Claim deridia book 5, p.35
Claim (Deridia Book 5), page 35
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Rook watched her return to him with a peace he had not felt in...
He could not recall how long.
There was an eagerness in her step that almost made her clumsy, and he almost lurched forward when he was certain her foot would catch on the edge of the thick carpet beneath him, but she managed to avoid the danger, her eyes bright and her mouth already curving upward into a smile.
She had to know that was all he wanted for her.
He’d struggled with his feelings, had tried so desperately to ensure that her needs came first. But Adelmar had been the one to gently, yet firmly, remind him that all was not quite as it should be. Not when Naida was so reluctant to call them family. When guilt was her constant companion.
And that... that he could not bear.
Perhaps, in time, there would be something he could do to help her family—the ones who had come before. But the alliance with the Yarrow was tenuous at best, and those were not demands that he could make.
Not when it would likely lead to him pulling a blade on one of the elders.
Or her wretch of a father.
The Marzon acquired treaties. Not more enemies.
The Narada were threat enough.
He’d never seen one in the flesh, but there were depictions in their histories that made him more than aware that he would do anything, befriend anyone, rather than allow them to take hold of this part of the world once more.
They would never touch his home. His family.
His wife.
Whom he loved more than he thought possible.
She was so beautiful, even with hair still damp and only half-combed, her shift slipping off one shoulder as she hurried back to him.
She sat crossed legged on the carpet, holding out her package with a look full of expectation, and he sat up, reaching for it with something he was ashamed to find was close to nervousness.
When his fingers tightened however, when he felt the familiar give, it eased.
“Finished it, have you?” he asked, and he loved the way her cheeks darkened as she nodded.
“I wanted it to be right,” she explained, reaching out and giving it a nudge. He could feel her desire to please him, for him to like it for its own sake and not simply because it had come from her. But that truly would have been enough, even if it was mangled and misshapen. She had thought of him with every stitch, had wanted to master a skill so important to his people and make him the first recipient of her craft.
He almost told her that it would be. That he would wear whatever she made with pride regardless of its appearance.
But he didn’t.
Because she took pride in her skills, in her handiwork, and the bigger compliment would be to appreciate the work itself.
So he untied the simple cloth, and pulled free his wife’s gift.
It was a scarf, not dissimilar to the one his mother had made him. The one he had bundled around his wife when she was cold, fresh from their marital cleansing. But while that one brought with it the sadness of a woman he saw far too infrequently, this one brought only the warmth of her care.
He stroked a hand down its length, the colour more grey than green. A dye brought back from the Polanty, but he doubted Naida knew that. The stitches were tightly done, the better to keep out the cold, but she had taken care in the selection of each, so it was a thing of beauty rather than mere function.
“It is exquisite,” he told her, meaning it.
She ducked her head, but there was no hiding her smile, the pride that echoed through the bond. “I had a good teacher,” she answered modestly, and he would have to remember to thank his sister. Not merely for teaching his wife a craft she obviously enjoyed, but for the friendship she offered freely.
Both to Naida and to himself.
He placed it about his neck, a little warm given the state of the fire, but he would not have removed it for all the world. Most especially with the way Naida’s eyes shone when she regarded him.
When the bond assured him that she found him most handsome indeed.
“Will I do?” he asked, an unfair enquiry when he already knew the answer.
She chewed at her lip, a habit she seemed unable to relinquish, but he could not chide her, not when she smirked at him that way. “I suppose,” she answered with a small shrug to her shoulders.
An unsatisfactory response if ever there was one.
He moved quickly, pinning her again, not unlike how he had done earlier. Only this time there was a peal of laughter, a playfulness that had not been there before.
And there were kisses too, teasing, yet sweetly given, and he liked the feel of her hands against his neck as she stroked over her work, liked the swell of warmth in his chest that mirrored her own.
Liked even more that the happiness she felt was unmarred by past sorrows. At least for a little while.
“Thank you,” he murmured, kissing her cheek, her throat, then nibbling that spot beneath her ear that never failed to make her breath hitch in the most delightful way. “I like my present very much.”
There was more than that. He was grateful for her willingness to try, for the bravery she claimed not to possess.
Hers had been a difficult life. More than he’d ever wish on anyone.
But it could be more.
Would be. If she would let it.
And she pulled him all the closer around her, and he was certain there would be a joining later, but for now, he was content to kiss. To be kissed.
To hold her tightly, perhaps to even finish combing her hair.
For...
She loved him.
She had told him so.
And the bond promised she meant it.
He’d felt it stirring. Simmering in the glances she’d give him, the hesitant touches that became all the bolder as they grew more comfortable with one another.
But she’d not told him.
Perhaps not even admitted it to herself.
