14. Chapter Fourteen #2
The sound of pipes greeted them as they descended the stairs. A lively fete was already in progress, and Tor smiled as he saw a particularly buxom and exuberant selkie topple into Glamorgan’s lap.
“Your aunt called me a barbarian? There seems to be a substantial lack of decorum here, and the panorama below bears more resemblance to my father’s drunken celebrations than I expected.”
Brunhild’s observation didn’t surprise him. Despite Arianrhod’s words to the contrary, the each uisge had never been proponents of decorum. “My aunt frequently overstate’s our kind’s concern with propriety,” he told her with a smirk and a shake of his head.
“It appears neither Glamorgan nor his companion give a fig for it.”
Indeed, they didn’t. His man at arms had the serving girl bent over his lap, his mouth perilously close to the cleavage the threatened to spill from her unlaced bodice. “They’ll not withstand the hall much longer,” he agreed.
His pronouncement rang true when Glamorgan swept the giggling woman over his shoulder and strode from the hall.
“I doubt he’ll be the last to abandon the festivities,” Brun said as her gaze scanned the boisterous, crowded hall. When she spied Mirren on the other side of the hall, she turned to her mate. “I haven’t spoken to Mirren in at least a month.”
“She and the rest of your company have been giving my men a trouncing every morning in the training yard,” he ruefully informed her.
Brun grinned widely. “Mayhap your soldiers have more to learn than you thought.”
“Mayhap,” he agreed with an answering grin, pressing his palm in the small of her back. “Go.”
Tor watched her sway between the lines of drunken revelers, her steps agile, until she reached her best friend. He turned away to refill his mead when a hand he knew well landed on his shoulder.
His father thumped him between the shoulder blades and clasped him in a solid embrace. " 'Tis good tae see ye, son.”
“I didn’t expect you to have returned from your sojourn.” Tor’s parents had journeyed north to visit their great nephews and nieces.
“We returned three days ago, and heard of the capture of your bride. Your mother insisted we make haste to welcome her home after her ordeal.”
“She doesn’t seem much changed, although her hatred for the kraken may now burn as hot as mine.”
“You will need those who understand your mission and your fight. so it is good she's now had firsthand exposure."
“Your counsel in this is invaluable, Father, just as it has been in everything. I don’t know what I would have done without it.”
“You would have muddled through and learned from your mistakes, just as I did. I came for reasons other than congratulations.”
“Has something happened?”
“Nay, but the world grows heavy on my shoulders and the coldness has settled in my bones. The time has come for me to say my farewells.”
Toran’s father had been alive for five millennia and guided their kingdom through most of it. Although he should have expected it, the news was like a blow to his chest. “What of mother?” He barely managed to scrape the question past the sudden lump in his throat.
Einor Bhaltair smiled fondly. “ I will make this journey alone. Your mother insists on staying until you have given her grandchildren.”
“She may be waiting an eternity.”
“She claim she has spoken to the selkie seeress and seen omens in her scrying pool. She will not be dissuaded and has bade me hold a place for her on the other side.”
“How will she occupy her time? Will she move back into the keep?”
His mother floated toward them and came to stand beside his father. “Aye, she will. Your kingdom has need of a proper bard to record its deeds.”
“She has been playing her harp again,” his father proudly said.
His mother swatted him lightly on the arm. “Lullabies require far less technical skill than a more formal composition.”
“Lullabies?”
“Aye, son. Lullabies. I have seen that your shield maiden’s womb will soon quicken.”
“There is barely civility between us,” Tor protested.
His mother raised a brow in disbelief. “Civility rarely has a place in the each uisge marriage bed, and I know you have claimed her because of the way your eyes followed when she left your side and the scar on her throat,” she said as she gestured toward Brunhild.
His mate was surrounded by her crew and several of the other warriors.
She was gesticulating wildly, and her audience was listening to her tale with rapt expressions.
If his wife had gleaned information during her imprisonment, and spoken with any of Cathassach’s spies that had infiltrated the Kraken court, she was likely planning an insurrection.
“Your wife is nothing like each uisge women, nor any human one I’ve met,” his father observed.
The observation snapped his attention back to his parents. “Nay, nothing like,” he agreed with a rueful smile.
“Despite your differences, the selkie seeress is convinced she is your soulmate, and that she is meant to save our kingdom. My foretelling is not as clear, but I know her presence here was orchestrated by Lir himself,” his mother pronounced.
“Is that an endorsement of my decision to ally myself to the Berserker clan?”
“Nay,” she scoffed. “It is an endorsement of your mate, not her origins. I believe she became the woman who has captured your heart despite her origin and upbringing, because she was never meant to flourish there.”
Tor raised a brow, silently prompting her to elaborate.
“She keeps her softness well-hidden, tempered by her steel. She is your match in every way and equally captivated. Every time you look away, her eyes land on you.”
Tor wanted to rub his fist over his heart to quell the restless kernel of hope that stirred at his mother’s observation. “We have made our peace in the marriage berth, but the accord we have found there doesn’t extend beyond our bedroom walls.”
His father shook his head at Tor’s blunt admission, and his mother laid a hand on his sleeve.
“I think she would be amenable to more, and I think it is worth the risk to find out. Your father and I are retiring to begin the preparations that must be made for his final voyage, and we bid you good night so you may have the freedom to woo your wife.”
The weight of his father’s hand landed unexpectedly on his shoulder. “I doubted the wisdom of an alliance with the berserker chief and his kind, but you have proven me wrong. I think Brunhild Ranulfsdottir is one of the wisest choices you’ve made and I believe her heart loyal to none but you.”
Tor twisted to follow his father’s gaze, which rested thoughtfully on his maddening wife.
Her back was turned to them, but she glanced over her shoulder as if she’d felt the weight of his perusal.
When their eyes met, something powerful resonated between them.
Something that went beyond the desire they sparked in one another and hooked itself like a barb in his heart.