by Grace Martin
His body was heavy on mine as we gasped together, my breasts heaving, nipples still strikingly sensitive against the rough hair on his broad chest, my legs tangled with his. I wrapped my arms around him, smoothing his slick skin, stroking the long muscles of his back, the breadth of his shoulders.
He shifted, rolling onto his side to spare me his weight, but he kept me plastered against him. One of his hands drifted down to hook behind my knee, raising it higher on his hip to keep us together. I moaned, sliding against him languidly to prolong my pleasure as the movement changed the angle of our contact.
His lips met mine as his hands were gentle on my skin. His eyes met mine, as we both enjoyed the aftershocks ricocheting through me and around him. I gasped for air, gasped for him. And there, in the guttering candlelight, we resumed the litany of love that had started all of this.
Eventually, wrapped together, we slept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Three months later, I woke up with a scream on my lips.
Caradoc was there to soothe me, with familiar touches after the familiar nightmare. I’d known that I was going to have nightmares, and I wasn’t the only one. I wouldn’t forget the first time Sparrow came down to breakfast with dark rings under her eyes and Rhiannon was pale beneath her tattoos after being woken by screams in the bed next to her.
Rhiannon and Caradoc both had to learn how to soothe us after we woke from a nightmare. Sometimes it was my turn to soothe him when he was the one who woke up screaming. I’d hoped, on this day of all days, that I’d get a good night’s sleep.
Of course, that was too much to hope for.
I was starting to show. Even though this pregnancy was easier than my first, every part of it filled me with unexpected terror. More than once, Caradoc had to hold me as I shook in remembered fear, waking from a nightmare. There weren’t many nights when I didn’t have nightmares. It was like my brain had stored them up and now that I was safe and happy and free, it was time to let them go.
I’d thought, in the years since I’d had David, that I wanted another child. I wanted lots of them. I wanted a family who could never be broken up, never know what it was to fear or be alone.
I hadn’t counted on my memories. Every change in my body brought memories of what it was like, that year in Cairnagorn, at Maldwyn’s mercy. I was so afraid that somehow, all my joy could be taken from me, that I would lose this baby who meant so much to me, that I would be separated from Caradoc and Sparrow and David and never know peace again.
If I lost them, I…
But those were not thoughts I wanted to entertain. So, I let Caradoc soothe me, waited for the shaking to stop, then got dressed and went downstairs to the library, as I did every morning. Caradoc usually came with me, but he had his own business this morning.
I’d grown to love the library. It wasn’t always daylight in the library. There was a brief period, just before and after midnight, when the stained-glass ceiling shrouded itself in darkness, but the light always returned, like it was lit from within. I suppose there was a lesson in there.
Or something.
I greeted Nimue, still growing lush and green in the centre of the room. She bowed her branches in response. I greeted the first half dozen of the watermaids who rose to say good morning, wishing the rest of them well. I could even tell them apart now, although the magic to free them still eluded us.
Us. I said good morning to Jegu, who was elbow deep in a card catalogue and muttered something in return that probably wasn’t a greeting. The card catalogue was a joke. No one knew even how many books we had, much less what their titles were.
Cairnagorn had been destroyed, but many of the books and artefacts there were still intact. The Librarians who lived had gathered up everything that remained, and brought it here to Ce’deira, where the Bach Chwaer had a reputation for hospitality.
It was all I could not to throw them in the dungeon. It took a great movement of the will to be polite to the Librarians, but it had paid off. I wasn’t afraid of them anymore. Those I recognised from Kiaran’s Order of Guardians were sent on their way, but those who were blameless were allowed to stay.
Looking at the piles of books everywhere, stacked on the stairs and filling every nook around the room, I was glad of all the Librarians. I needed the help. I couldn’t sort this mess out in a lifetime. And meanwhile, they were assisting with research, trying to find a way to free the watermaids and forestmaids.