And while he thought himself a patient man, perhaps there were limits to even that.
Not when he craved her affection so desperately.
“My Dhorn,” she whispered, her head tilted to the side. “My Rook,” she tried again. He cared little for the name she wished to call him, but there was a fondness for the one that echoed the Yarrow tongue. It had been the first, tremulous acknowledgement that he was her husband, even though it was steeped in other, less savoury connotations.
That she was not fit to even speak his name.
But when she whispered it in his ear as he filled her, how could he not grow attached to yet another moniker? One that was solely from her?
Would only ever be from her?
“My dearest one,” he answered back. He was not foolish enough to believe that everything would change so quickly. She would have poorly days, where melancholy would creep in. Moments she wished to share with loved ones who were far away.
“I am glad you are here.” These were the talks he had delayed in having when there was too little time between his next journey. He wanted to savour the sweetness of her company as much as he could before distance proved their enemy once again.
He had made it plain he was a coward.
He was only sorry it was still true.
She hummed a little, her arms tight about his neck as she clung to him.
“Me too.”
And for now, for this place, and this moment, whether they would someday know the delights of their own little one, wrapped in Naida's knitted things tucked in a basket while his wife worked on more of her handiwork.
Or if they were to have a lifetime of stolen moments interspersed amidst their travels.
He knew that their love, however inadequate both might feel their own feeble offering might be...
It was enough.
16. Kin
It did not happen all at once.
It was not simply a matter of receiving Dhorn’s plea and all the guilt she harboured, all the longing for her sisters simply dissolved away.
But it seemed a little easier to push it aside. To focus instead on her commitment to her husband, the love they shared.
The family she did have.
Who loved her in return.
Who welcomed them back with bright smiles and a plea to tell all of their travels.
Their travels.
She liked that.
To be a part of the stories themselves, even if they were mildly embarrassing like tripping over a tree root and sprawling perilously close to a large patch of mud, only to be saved because Dundrel had a faster arm than even Dhorn—much to her husband’s bemusement.
There was peace that accompanied her decision to embrace them, as well as the heartache—but that grew more distant with each passing day.
And there was guilt for that too, as if she was agreeing to forget them entirely, but Adelmar promised her it was not like that. “We write letters, my family and I,” Adelmar told her, when Naida at last confessed her difficulties, her heart sinking to hear of a solution that would not aid her.
The Yarrow had a written language. Of course they did. There were tallies to keep and ledgers to maintain, but education was slim.
Most especially for daughters.
There was not time enough in the day for all that needed to be done, and she could not say with certainty that even if she knew enough to send any type of letter worth reading.
Or if her sisters would even be given opportunity to read them.
That was what she could not bear. The thought that if her meagre missive was taken, promises of her love and devotion were read instead of their husbands, her father...
No, there would be no letters.
She simply had to trust them.
Trust that they knew that her love would endure. That they were in her prayers.
That...
That she might see them again.
One day.
But Dhorn deserved to feel contentment through the bond. To know that his wife was happy with him, with his family.
Their family.
And it grew a little easier each day to embrace them. When festivals came, and harvest, when masses of males and females congregated to innumerable bags of fleece for tending, when others brushed and combed, others took it to be loomed. Then the weavers, the knitters, all working through the cold seasons so there would be more to trade when it warmed again.
And time blended, and that was its own sort of beauty. When days were filled with purpose and ended with a husband she loved, they were all much the same. Yet unique and lovely and she hoarded those memories just fiercely as she did the fond ones from her earliest years.
Perhaps life was not perfect. But it was closer than she had ever imagined for herself.
She even, when some madness seemed to overcome her...
Consented to a lesson on using the tether on her own.
She was trying to grow more independent. Wanted to travel with Dhorn and feel that she was a contributing member of the party in her own right. She was learning to forage, to even use a lightweight bow she had suspicions had been fashioned for a Marzon child. But bravery was still something she lacked, and she was reminded of that each time she waited for Dhorn to come and assist her to the forest floor.
He never minded. He told her that repeatedly. He liked to be needed, to feel her cling to him, although she could not take the trip as often as she did and feel the same clench in her belly each time. All things, evidently even heights, became normal after a time.
“You are certain?” he asked, and she thought it was approaching the sixth time he had made the same enquiry.
“No,” she repeated yet again.
A chuckle, but even she could feel his nerves through the bond. But she was resolved all the same, and he helped her attach the tether to her cuff, showed her where to set her hand along the line itself so it would be most comfortable.
Her grip was so tight her knuckles were nearly white with strain.
“You do not have to,” he reminded her.
“I know.”
And she didn’t. All were perfectly willing to accept that she would need help for the rest of her days.
But she wasn’t.
And although her heart hammered in her chest, although there was an irrational certainty that something simply had to go wrong in the attempt...
