“I want it to be the first. So much easier for both of us.”
“But is it?”
She shut her eyes. “I’m so in love with you. I fell in love with you before I met you. In dreams, in drawings. Then there you were, and part of me just wanted to fall at your feet and beg.”
“You beg from no one.” He caught her face in his hands. “You beg for nothing.”
“I dreamed of you, and I’m here with you. And that’s so much more than I ever expected to have.”
“Woman, you can infuriate me. Would you settle for so little?”
“To take more than you’d ever expected isn’t settling.”
“Bollocks to that.” He grabbed her hand, pressed it to his heart. “Damned if it’s just words for you. Feel it. Feel what I feel. Know it. Don’t argue with me,” he said before she could. “I’ve opened to you. Now feel what I feel.”
She might have resisted, tried to block, but he pushed—and her own heart wanted so much to know. It flowed from him, into her. The love. Soft and generous, fierce and determined, powerful and weak. A vow as yet unspoken.
All she felt for him echoed back—him to her.
“You love me.” She let out a half laugh, lifted his hand to her heart. “You love me. You love me.”
“A phrase spoken three times is powerful magick. I suppose now I’ll have to. I love you—and now you have the words as well. What I feel, what you know is only yours. No one before, and for always. Yours.
“The moment I saw you, I wanted. That’s the spark. And when I had you, I wanted only more. That’s the binding. But the love, and all it means, came in a dozen ways.”
“I need to . . .” She wrapped her arms around him, pressed her face to his shoulder as everything she felt, he felt, twined together inside her like braided rope. “Hold on. To you, to this, to this exact moment. Whenever I’m sad or afraid, I can bring it back, and be here.”
“Whenever you’re sad or afraid, I’ll be there. This moment, and all the ones after.” He drew her back to look in her eyes. “Love is a serious business for me, fáidh. A serious and lasting business. I give you my oath, heart and body, love, loyalty, and fidelity. They’re yours, first and last.”
It stopped her heart, stopped it so it could beat stronger again. Not only love, she realized, but a pledge. He pledged himself to her.
“Will you give me yours?”
She thought she’d known joy, but here was joy with a promise. “Yes, I give you my oath, heart and body, love, loyalty, and fidelity. They’re yours, first and last.”
When he kissed her, the promise shone through it, bright as the stars.
He left her before the hour was up. Even amid joy came duty. She dressed for her vision, for the storm she knew would come. If not tonight, then soon. When it came, when Bran brought it, she would be with him, on the promontory, with the wind, the fierce lightning and pelting rain.
It would be enough; whatever they did would be enough. She believed it. And accepted, if she was wrong, and their best wasn’t enough, she’d known the true depth of love.
As she put on her hiking boots she considered her own preparations. She’d keep the crossbow close, within reach, and with a quiver full of bolts. The knife Bran had given her would be, from now on, sheathed on her belt.
If there was time, she’d practice—hand-to-hand, the damn push-ups, pull-ups, the tumbling. She’d practice until she was strong and quick. And she would open herself to visions—and that uneasy connection with Nerezza.
With some regret, she picked up her sketch pad. The time she’d given to her art had to wait now as she filled it with other things, immediate things.
But when she started to tuck it away, she found herself reaching for a pencil.
Open, she thought again, because something was pushing at her mind, something pushed to get in.
No, she realized. Something pushed for freedom.
She gave herself to it, stepped outside, in the light, propped the book on her easel. She heard voices below, battle plans and strategies, maneuvers and deceptions. For now, she closed them off, let the door open inside her.
Quickly, confidently now, she began to sketch what formed in her mind.
When it faded, her arm trembled with fatigue and the light had softened toward evening. She stepped back to stare not at a sketch but a painting. Her sketches littered the terrace floor, but on the easel stood a finished painting of an island of rough hills and bold flowers, of steep streets where buildings climbed and trees spread. And three crags rose out of the sea near it like guards on watch.
“Here.” Bran stepped toward her, held out a glass. “Drink this.”