I sat down beside a rambler rose that grew through a crack in the wall. Roses, as it turns out, are the biggest gossips. She told me all the news that the other forestmaids had imparted to her. They, along with the watermaids, were my eyes and ears outside the fortress. Once they had been simply wards around the fortress. Now they were my friends and valued advisors.
There had once been three wards that protected Ce’deira. Now there were hundreds. But I could pass through each of them in safety, as could those I loved. The wards protected us now. The wards were what kept the darkness away.
And the world had been dark. The roses had trembled to tell me all of it. Aoife’s purges were a difficult phenomenon to halt. We would stop her troops in one place, and come back a month later to find that some pious little villager had decreed against their neighbour and started the whole cycle of fear and retribution again. It takes time to change a cultural shift like that.
Every time I saw it, and I saw it often, I hated Aoife more, for waking this dormant hatred in people. Oisin tried to tell me that it was human nature, but I couldn’t hate human nature, so I directed my anger against Aoife. She was dead. It couldn’t hurt her anymore. If I directed my anger at the pious little villager who put their neighbour in the stocks, I might become worse than Aoife had ever been.
Aine was now the Queen, but she styled herself neither Dark nor White. There was no battle raging among the Thousand Counties anymore. The Dark King ruled from Ce’Branna, and his daughter ruled from Rheged.
But it was taking time to change that on a local level, too. Most of the soldiers had cheered, packed up their things and gone home to their families. Some took new families back home with them and had a lot of explaining to do. Some hadn’t gone home, though. There were those who liked the life they’d been leading, liked the power they’d had over people. They roamed the forests now, hiring themselves out as mercenaries or living as thieves and vagabonds.
Aoife’s Dragon Guards were no more. As far as most people were concerned, they had never been. I made it clear that the Draceni would always be welcome in Ce’deira and once they’d huffed and puffed in their dragon forms a few times, it was remarkable how easily people accepted the new normal.
Three months later, and things were finally starting to feel normal again. Well, I say again, but this was like no normal I’d ever known. This was like the normal I’d read about in books.
I did a bit of work on the card catalogue with Jegu before breakfast, too keyed up to eat, because we were expecting visitors. When dawn finally broke, I went back to the tower where Umbra’s rooms were. There was a little room next to ours, and that was where David slept. When the baby came, David would be promoted to the room across the hall, but in the meantime I wanted him close.
I opened the door as quietly as I could. He was still asleep, the sunlight barely painting the wall across from his little bed. A wave of love rose within me. I loved this little boy so much. I would do anything for him. I sat on the edge of his bed and stroked his cheek.
‘Time to wake up, darling,’ I murmured. ‘Big day today.’
He opened his eyes. It was like looking into the sunrise. His smile broke like the dawn and he opened his eyes and cried in delight, ‘Mummy!’
I got David ready and took him down to breakfast. I used some of Sparrow’s patented techniques to pretend I was eating when I could hardly swallow a bite. The roses outside the dining room couldn’t shut up.
The roses were excited to tell me about it and I was excited to hear. It wasn’t often
we had good news these days. Aine was coming from Rheged. Andras and Gwydion were coming from Ce’Branna. And they had a surprise for me. They promised I’d like it, so I let them have their exciting secret.
To be honest, I couldn’t stand much more excitement. I couldn’t settle to anything, so I went out into the grove, walking along, holding David’s little hand. He liked to hold hands with his Mummy. He liked to hold hands with Daddy, too, swinging when I held his hand on one side and Caradoc on the other.
The forestmaids were all abuzz, calling congratulations to me and sharing times in their own lives when they’d known the same nervous energy that was making my hands shake like they never had when I was facing down an evil Queen. They helped. By the time we’d walked the length of the grove, I was reassured that my nerves were normal, and that if I didn’t stop freaking out, one of them was going to hit me upside the head.
That was Willow. Can’t trust her.
I turned to walk back to the fortress and came face to face with Oisin. Instead of saying, ‘Hello!’ or ‘Good morning!’ or ‘How lovely to see you!’ I said, ‘Shit, Oisin, warn me next time!’
