Where Light Meets Shadow (19 page)

Through the mind-link, Alban told
him,
It’s
a long story. And a delicate one.
Too much for the mind-link.
And then a brush of concern.
Are you happy?

Is this real?

Beneath the table, Alban squeezed
his hand.
Yes.

Then I am happy.

The feasting was done, and the
time came finally for them to rise and leave together for the bedchamber. By
tradition, he and Alban would leave before the rest of the guests would depart.
Kieran felt a little shy suddenly. It was one thing to slip off with a barmaid
for a quick tumble, another entirely to have the entire hall watch him depart,
knowing that he left to consummate his marriage.

He took his leave of Brona first.
He bowed to her as was appropriate to her new station, but she shook her head
and pulled him in for an embrace. “Be happy,” she whispered in his ear. “Be
good to each other.”

At the exit to the hall, Toryn
stopped them. “May I have a word with Kieran?”

He couldn’t really refuse, though
his stomach knotted with trepidation. He was now bound to this family for the
rest of his life. Whatever Toryn had to say to him, best get it over with now.

He walked with Toryn to a quiet
corner a little distance away.

Then Toryn smiled. “I never could
have imagined that night when my son brought a stray Scathlan in out of the
snow that we would find ourselves here.”

“And had you known, would you
have tossed me back out into the snow to die?” Kieran tried for levity, but his
insecurity found its way into his voice.

“No,” Toryn said softly, gently.
“I am well pleased with the way things turned out. Not only for the peace
between the two kindreds of elves, but for Alban. If I did not think the two of
you well-matched, I would not have agreed to this union. I am proud to welcome
you into our family.”

Kieran felt a lump in his throat.
He had never hoped for such acceptance, hadn’t realized how much it would mean
to him.

“Your pardon, my lord. But no one
will tell me how all this came about, or even what exactly it all means. Well,
except for the obvious.” He flushed as he glanced across the room to where
Alban stood talking to his mother.

“I apologize that we were not
able to bring you into the planning, or at least warn you,” Toryn said. “There
were some internal Scathlan politics Brona had to balance. She felt this would
all only work if sprung as a surprise. The how and the why are too much to go
into here. I’ll leave that to my son to explain to you when there is time. He
and Brona planned this out mostly on their own, then brought it to me for my
blessing. As to the what, I’m sure you have enough history and lore to know
what a proxy wedding is.”

“Yes, but in the past the
motivations were—”

“Quite different, I know. But the
form remains the same. Brona will still rule the Scathlan, and is free to love
where she will, though her chosen will be her consort, not her husband and
king, because of the proxy tie made today. In all other senses, in every sense
that matters, your union to my son is a marriage like any other. In the
fullness of time, the rule of the Leas will pass to Alban, and you will sit at
his right hand. Since there can be no issue from your union, any children Brona
produces with her consort will be heir to both thrones.”

“Will your people accept that?”

Toryn sighed. “By the Grace, I
hope so. Many, many years will have passed before that part of the plan is put
to the test. We can hope that by then your generation has succeeded in
reuniting the two kindreds so thoroughly that there will be no reason for
objection. It would help if Brona’s consort were a Leas, but I’ve learned my
lesson about proposing purely political unions. Although she and Sheary seemed
to get on quite well.”

Kieran grinned. Sheary, kind,
easy-going Sheary, would make a good match for his friend. And he was the one
Leas who might survive the Shadowed Lands, by virtue of ignoring enmity so
blithely that it evaporated under the force of his will.

“If I can do anything to put them
in the way of each other, I will. But will your people accept me now? They were
less than happy to have me first as your foundling and then your bard. I can’t
imagine that they’ll be overjoyed to find me wed to their prince.”

“It will not be easy,” Toryn
admitted. “Trodaire was not alone in his sentiments, as well you know. But you
have already won some over by offering up your own life for peace. The rest
will come around if you prove yourself honorable and true. The bardic healing
you bring to us will help.”

