Chapter Twenty-Five #4
“Your father is very wise,” Elle said, watching him lift her hand to kiss it reverently. “How could I leave you? We have a son coming in a few months. We have a life to live. I could not let you live it without me.”
He put his hand against her belly, on the heavy robe in between. “And he is well?” he said. “He has not suffered?”
Elle put her hand over his. “Pliny says that if he has survived my troubles, then there is every chance that he has not suffered,” she said. “I suppose we will find out.”
Curtis simply couldn’t speak anymore. He was overwhelmed.
He pulled Elle into his embrace, finally picking her up and carrying her back to bed, because he wasn’t comfortable with her sitting in the breeze of an open window.
Elle didn’t put up a fight, letting him do what he wanted to do.
She simply went along with it. But when he set her down on the bed, she finally noticed what he’d been holding in his hand the entire time.
She pointed.
“Is that honey bread?” she asked.
He shook his head, putting it behind him. “It is nothing.”
“Show me.”
“You must conserve your strength.”
Elle was lying back on the pillows, looking up at him. “Curtis?”
“Aye, my love?”
“Show me what is in your hand.”
With great reluctance, and fighting off a grin, he produced the honey bread with two big bites taken out of it. Dustin, who was back at Elle’s bedside now, put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as Elle sighed faintly.
“You promised not to lie to me again,” she said softly.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, knowing he was caught. “I did not lie to you,” he said. “I simply said that it was nothing at all.”
Elle shook her head at her guilty husband. “I am too weak to punish you, but know that when I am feeling better, my punishment shall be swift,” she said. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
He smiled and sat down on the bed next to her. “There is more of it in the kitchens that is untouched and waiting for you,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “The villagers brought it as a show of gratitude. They wanted you to know that they were praying for your swift recovery.”
After hearing that, of course she could not become angry. In fact, she was quite touched. “Will you bring me some of it?” she said. “I think I could eat something.”
That was a good sign, but Pliny put up a hand. “Broth for you, my lady,” he said. “You have not eaten in days. We must introduce food slowly so that your belly will become used to it again.”
Elle was disappointed, but she understood. “Very well,” she said. “May I have some broth, then?”
Pliny nodded, looking to Dustin, who grinned as she leaned over to kiss Elle on the forehead. “Of course, my love,” she said, stroking Elle’s blonde head. “I will fetch it for you. Welcome back. We have missed you.”
As she headed off to retrieve the broth, Curtis held Elle’s hand, smiling at her, still incredulous that he wasn’t dreaming this whole event. Elle smiled in return, caressing the big hand that held hers. He was holding her like he was never going to let go.
Ever.
Nor was she.
“You will have to tell me everything that happened since I’ve been… asleep,” she said softly. “How is Asa?”
Curtis squeezed her hand gently. “Much as you think he would be,” he said. “He is mourning Melly deeply. We all are.”
That brought tears to Elle’s eyes. “When I am feeling better, will you take me to her crypt?”
He leaned down and kissed her hand. “Of course, love,” he said. “As soon as you wish.”
Elle wiped at her eyes. “It will seem strange without her,” she said. “But she was happy when she went, Curt. That is very important to me. Melly spent so much of her life unhappy, but I know that here, with us, she was very happy.”
Curtis didn’t want her becoming emotional over Melusine and exhausting herself over something that she could not change. “Brython has been a happy place for me, too,” he said. “It brought me to you, and for that, it will always have my deepest fondness.”
“Even after Amaro’s rampage?”
“Even after.”
She watched his face, seeing that he was sincere.
“That is something we must strive to forget,” she said.
“I do not want it clouding what Brython has become to us. It was a terrible event, of course, but we have many happy things awaiting us here. A home and children. They will be born here, children of two worlds. Your father said that to me once.”
Curtis kissed her hand again. “He was right, in every way,” he said.
“I remember when he told me that I was to marry you, and I very nearly refused. He said something to me that seems more important now than it was then. He said that he had made his mark on the marches, and with my marriage to you, it was time for me to make my own mark. I knew what he meant, or at least I thought I did, but now I think I have it figured out.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled at her, putting her palm against his unshaven cheek. “I mean you,” he said softly. “It wasn’t that I was to make my mark on the marches. It was that you were to make your mark on me. You are the mark, Ellie. You are my mark. And you have given me a life I could have never imagined.”
It was a sweet thing to say. “Nor I,” she murmured. “Do you remember when we first met and I told you of the Otherworld? How the Welsh are waiting for our greatest prince to rise and free us from English tyranny?”
He grinned. “I do,” he said. “How Brython protects the gate to the Otherworld.”
She grinned because he was. “Prophecies are meant to give hope,” she said. “They are meant to give the downtrodden a reason to live, a reason to fight. I am not saying that it is a foolish legend, but I think that you have changed that prophecy.”
“How?”
“Because you have brought hope with you,” she said, her eyes glimmering with warmth. “You have given me a gift greater than any prophecy, greater than any army. You have given me yourself, Curtis de Lohr, and that is all I will ever need.”
Curtis leaned over her, touching his forehead to hers in a moment of complete and utter adoration.
The love he felt for her, and she for him, had propelled them beyond prophecies and armies.
It had moved them beyond English and Welsh.
Now, they were on a plane that few people achieved in their lifetimes.
Only the fortunate few would know what they knew.
That the phoenix of hope could rise from the ashes of hate, and that love was the only thing that mattered in the end.
For Curtis and Elle, it was their calling.
And yet another legend of a great and timeless love was born.