I am such a role model. David went, ‘Ooohhh.’
Oisin and Niamh laughed. They laughed a lot these days. Oisin had gone back to his peripatetic life. Niamh went with him. They came and went sometimes, usually coming through some secret door I didn’t know existed. Their hound accompanied them, learning obedience. They had named him Killian, a name close to his old name, but I liked it. It meant “puppy.” Kiaran would have died a thousand deaths before being called Puppy.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s go say hello to your mother.’
Grainne wasn’t surprised, but then, she never was. She never told me how she knew he was coming. Even the forestmaids and watermaids couldn’t see Oisin before he wanted to be seen and he took great pleasure in popping up unexpectedly. We had a big platform carved out of the mountains, so the dragons had a safe place to land. Didn’t stop Oisin sneaking in.
Grainne invited me to sit next to her. Oisin was her son, but I was her favourite. We were friends, apparently, from long ago. Oisin was old enough to remember Umbra, although he hadn’t known her well. Grainne had. She knew Umbra well. She knew Umbra well enough to know that she knew me well.
I begged her not to tell anyone and Grainne was no gossipy rose. She could keep her secrets. I was glad.
I wasn’t ready to be Umbra yet.
I let David sit on my lap and snuggle. There was a lot going on today and he wanted to know that he was still the centre of my thoughts. So, I let him cuddle and snuggle and wished that time would stop because happiness like this was nearly unbearable.
The watermaids were so excited when the visitors arrived that they formed a massive waterspout, high enough that we could see them from the balcony of the tower and the moat was probably dry. We all went downstairs to meet them.
Aine was in the entry. She opened her arms to me with a glad cry. ‘Emer, you’re showing!’
I laughed, because I could laugh about these things now, and pulled my dress tight across my body to show off my tiny, tiny bump. I hadn’t even felt the baby move yet, but it should be any day now.
Gwydion was there, too, his face bright, engulfing me in a bear hug. Andras was beside him and clasped my hand warmly. ‘Emer, I’m so glad to see you. You look radiant.’
I couldn’t stop the grin. I knew it was true. ‘I’ve never been happier,’ I said and Andras’s eyes flashed warm, just for me, just for a moment.
‘I’m glad,’ he said, and squeezed my hand again before letting go. He bent to pick up the little boy by his side. He clung to his father and their dark heads rested together for a moment, identical heavy locks of hair blending.
‘Are you Kiaran?’ I asked, as if I needed to ask. Andras didn’t know what happened to his son in my own time. It would break his heart to learn what Kiaran had become. He didn’t know that older Kiaran was currently the hound that frisked at Oisin’s feet. This child had another chance, just as my Sparrow did. He had love in his life now. He had the best chance.
‘You have another visitor!’ Aine exclaimed, bouncing up and down a little bit in her excitement.
‘I know!’ I cried, mimicking her action.
Her face fell. ‘You know?’
‘I don’t know who it is,’ I clarified. ‘I know the roses are very excited about it, though.’
‘The roses?’
I’d forgotten for a moment that she didn’t share my daily conversations with the souls trapped in the grounds. ‘The forestmaids,’ I explained. I tried to be upbeat, to show her that I was still excited. ‘They’ve been talking about nothing else but my surprise visitor!’
‘Really?’
‘Really!’
The door to the entry opened again, pulled by the Wild Ones who were now Aine’s honour guard. Leaning heavily on his stick, but smiling broadly, was the Dark King.
‘Grandfather!’ I exclaimed, and ran to meet him. I threw my arms around him and wasn’t able to contain my tears. ‘You came! But it’s such a long journey! You said you were going to send Gwydion to be your representative.’
He wiped my tears away. ‘My dear granddaughter. How could I possibly miss your wedding?’
So, naturally, I cried again, because that’s what brides do.
Aine helped me get ready, along with Sparrow and Rhiannon. Aine insisted that she do my hair, since she was the only one who had ever had a lady’s maid.