She stepped off the ledge.
And there was no plummet, just a gentle descent, and after a time she was able to open her eyes.
And saw that Dhorn had attached his own line and was watching her carefully an arm’s length away, ready to intervene should she have need.
Relief caught in her throat and bubbled into laughter, and she stumbled a little when her feet met earth, but he was there to steady her. And despite his reservations, there was no mistaking the pride he felt for her as he took her in his arms, one hand deftly releasing the tether so their lines did not become tangled.
Never mind that Marzon children learned this almost as soon as they began to walk.
It was an accomplishment all the same, and she...
She was elated.
She reached up and tugged at Dhorn’s collar until he relented and leaned down far enough that she might place a triumphant kiss upon his lips.
Not that he had doubted her.
She’d been the one to harbour quite enough of those for the both of them.
It was a gesture she would never have imagined she would have been comfortable giving in public—although in truth, she had never pictured it at all. But affection was freely offered and received just as greedily, whether it was a kiss from a wife to her husband, or a brother shoving playfully at a shoulder in passing.
Such as Lorken did now.
“So sorry,” he remarked, not sounding the least bit sorry at all. “Wasn’t expecting loiterers down here.”
Dhorn scowled at his brother. “Your sister just made her first unaccompanied descent. Celebration was in order at its success.”
Lorken’s eyes widened, and Naida’s pride tinged ever so slightly with embarrassment to have her accomplishment brought to attention—no matter how small it might seem to a Marzon born and raised.
“I should say it is,” he praised.
And while touches were frequent between siblings, they were not so for her unless it was one of the wives.
So for a moment she startled when Lorken brushed his brother aside so he could wrap his arms about her in a brief embrace, his enthusiasm too genuine to mistake for anything else. “We’ve made a proper Marzon of you now,” he commended, and to her surprise, even pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She was stunned at first, her thoughts flying at so great a speed through her mind that she could hardly make sense of them. There was no mistaking that people treated her gently. Carefully. Too aware of her history, they tended toward caution rather than the easy manner they so enjoyed with the others.
This was...
Different.
And at another time, might have been alarming.
Might have sent her reeling into thoughts of decorum and behaviour, and what was expected of her, and would her husband be angry to see another man touching her? Embracing her?
But this...
This wasn’t that life.
And this...
This was her brother.
And she felt her arms go about him in turn, and there was a lump in her throat that hadn’t been there before. “I am sorry that it took me so long.”
He clicked his tongue and pulled back from her, his hands about her shoulders. She could feel Dhorn watching them, but there was nothing but pride through the bond, and that was enough to make her stand a little straighter. “Nonsense,” Lorken retorted with a tilt to his head and a smile to his lips. “You take all the time that you need.” His eyes darted toward his brother, the humour he so often wore as truly as he did a cloak returning to his person. “Don’t let him push you too hard, either. Bit of a brute, our Rook.”
Dhorn rolled his eyes and gave his brother a shove away from her, wrapping his arm about her shoulder. It wasn’t a matter of possession. She knew that. It wasn’t a show that she belonged to him, something to be hoarded and shown off only when it pleased him.
It was...
Family.
And she was an equal part in it.
“Yes, well, the brute thinks half the lesson still needs to take place.”
Naida’s brow furrowed, and Dhorn glanced down at her. “Still have to get back up, yes?”
Her mouth grew dry, and Lorken was chuckling at her, but ceased when Dhorn shoved at him to get moving. “Do you have no tasks to tend to? I thought there were pipes that needed your attention.”
Lorken rubbed at his arm. “Boots today, I’m afraid. Barrels and tanks for a while longer yet.”
Dhorn made a noise low in his throat. They were always busy, flitting from one task to another, their skills far more varied than any Yarrow could have imagined.
She might be like that, one day. Instead of working with cloth and yarn, needle and thread, she would know wood craft, or become a cobbler like Lorken, or a dye-smith like Edlyn.
Or maybe she would be something else entirely.
She glanced up at the trees above, so tall and imposing when viewed from below.
A source of comfort and shelter when on the platforms above.
“I think I’m ready to try again,” she announced before she could lose the last vestiges of her courage.
Or Lorken be subjected to another bruise from her husband.
“Very well. First thing to do?” he prompted.
And she reached for a dangling line—ruefully noting that she had to jump a little to reach it at all—before attaching it to her cuff.
And she was pleased when her fingers did not tremble, when the metal met like and attached cleanly, solid and sure even when she was not.
Dhorn looked on in approval, and she was only slightly dismayed to see that Lorken had remained, his eyes glinting with amusement and pride alike, and she bit her lip, telling herself not to be nervous.
“And then?”
She gripped the line itself, and gave a firm downward pull.
