“It depends.”
Her throat burned as if she’d swallowed flame. “Cian. I know what you said in your letter was true, but it was hard, so hard, not to see you again. To have our last moment together standing in blood. I wanted…” Tears flooded her eyes, and she nearly lost the war to will them back. “I wanted just a moment more. Now I have it.”
“Would you take more than a moment, if I could give it?”
“I don’t understand.” Then she smiled and choked back a sob when he drew the locket she’d given him from under his shirt. “You still wear it.”
“Yes, I still wear it. It’s one of my most treasured possessions. I left nothing of me behind for you. Now I’m asking, would you take more than that moment, Moira? Would you take this?” He lifted her hand, pressed it to his heart.
“Oh, I was afraid you didn’t want to touch me.” Her breath shuddered out with relief. “Cian, you know, you must know, that I…”
The hand beneath his trembled, and her eyes went wide. “Your heart. Your heart beats.”
“Once I told you if it could beat, it would beat for you. It does.”
“It beats under my hand,” she whispered. “How?”
“A gift from the gods in the last moments of Yule. They gave me back what was taken from me.” Now he drew out the silver cross that hung around his neck with her locket. “It’s a man who stands before you, Moira.”
“Human,” she whispered. “You live.”
“It’s a man who loves you.” He pulled her toward the doors, flung them open so the sun poured over them. And because it was still so miraculous, he lifted his face, closed his eyes and let the stream of it bathe his face.
She couldn’t stop the tears now, or the sobs that came with them. “You’re alive. You came back to me and you’re alive.”
“It’s a man who stands before you,” he said again. “It’s a man who loves you. It’s a man who asks if you’ll share the life he’s been given, if you’ll live it with him. If you’ll take me as I am, and make a life with me. Geall will be my world, as you’re my world. It will be my heart, as you’re my heart. If you’ll have me.”
“I’ve been yours from the first moment, and I’ll be yours until the last. You came back to me.” She laid a hand on his heart, and the other on her own. “And my heart beats again.”
She threw her arms around him, and those who’d gathered in the courtyard, and on the stairs cheered as the queen of Geall kissed her beloved in the winter sunlight.
“So they lived,” the old man said, “and they loved. So the circle grew stronger, and formed circles out from it as ripples spread in a pool. The valley that had once been silent sang with music of summer breezes through green grass, the lowing of cattle. Of pipes and harps and the laughter of children.”
The old man stroked the hair of a little one who’d climbed into his lap. “Geall flourished under the rule of Moira, the warrior queen and her knight. For them, even in the dark of night, a light shone.
“And that brings the tale of the sorcerer, the witch, the warrior, the scholar, the shifter of shapes and the vampire to its own circle.”
He patted the rum
p of the child on his lap. “Off with you now, all of you, while there’s still sunlight to enjoy.”
There were shouts and whoops, and he smiled as he heard the arguments already starting for who would be the sorcerer, who would be the queen.
Because his senses were still keen in some areas, Cian lifted his hand to the back of the chair, and covered Moira’s.
“You tell it well.”
“Easy to tell what you’ve lived.”
“Easy to enhance what was,” she corrected, coming around the chair. “But you stayed very close to the truth.”
“Wasn’t the truth strange and magical enough?”
Her hair was pure white, and her face as she smiled at him, lined with the years. And more beautiful than any he’d known.
“Walk with me before twilight comes.” She helped him to stand, hooked her arm through his. “And are you ready for the invasion?” she asked, tipping her head toward his shoulder.
“When it comes, at least you’ll be finished fussing over it.”