I told her that wasn’t true. I’d had a lady’s maid, briefly, once, when I first became the Bach Chwaer. I don’t think I was very convincing, and it didn’t make her put down the hairbrush.
When my hair was coiled into an impossibly large rose on the back of my head, loose tendrils framing my face in a way that was beautiful, but bound to become very, very annoying, Aine finally lowered the brush.
She burst into tears.
We all crowded around her, because that’s what you do when someone cries. I’m learning these things now.
‘What is it?’ we asked. ‘What?’ and ‘Are you all right?’
‘It’s my daughter’s wedding day!’ Aine wailed.
And then I was in tears. It wasn’t often she referred to me as her daughter and it got me every time, right in the feels. So, I put my arms around her and she buried her face in my swelling belly and sobbed.
The wedding was grand. It had to be. I’d told Caradoc I’d rather run down to the old throne room and have the ceremony performed by a watermaid, but he’d assured me I wouldn’t be allowed. I was the Bach Chwaer. I was the granddaughter of a King, the daughter of a Queen. I was not going to be allowed to elope.
So, I walked down the centre of the great hall in a sleek blue dress, because I wasn’t going to wear white. If I wore white, I’d look like Aoife, which was a thing not to be borne.
Caradoc waited for me at the end of the room, Jegu standing behind him ready to perform the ceremony. I promised a bunch of things. He promised a bunch of things. Then we kissed politely in front of all our friends and tried to pretend it wasn’t weird.
Even the party afterwards was probably a bit formal for my taste. We gathered in the banquet hall and stuffed ourselves with food the like of which Ce’deira hadn’t seen in five hundred years, or so Grainne assured us. I drew the line at speeches, so we gutsed ourselves without interruption. Andras stood up at one stage, glass in hand. I glared at him, and he ignored me.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, to the bride and groom!’ He smiled happily and I kind of smiled back a bit. Maybe a toast wasn’t too bad. It didn’t interrupt the food, so I allowed it.
The dancing was nice. We often had dancing at Ce’deira. Many of the Librarians were accomplished musicians, so we never lacked for music.
After all of it, though, Caradoc and I slipped away. We weren’t going anywhere, so there was no point having a big goodbye. Our friends and family came with us. We’d planned this, ever since Caradoc first got down o
n one knee and proposed.
We took some food in picnic baskets, because having stuffed ourselves like gluttons, we were probably going to be hungry again in three minutes, and made our way to a secret spot. There was a curve in the river, where it turned and became the moat. The water pooled and made a lake large enough that the water was relatively still. The watermaids avoided it because it was boring.
Watermaids are all about the thrill.
The lake was a clear blue, surrounded by high mountains with a grassy bank on one side. We played, rather than swam. Caradoc splashed through the water, making everyone wet, and making David, sitting securely on his shoulders, squeal in delight. Aine swum decorously in the deeper water. Gwydion and Andras took turns trying to drown each other. Rhiannon and Sparrow danced, scooping up the water and throwing it in glittering arcs as part of the dance.
My grandfather looked on from the bank, young Kiaran sitting next to him, avidly listening to the old man’s stories. Eventually, we all stretched out on the bank, Caradoc embracing me, with David sandwiched between us, snoring as loud as only a very small boy can snore. I stared into Caradoc’s eyes. The sun was warm on my skin. All the people I loved were here.
Andras had asked me once, what it would take for me to be happy. I’d thought of this moment, but it was even better than I’d dreamed.
‘I’m so happy,’ I said. ‘I love you.’
We kissed, leaning carefully over David’s sleeping form. Inside me, beneath Caradoc’s caressing hand, I felt the baby move for the first time.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning, I woke up early. I stared out into the dark, Caradoc’s bulk warm and solid beside me. The sound of his breathing was steady and regular. I felt warm and safe and comfortable. For the first time in months, neither of us had nightmares. I snuggled next to my husband and took time to just enjoy lying next to him.