Kieran’s heart leapt, remembering
the joy and wonder of joining his music with Alban’s healing, of feeling the
very power of life pass through him, of feeling one with Grace. He remembered,
too, the dark mockery he had made of the knowledge he had gained through such
joining.

“You would let me do that again?”
he asked Toryn. “Knowing what I have done? What I am capable of doing?”

“You are by nature more a healer
than a killer. You have done nothing more than any might be capable of doing
under such circumstances. I hope you never face such a situation again.” He
laid a hand on Kieran’s shoulder. “Now, go and collect your husband.”

Kieran went to join Alban, who
stood talking with his mother. As he approached, she turned from her son to
catch Kieran’s hands.

“Your father would be so proud of
you,” she said.

A lump formed in his throat, and
he couldn’t speak.

She smiled in understanding.
“Welcome to our family. We’ve kept your harp safe. It’s waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

She squeezed his hands once, then
released them and stepped back.

Alban put a hand to the small of
his back.
Come, love, come to bed.
The wave of desire that accompanied
the thought sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. How had he ever thought of
Alban as an innocent?

Alban led him to a chamber in the
royal wing. Kieran would have to ask later how this whole proxy thing worked
and exactly where he fit in the status of things. For now, he would enjoy the
large chamber, warmed by the fire already started in the hearth and lit by an
abundance of candles already burning throughout the room. Garlands of flowers
decorated the canopied bed, giving their sweet fragrance to the night.

Alban closed the door behind them
and shoved Kieran against it, taking his mouth in a fierce, hungry kiss.

Then he broke off. “What you did
by surrendering yourself was the most incredibly brave, noble, selfless thing
I’ve ever seen anyone do. And if you do something that stupid ever again, I
swear I will kill you myself.”

Through the link, Kieran felt the
full depth of Alban’s grief and despair, the full weight of his love.

I’m sorry,
Kieran told
him.
I’m so sorry.

Alban’s love enveloped him.
Don’t
be.
He kissed him, tenderly, passionately, hands going to the laces of
Kieran’s tunic.

Alban led him to the bed, and
there stripped him, laid him bare, catalogued him with hands and mouth,
murmuring over weight lost, over the odd fading bruise where the guards had
been too rough.

Kieran tried to reciprocate,
wanting Alban’s bare skin against him, but Alban was intent and focused on his
own task, and so they ended up making breathless, desperate love with Alban
still half-dressed.

After their hearts and breaths
eased, Kieran slept, physically and emotionally exhausted.

He woke in the soft gray of
predawn. Alban lay stretched out on his side next to him, awake also, propped
up on his elbow, watching him. Kieran smiled at Alban, and traced a finger down
his nose, over his lips, along his neck before laying a hand on his chest, over
his heart, feeling the beat of it.

“I can’t believe we’re really
here,” Alban whispered.

“I can’t believe we’re here
either. You at least have the advantage of knowing how it happened.”

Alban kissed him gently. “I’m
sorry. You were asking all night. I should have told you the story as soon as
we were alone in this room.”

Kieran chuckled. “I think we both
had other priorities at the time.” He strained up to steal a quick kiss, then
dropped back to the bed. “But right now I’m tired enough that my curiosity has
overtaken my lust. So tell me, how is it that I became a royal bridegroom
instead of an executed prisoner?”

“It was all Brona’s idea. I was
wallowing in my grief, prepared to do nothing while you went to your death for
saving my life—”

Kieran put a finger to Alban’s
lips, silencing his self-recriminations. “I saw no other option myself at the
time, if you recall. Brona’s always been the clever one. So tell me how she
engineered this miracle.”

“She got the letter you sent her
via the mortal messenger in that first town we passed through. She saved your
father’s sword for you, by the way. I suppose she’ll restore it to you when there’s
time. She suspected even before then that there had to be more to the story.
She knows you too well to believe that you would have turned on your queen
unprovoked. And she suspected also that her mother and Riagan had been planning
something, as they spent far too much time before the meeting closeted for it
to be otherwise.

