“As long as they don’t shoot the home team,” Glenna finished. “There isn’t much time left to train, but it’s worth the try.”
“Fire, aye,” Moira agreed. “It’s a strong weapon—stronger yet coming from the air. A pity you can’t charm the sun onto the tip of an arrow, Glenna, then this would be done.”
“I’m going to see if I can move Larkin along.” Blair got to her feet, hesitated. “You know, my first time, I was seventeen. The guy, he was in a hurry, and left me thinking at the end: So this is it? BFD. Something to be said for being initiated by someone who knows what he’s doing, and has a sense of style.”
“There is.” Moira’s smile was slow and satisfied. “There certainly is.” She sensed Blair and Glenna exchange another look over her head, so continued to drink her tea as Blair left the room.
“Do you love him, Moira?”
“I think there’s a part of me, inside me, that’s waited all my life to feel what I feel for him. What my mother felt for my father in the short time they had. What I know you feel for Hoyt. Do you think I only imagine it’s love because of what he is?”
“No, no, I don’t. I have strong, genuine feelings for him myself. They have everything to do with who he is. But, Moira, you know you won’t be able to have a life with him. That is because of what he is. What neither of you can change any more than the sun can fly on an arrow.”
“I listened to everything he and Blair have told us about…we’ll say his species.” And read, Moira thought, countless volumes of fact and lore. “I know he’ll never age. He’ll be forever as he was in that moment before he was changed. Young and strong and vital. I will change. Grow old, frailer, gray and lined. I’ll have sickness, and he never will.”
She rose now to walk to a window and the slant of sunlight. “Even if he loved as I love, it’s no life for either of us. He can’t stand here as I am now and feel the sun warm on my face. All we’d have is the dark. He can’t have children. So I won’t be able to take away from this even that much of him. I might think, just a year together, or five, or ten. Just that much. I might think and wish for that,” she murmured. “But however selfish my own needs might be, I have a duty.”
She turned back. “He could never stay here, and I can never go.”
“When I fell in love with Hoyt, and believed that we’d never be able to be together, it broke my heart every day.”
“But still, you loved him.”
“But still I loved him.”
Moira stood with the sun slanting at her back, glinting on her crown. “Morrigan said this is the time of knowing. I know my life would be less if I didn’t love him. The more life, the longer and harder we’ll fight to keep it. So, I have another weapon inside me. And I’ll use it.”
Moira discovered a long day of teaching children and the old how to defend themselves and each other from monsters was more tiring than hours of sweaty physical training. She hadn’t known how hard it would be to tell a child that monsters were real after all.
Her head ached from the questions, and her heart was bruised from the fear she’d seen.
She stepped out into the garden for some air, and to check the sky, again, for Larkin and Blair’s return.
“They’ll be back before sunset.”
She whirled at the sound of Cian’s voice. “What are you doing? It’s still day.”
“Shade’s deep here this time of day.” Still, he leaned back against the stones, well out of direct light. “It’s a pretty spot, a quiet one. And sooner or later, you end up here for a few minutes.”
“So, you’ve studied my habits.”
“It passes the time.”
“Glenna and I have been with the children and the old ones, teaching them how to defend themselves if there’s an attack here after we leave. We can’t spare many of the able-bodied to hold the castle.”
“The gates stay locked. Hoyt and Glenna will add a layer of protection. They’ll be safe enough.”
“And if we lose?”
“There’ll be nothing they can do.”
“I think there’s always something, if you put choice and a weapon in someone’s hands.” She walked toward him. “Did you come here to wait for me?”
“Yes.”
“Now that I’m here, what do you choose to do?”
He stayed where he was, but she could see the war inside him. Though the air suddenly seemed to lash and swirl with that battle, she stood calmly, her eyes grave and patient.