Chapter 3 #3
Continued distraction was in order. Fieran nudged Merrik with an elbow. “Is it weird, still calling my dacha Uncle Farrendel while you’re courting Adry?”
“A little, yes.” Merrik shrugged, breathing out a light chuckle.
“That is something we are still sorting out. It is too soon to claim him as Dacha yet, especially while he and my dacha are in the same room. That would get confusing for everyone involved. But he is too much family to take a step back to call him Amir or General.”
And perhaps this was why Merrik courting Adry was both complicated and strangely simple. Merrik was family already.
When he, Merrik, and Pip crested the rise, Adry was waiting for them, pacing in the grassy space between the rise and the elven officer quarters, where she had a room. As soon as Adry’s and Merrik’s gazes met, a smile burst across Adry’s face. A glance at Merrik beside him showed a similar smile.
Pip leaned closer to Fieran and whispered, “They’re so cute together.”
“Yes.” Fieran hadn’t realized how often Merrik and Adry had gravitated toward each other until he’d searched his memory. The signs had been there. He’d simply missed them.
Adry hurried toward them, taking Merrik’s hand and whispering something to him. He smiled back, their pace slowing.
Fieran shared a glance with Pip and hurried ahead.
Two elven guards, neither of them Uncle Iyrinder, guarded the door. They nodded to Fieran, stepping aside to give him and Pip more room, as Fieran knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Dacha’s voice called from inside.
Fieran opened the door. He would have gone inside, but Pip remained rooted to the spot, her eyes wide. He leaned closer. “Breathe, Pip.”
She shuddered in a breath and muttered something that sounded almost like I can do this.
“Could you hold the door?”
Fieran glanced over his shoulder, then hurried out of the way, holding the door open. He tugged Pip out of the way as well, since she was still shaking off her hero-worship paralysis.
Uncle Iyrinder approached, carrying a chair. He nodded to them before he walked inside.
Fieran rested a hand between Pip’s shoulder blades, his other arm crooked at an awkward angle since Pip had a death grip on it, and steered her inside.
In the main room of Dacha’s suite, Uncle Iyrinder set the chair down next to the small table.
Dacha adjusted one of the other chairs, as if attempting to create more space.
But with four chairs around a table designed for two and one side of the table pulled up to the cushioned bench set into the wall for the final two seats, they would be rather crowded.
Dacha’s silver-blond hair lay long down his back and around the hilts of his swords. When he turned to face Fieran, there were shadows beneath his eyes, his mouth set in a grim line.
And the look in his eyes…it had Fieran halting, wondering if perhaps this wasn’t a great night for a large family dinner. The set of Dacha’s shoulders was somewhere between hard and fragile.
But then Merrik and Adry piled into the room after them, and there was no chance to duck out and call the dinner off.
After a few minutes of awkward shuffling, everyone squished into seats around the table.
Adry and Merrik took the cushioned bench with Pip in the chair next to Adry.
Fieran sat on the other side of Pip with his dacha on the other side of him.
Uncle Iyrinder took the last chair between Dacha and Merrik.
With the table so small, all of them were basically elbow to elbow, everyone’s feet and knees knocking into each other.
“Well, this is cozy.” Adry nearly elbowed Pip as she grabbed one of the covered dishes.
Merrik reached beneath the table, a moment later straightening with his prosthetic foot in hand. He tucked it onto the bench next to him. “One less foot to worry about.”
His joking tone didn’t fully hide the edges of pain lingering around his eyes.
Fieran shifted on his chair until he was only half on the seat. To most of those around the table, it probably looked like he just wanted to get closer to Pip. But he met Merrik’s gaze across the table and tilted his head toward the open spot he’d created.
Merrik nodded, and a moment later he propped his left foot on the chair beside Fieran where he could elevate the ankle after their long day of walking.
Beside Fieran, Pip had shrunk small onto her chair, as if hiding. On Fieran’s other side, Dacha was stiff and silent. This was going to be one long, awkward meal if Fieran and Adry couldn’t spark some kind of conversation.
“Look at these bracers Adry, Merrik, and I got in the market. Well, Adry and Pip got them. Merrik and I were given them.” Fieran held out his arm to show off his new bracer to Dacha.
Dacha made a small noise of approval in the back of his throat as he examined the bracer on Fieran’s arm. “The dwarves do excellent work.”
“Perhaps we will need to venture into Defense City ourselves if we get the chance.” Uncle Iyrinder glanced at the bracers Merrik was wearing.
Dacha made another noise in the back of his throat, part agreement, part discomfort. As if he wasn’t sure he wanted to agree and lock himself into a commitment.
But the conversation had broken the ice somewhat, and laughter and talking took over between the clink of forks and knives on the plates.
Fieran took in the table, squished as it was, and he could imagine this scene after the war. His family gathered around the much larger table at Treehaven, yet with Pip and Merrik added to their numbers.
It was strange, getting used to his family expanding and growing like this. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.