Chapter 2
Tonight the great hall smells strongly of roasted venison and spring flowers, narcissus and primrose scattered about the tables in a declaration of the season turning, and the fire in the hearth is lower than it has been all winter.
Evran is sitting to Vaike's right the way he always does now, his plate half-empty because no matter how many times Eira urges him to try the candied turnips he cannot stomach them, and there is a cup of honeyed mead warming his hands.
The noise of the evening meal has grown softer as the hours have worn on, and the low rumble of conversation at his back feels like the sound of a hard day's work finally coming to a close.
Vaike's large hand is on the back of his neck, resting there the way it always does after he has finished a meal and settled into his chair to listen to the chatter at the table.
His palm is warm and broad, the fingers resting just below the line of Evran's hair, which he has worked studiously to keep at a reasonable length despite the fact that Leona keeps urging him to grow a braid to his knees.
Vaike's thumb is tracing an absent circle against the knob of his spine, comforting and proprietary.
It is one of the things Evran thought he would grow accustomed to and stop noticing, the way you stop noticing your own breathing, but instead the weight of it registers every time and sends a quiet thrill down his ribs.
Six months, and the press of that hand still undoes him. He suspects it always will.
He is thinking about finishing his mead and heading to the library when Bran pushes back from the bench across the table and clears his throat.
The sound carries across the hall and earns him at least half the room's attention, whether he intended it or not.
Bran does not need to raise his voice to command a room, largely because the room has a healthy respect for the sheer size of him.
He is tall and broad, thick through the chest and arms, with a face accented by meaningful tattoos that spiral down his jaw and neck, and bright eyes that see everything.
When Bran clears his throat, people listen.
Whether or not they heed his words is another matter entirely.
"Right then," Bran says, and his voice is deep and full, the tone that preempts good news rather than bad.
He plants his forearms on the table and leans forward, and the bench creaks beneath him.
"I've been putting this off because I was hoping someone else might bring it up, but since the lot of you are content to eat and drink and pretend the cycle of time doesn't exist... "
"Here we go," Leona mutters from beside him, not looking up from her plate.
Bran grins. The grin transforms his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes and making him look ten years younger, carrying the unrepentant delight of a boy caught in a scheme. "The Gathering of Clans is nearly upon us."
There is a shift in the hall that is not dramatic, because the Drakkari people are not known for theatrics, but it is noticeable all the same.
Heads that were not already turned find Bran from across the room and conversations pause.
Kellin, seated at the next table over, sets his cup down with a quiet thunk that sounds loud in the absence of voices.
"We'll be traveling soon," Bran continues, and now his tone has settled into something more official, though the warmth never leaves it.
He leans back and spreads his hands. "Heldrin's End is on the other side of the mountain.
The council convenes in just over a week, which means we ride in three days if we want to arrive with any dignity and not looking like we crawled across the mountain on our bellies. "
Evran glances at Vaike. His Warlord is watching Bran with a steady expression that, as usual, is difficult to read.
The hand on Evran's neck has not moved, but the thumb that was tracing circles against his skin has gone still, and that small absence tells Evran a great deal without Vaike saying anything at all.
It means that whatever this is, it is important.
Vaike touches Evran absently the way other men breathe, and when that touch goes still it means his attention has narrowed to a point.
"Preparations will begin immediately," Bran says, looking around the hall with the easy assurance of thorough preparation.
"Leona and I will ride ahead with the advance guard with the Warlord's retinue following.
We'll need the mountain horses saddled and the eastern stores packed.
I trust I don't need to tell anyone how to do their jobs. "
He pauses, and the grin returns. "But if I do, Leona will be happy to remind you."
Leona smiles easily at his joke. She is a lean woman, older than Bran but aging more gracefully, sharp-featured and steel-eyed.
Her brown hair is adorned with ornaments and braided around her head, the way she has been wearing it since the weather started to pretend to be warmer, and she has been a constant in Evran's life during his time with the Drakkari.
Her presence, her guidance, and her comfort have always felt motherly in a way he would never tell her under penalty of death, but always privately thinks about.
There is something about the way she watches him that reminds him of no one in his own family, an attentiveness that expects nothing in return, and the absence of any precedent for it in his life only makes it more precious.
"I would be more than happy," Leona says pleasantly.
Bran laughs, loud and unrestrained, and reaches over to clap her on the shoulder.
She gives him a fond, patient look and the hall resumes its noise.
Bran begins talking logistics with the stablemaster, something about supply carts and the condition of the northern pass, and Leona is already marking something in the journal she carries constantly.
Evran turns to Vaike.
"The Gathering of Clans," he says. He has heard the name before, in passing, in the way one hears about distant events that do not concern them directly.
He knows it is important and he knows they must travel to reach it.
Beyond that, his understanding is thin, built from scraps of overheard conversation and the general sense that it matters deeply to the people around him even if no one has thought to explain it to the outsider in their midst.
Vaike takes a drink of his mead and sets the cup down. "Every three years, the clans come together to discuss the things that keep us alive. Trade agreements. Military alliances. Political matters." He pauses. "Marriages."
Evran's stomach flips. The word sits between them, heavy with implications that Vaike has placed there deliberately, because Vaike does not say things by accident.
Evran can feel his pulse quicken and forces himself to keep his expression neutral, to not react to the word or the weight behind it until he understands what it means.
"It's held at Heldrin's End," Vaike continues, "in the territory of the Rendari clan. They host. They arbitrate. The other clans bring their delegations and their disputes, and for two weeks we eat their food, drink their mead, and try not to kill each other."
"That sounds very diplomatic of you."
Vaike's mouth twitches. The movement is subtle and brief, the closest thing to a smile he allows himself in the great hall where anyone might see it, and Evran treasures it the way he treasures all of Vaike's small, private expressions, cataloging them in a collection he keeps close.
"It is an honor to attend," Vaike says. "The Warlords bring their inner councils, their warriors, their families." He turns his head and looks at Evran fully, and the firelight catches the hard planes of his face, the strong jaw and expressive eyes. "I want you by my side."
The words land in the center of Evran's chest and spread outward, certain and bright.
He feels them settle into the spaces between his ribs and take root there, feels the way they reshape something inside him that he had not realized needed reshaping.
Vaike says things plainly and without artifice, and the simplicity of it is what makes it so important.
He does not say I would like you to come or it would be appropriate for you to attend.
He says I want you by my side, and the want in those words carries the weight of everything Vaike is, everything he has built, everything he has chosen.
Evran opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
"Of course," he says, and he means it honestly, even as a small anxious thing stirs in his belly and begins to uncurl. "I'd be honored to go."
Vaike nods once, as though the matter is settled, which for him it probably is. Vaike does not agonize over decisions. He makes them and moves forward, and the world arranges itself accordingly, or learns very quickly that it should.
Leona's voice cuts in from across the table, and when Evran looks up, she is watching him with twinkling eyes. "It will be your first time going through the mountains."
"It will be," Evran agrees.
Her expression softens, the steel in her gaze giving way to something gentler. "Spring is the most beautiful time to see them. The snowmelt feeds the rivers and the wildflowers come up in the passes. It's a hard ride, but a good one."
Evran smiles at her. "I'm looking forward to it."
Bran catches Evran's eye from across the table and beams at him, his whole face lit up with genuine, uncomplicated delight that makes it impossible not to smile back.
"You'll love it, lad! Heldrin's End sits in the greenest valley you've ever seen.
Farmland stretching out for miles, air so clean it'll make your lungs ache.
The Rendari know how to host, I'll give them that.
" He taps the side of his nose conspiratorially. "And their ale is not half bad."