Chapter Twenty-Four
I said yes.
Of course I said yes.
There was no priest constantly stationed on Unkea, one of the few benefits of the place. So we didn’t officially marry, but we did make vows before the rest of the men, signifying everything that mattered to us.
“Ang?” I said as we lay in bed some hours later, sated and recovered.
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
His chuckle bubbled from a place of joy. “I love you too. I’ve loved you since the moment you slipped off Dora holding a tiny bundle of energy determined to shake this fortress to its foundations.”
“Oh, come on. Fin wasn’t that bad.”
“Bad?” Ang said. “He was exactly what this place needed. He was exactly what I needed. What I needed to remind me that there is a world outside of this storm-drenched island fortress worth fighting for, and that the control that has been my watchword my entire life sometimes has to go.”
“As long as you’re letting it go in the empty corner of the room, that’s grand.” We both laughed at that. That corner was scorched top to bottom by then.
“The scarf,” I said a few heartbeats later.
He frowned and turned to me. “What about it?”
“When I saw it, I thought of you. When I gave it to you, I realised I was giving you my heart along with it. I resisted it for the longest time, I know. I was foolish to do so, but I wasn’t ready to admit what I felt, what I was. But that was when I knew.”
“You’ve admitted it now. That’s what matters,” Ang told me softly. “In fact, you’ve declared it to the whole fortress.”
As if they hadn’t all known, anyway. “I only wish Fin could have been with us for the ceremony.”
“One day we are going to have to make it official, and he’ll be there for that.” He leaned over and kissed me. “We’ll make sure of it.”
For a while, we lay in silence. But even with him idly stroking his fingers over my shoulder, I knew his mind was working away.
“What’s wrong, Ang?”
He took a breath. “Forgive me, I have no wish to disturb you.”
“You promised to always be true to me, so tell me the truth. What’s bothering you?”
He sighed. “The idea that all this is happening because fifteen years ago, a five-year-old said something blasphemous.”
“It wasn’t blasphemy, it was fact. And it wasn’t one five-year-old, it was two. And I corroborated it. Because I saw it too. Besides, that’s not really what this is about.”
“No, I suppose not.”
I shifted up onto my elbow to look down at him. “If Llwydadain calls on us, will you answer?”
He turned and looked me in the eye. The answer wasn’t immediate because he always considered his answers. “I do not believe it is a case of if, but of when. And when we are called, we will do what we always do. We will do our duty. Together.”
* * *
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If you want to know more about what happened to Fin Segast during his time in Rhastac, A Bond of Flame and Silence, is coming soon.