“Although Scathlan custom and law
made her queen after her mother’s death, it was in name only. Riagan used the
supposed
unprovoked murder of the queen to seize all real power. While your people were
no more eager than mine for a repeat of the last war, it seemed inevitable, and
Riagan convinced them that an untried girl was not the one to lead them through
it.

“When you surrendered, Riagan
tried to use that too, making it sound as though the Leas gave you up out of
fear of the army he’d brought to their borders. But Brona talked to the guards
who had been on duty that night, and found you had given yourself up
voluntarily. She guessed, based on what you had told her of your first stay
with us, that you had not been ordered to do so and hoped, not in vain, that we
were not happy with what you had done.

“Are all Scathlan as reckless as
you and your new queen?”

Kieran rolled to his side to face
Alban. “Why? What did she do?”

“She had her handmaid cover for
her, to give herself a day’s head start. She rode practically without rest,
traded twice with mortal farmers for fresh horses. By the time she arrived at
our gates, she was so exhausted she could barely stand.”

“What did she hope to accomplish?”
Kieran was stunned.

“She was offering herself to us
as a hostage for your safe return.”

Kieran drew a sharp breath in
surprise. “She gambled on a great many things. That you actually cared about my
safe return. That my assessment of your people and their honor was correct.
That the Scathlan didn’t decide she had turned traitor.”

Alban gave a soft chuckle.
“Reckless, as I said. Though you have little room to talk. And incredibly
brave. Also like you. Again, is this a trait of all your people?”

Kieran rolled, pushing Alban to
his back, and loomed over him. “Are all Leas amazing healers, kind to a fault,
and possessed of amazing natural talent in bed?”

Alban laughed. “I’ll ask you not
to do any comparative research on the latter, thank you.”

Kieran shifted his hips against
Alban’s. “My sampling days are done. I’ve found the one I want.”

Alban sobered. “Are you sure? We
gave you little choice in this. What you have said about love—”

“Was said before I fell deeply,
madly in love. Did I seem unsure to you last night?” Kieran bent down and
kissed Alban breathless. “Do you need another demonstration?”

Laughing, doubt gone from his
eyes, Alban pushed him off. “Later, or we’ll never get to the end of the tale.”

Kieran lay back. “Go on, then.”

He wasn’t fooled. He knew Alban’s
doubts would resurface, time and again. He cursed himself for the words he’d
spoken so long ago that gave foundation to the doubt, and vowed to prove
himself to Alban, again and again, until no doubt could remain.

“Brona already had some idea
about the proxy marriage. Apparently, she knew you and I were lovers.”

“I didn’t mean to tell her. She
figured it out just from hearing me talk about you. Do you mind?”

Alban laced the fingers of his
left hand in Kieran’s and kissed their wedding bands. “Does it look like I’m
trying to keep a secret?”

“So, the proxy marriage.” Kieran
said, to bring him back to the story.

“Was Brona’s idea at first,”
Alban said, then added quickly. “Not that I wasn’t wholeheartedly behind it.”

Kieran chuckled. “Yes. You rather
demonstrated your enthusiasm last night.”

Nice to know he could make his
new husband blush.

“There’s so much to explain, I
hardly know where to start,” Alban said. “Can I try something?”

“I liked everything you tried
last night.” Kieran deliberately pitched his voice low and smiled wickedly.

“Behave, or you won’t find out
what happened.” But Alban laughed as he said it, which had been Kieran’s true
goal—for now.

“I want to try something within
the mind-link,” Alban said.

Kieran fought the temptation for
further suggestive rejoinders—he really did want to know how his fortunes had
changed so drastically.

Alban stroked a finger over
Kieran’s wedding band as though he still couldn’t believe it was there. “If we
link deeply enough, and I focus hard enough, I think I can show you my
memories. If you want to try.”

