stepped back into his arms.
He welcomed her return to his embrace, his arms tightening around her, and she stood, breathing him in, her nose pressed to his chest. To tell him she had missed him would be false. She had ached and mourned and cried and counted the days. She’d banished him from her thoughts and her heart only to beg the gods for his well-being. Last year, she’d even given up hope. Another year, another gift, and still no Bayr. Now that he was here, she wanted only to hold him for a moment, to feel only the joy of his return.
“Are you s-standing on your t-toes?” he laughed, his stutter peeking through to remind her of the boy he’d been. They put her at ease, those small hitches. He was still Bayr.
“Yes. I am.” She laughed with him, the sound choked by emotion she could not contain. The top of her head didn’t even reach the top of his shoulder, and she was taller than most women, or so Dagmar claimed.
“Seventeen years old,” he whispered. “Tomorrow is your birthday. W-what would you like, little Alba? Seventeen roses? Seventeen sugared plums? Seventeen d-diamonds to wear in your crown?”
“I want seventeen days,” she countered quietly, stepping back in the circle of his arms so she could see his face. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized there was nothing she wanted more. “Seventeen years would be even better.”
His eyes changed, softened, and he touched her nose with the tip of his finger.
“I can’t give you that, Alba.”
“Twelve days?”
He shook his head.
“Ten?”
Another no.
“Nine, then. And that’s as low as I’ll go. I’m Princess of Saylok, and you must do as I say.”
He laughed again, a booming sound that made her chest swell with so much happiness, she thought she might burst into tiny particles of light.
“I can give you a week. Maybe less.”
“A week?” she whispered. “You are leaving so soon?”
“Yes. I will only stay until the k-king returns.”
Her happiness seeped from her chest, ran down her weak legs, and pooled beneath her feet, leaving her as empty as she’d been yesterday and the day before.
“I promise you s-seventeen perfect hours. All yours. The b-best hours in all of existence,” Bayr whispered. “We will fly and s-swim and swing and eat all our bellies can hold.”
“Fly?” she asked.
“And swim.”
“And we won’t waste time with sleep?”
“Not a wink.” He grinned, and she realized suddenly how weary he must be. How far he had come. Yet he stood before her, and she would not waste her time dreading his absence. She took a deep breath and released it. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him to the bench nearest the rainbow colors and sat down, unwilling to wait to embark upon her perfect hours.
“Tell me where you’ve been,” she demanded, breathless. She wanted to know everything. Every moment of his every day for the last ten years.
“Everywhere. Though in these last y-years, I’ve rarely left Dolphys. Until now,” he replied, sinking down beside her. She didn’t release his hand, but kept it wrapped in both of hers.
“Everywhere? I want words, Bayr. Details,” she cried.
He smiled again and groaned. Then he tapped his ear.
Her heart leaped at the old game, and she let him maneuver around her request, the way he used to do.
“Have you been to Eastlandia?” she asked, settling into the rhythm of their old ways. Yes or no questions so he didn’t have to speak.
He nodded.
“Is it bigger than Saylok?”
With his free hand he plucked a candle from its holder and, tipping it to the side, drew a shape with the melted wax on the stone floor in front of them. He drew another shape, a star, about the distance of a handspan away from the first.
“Saylok,” Alba said, pointing to the star.
He nodded.<
br />
“Eastlandia,” she guessed. “Is it really that big compared to Saylok?”
Again the nod.
“Where else?”
Little by little, he drew the shapes of the countries, the world beyond Saylok, and Alba studied his map in fascination.
“For all Dagmar’s knowledge, he has not been to these places either, and the maps he created are not to scale,” she murmured.
“I know only what I’ve been told and what I’ve g-gleaned from the people we brought back. Size is hard to measure w-when you are only a man and not a great, soaring bird.”
“But you are a chieftain,” she said, a smile teasing her lips.
He nodded, reverting to their game, but his eyes were troubled.
“Isn’t it what you wished for?” she asked quietly. Most men would.
He shook his head once, a single, firm denial.
“No? Why?” she pressed.
“I have only ever w-wished for one thing.”
“Tell me.”
“To be here. Near you. That is all.” His face was so raw with honesty, with truth, that Alba could not look away. The people around her were careful with their secrets. The temple girls. Dagmar, Ghost, Ivo. Her father. Everyone lied or misled or simply stayed silent. Some did it out of love. Some out of fear. Some for power, some for protection. But not Bayr. He had never been like that.
She didn’t ask him why he couldn’t stay. Dagmar had explained, time and time again. And Alba understood what it was to want what you could not have, to not control your fate or your fortunes. She bowed her head, her hand tightening around his, and when she found her voice again, she moved on.
“Tell me about Dolphys,” she whispered, and he relented, his voice low and careful, forming his words far better than he used to, and she listened, intent upon each one. One question spurred another, and Alba found herself speaking more than she cared to, though Bayr listened with the same rapt attention she had shown him. When the colored light disappeared, darkness chasing the day away, Ivo opened the sanctum door, his long staff clutched between his knotted hands. He didn’t move as well as he once had, and didn’t see as well either, though he peered at them with all-knowing eyes.