Another way to be close to Alban.
Even if he weren’t desperate for the information, he would agree for that
reason alone.

Kieran pulled Alban into an
embrace and whispered in his ear, “Let’s try.”

Alban turned in his arms so that
they were comfortably spooned together, and linked them, taking them deeper and
deeper...

Until Kieran saw with Alban’s
memory Brona, sitting in a chair by the hearth in Alban’s room, a cloak he recognized
as Alban’s wrapped around her shoulders, warming her hands on a mug of tea.

“We could present the marriage as
though it was your people’s idea, part of the bargain for my return,” Brona
said.

He felt Alban’s appalled
embarrassment war with his reluctance to hurt her feelings. “Not that I’m not
flattered, your majesty, but my feelings for Kieran—”

She laughed lightly, and Kieran
and memory-Alban were both glad she had warmed enough for mirth, though
memory-Alban was still confused.

“At the last minute, when it is
too late for anyone to object without starting a war that most Leas and most
Scathlan want to avoid, I will present a proxy for the marriage.”

“Kieran,” Alban breathed. “But
will your people accept this?”

“Grace willing, I hope so. If they
see that I can forgive him my mother’s death, perhaps they will as well. I
think that many Scathlan realized that there was something not quite right with
their queen.”

Kieran felt memory-Alban’s
desperate hope, his desperate fear for him, and Kieran squeezed the real Alban
tight, sending a torrent of love through the link.

Brona spoke again in the memory.
“I just need to get my people behind the idea of the union, and the peace, to
get them behind me as a leader. I need that before I can challenge Riagan over
Kieran. And the more public that challenge, the better the chance of it
succeeding.”

She put down her tea mug.
Memory-Alban refilled it and urged her to eat something from the tray on the
small table beside them.

Alban, always the caretaker.
Kieran thought fondness through the link, and Alban squeezed his hand.

“The question is,” Brona
continued after finishing a bite. “Will the Leas accept it?”

“They will if we can convince my
father.”

The memory blurred and then
reshaped. Brona and Alban stood before Toryn in Toryn’s study. The Leas leader
looked tired and careworn. Shouldn’t he be relieved and happy? At that point in
time, the Leas had peace once more, and he was free of a troublesome bard his
people did not care for.

Toryn’s face went from surprise
when he realized who Brona was to thoughtfulness as Alban and Brona explained
their plan.

“I see,” Toryn said.

Kieran felt memory-Alban’s
nervousness and hope.

“There are some flaws in your
plan.”

Memory-Alban’s heart dropped to
his stomach.

“If the Scathlan think that we
have forced this alliance as a condition of returning their queen to them, they
may release Kieran to us, but there will hardly be a lasting peace. I suggest
that we align the public story a little more closely with the actual truth.”

Alban slipped them out of the
memory, and took them back to a lighter level of link. “Sorry, but that’s hard
to sustain. What your people know is that your queen, in the interest of a
lasting peace, bravely presented herself to the Leas as a hostage for the
return of their bard, so that she might have a chance to negotiate the
marriage. My father wisely realized this version would make the agreement more
palatable and the peace more sincere.”

“And your father, how does he
feel about all of this? On a personal level, I mean. I know he is glad for the
alliance. He was kind enough to me last night and welcomed me into the family,
but surely he must have hoped for more for you than a Scathlan stray of no rank
that you found wandering in the snow. Surely he must have hoped for
grandchildren?”

“Rank means less among the Leas
than it does to the Scathlan. My own mother came from what your people would
deem a family of no importance. And as for grandchildren, yes, I’m sure that’s
a loss to him, though he’s been kind enough not to say so. What matters to him
is that I am happy.”

Kieran pulled him close and
kissed him deeply, pressing their hips together so that Alban could feel his
renewed arousal, feeling Alban already hard against him.

“Then I will spend the rest of my life ensuring that you are
happy.”