Horde (Enclave Series) (47 page)

Later, in the loft, Fade whispered, “I’ve been dying for some time alone with you.”

He’d spoken those words before, more than once, but this time, I knew what he meant. I rolled over and kissed him, then we practiced some more, quietly, and this time, we got it exactly right. Afterward, I traced the scar on his side. Fade shivered at my touch, pressing closer.

“I came so close to losing you,” I murmured.

“You never will.”

I kissed him once and again, counting back all the times he’d kissed me, until I lost track of the numbers. That got him worked up again, so it was a while before we settled. But a quiet doubt trickled into my mind.

“What was that?” Fade had always been good at reading me.

“Is it all right? When I touch you.”

“It’s the best thing in the world.” But that wasn’t what I was asking—and he knew it. So he added, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely fine. And sometimes I have bad dreams. But when you’re near, everything feels better.”

“Then I’ll stay close,” I promised.

Unexpectedly he stirred, digging around in his pack. “I have something for you.”

I sat up, intrigued. “What is it?”

In reply, he produced a shiny silver wire, festooned with sparkling stones, and I lost my breath. “What … when?”

Somehow he interpreted my incoherence correctly. “I bought it after you left. I remembered how much you admired it. I probably should’ve given it to you when Edmund married us in Soldier’s Pond. But I was waiting for the right moment.”

As he fastened it around my wrist, I whispered, “It’s perfect.” And silently vowed never to take the bracelet off.

In the morning, we began our life together.

After breakfast, we strolled through the village hand in hand; I had no particular destination in mind, but when Fade led me past the docks, I realized he did. He didn’t go far, past the last cottages, up a gentle knoll, where the view was incredible. From this vantage, I saw the market, the boats on the river, and the governor’s house on the other side of Rosemere.

“This is where I want to build,” he said. “If you’re willing.”

Since I’d decided where we would live without asking him, it seemed fitting for him to choose the site where we’d raise our home and—if life was kind—grow old together, not as people did down below, but like Edmund and Momma Oaks. My heart swelled with the possibility; we could have years and years here in this beautiful place. It was so much more than I ever could’ve dreamed.

“It’s beautiful. Do we need permission?”

“I already asked.”

I canted my head in surprise. “When?”

“Before you got up this morning. For some reason, you were extra tired.” Fade wore a wicked grin, such pure temptation that I considered pushing him down into the bracken to show him what tired felt like.

But we had work to do first.

As I saw it, there was one benefit to being the Huntress. The way people watched me when we walked back through the village annoyed me, but also meant that volunteers came out in droves to help build our cottage, once we assembled the materials. With half of Rosemere pitching in, the walls went up fast, then the builders filled in the stones and laid the floors. Stone and Thimble helped, as they’d crafted their cottage, and Thimble had worked out all manner of cunning tricks to make a home snug and cozy.

The only dark cloud came from Tegan. One day, while I was working alongside Fade, she made her way out to the site; she stood watching us with a thoughtful expression. I set down my stone and hurried over to her. In my haste to get our house finished, I hadn’t seen her as much as I’d have liked. I had reckoned there would be plenty of time to visit this winter. But the melancholy in her expression told me that probably wasn’t so.

“You can’t go,” I said quietly. “I can’t say good-bye to you, Tegan. Don’t ask that of me.”

My heart broke a little when I recalled Stalker whispering those words to me, just before I ran into the horde. I thought of him often, amid my happiness, and his death was one of my fiercest regrets. I saw that shadow in Tegan’s face too.

“Deuce,” she whispered. “It’s time for me to keep my promise.”

I knew the one she meant—to Dr. Wilson—and I was supposed to remind her of it, but selfishly I’d hoped she would forget. She didn’t belong in Winterville … or maybe she did, and I just wished she didn’t because I needed her nearby.

“He knows so much, and I want to learn it all. I feel like I have to.”

I understood that impetus, too, but I wished I could convince her that she didn’t have to be anything in particular to be worth saving. Choking up, I reached for her, and she hugged me too tight for long moments. Somehow I managed not to weep into her shoulder. We whispered to each other that it wasn’t forever—we would visit and send letters with the traders as they came and went—but we both knew we had come to the parting of the ways. From this point on, there would be no more adventures, no more wayfaring. She would go to Winterville and become a learned soul while I stayed here on the isle.

“Let me go,” she commanded.

And I did.

I turned around so I didn’t have to watch her leave, then I sank to the ground and cried. Sometimes it felt as if all happiness came at a price. You could never, ever, have perfection. Life gave you beauty so you could bear the pain. At length, I dried my tears because Fade wore his fierce and brooding look, and I never knew how he would react. Tegan wouldn’t thank me if my man charged after her and brought her back because her path was making me sad.

Then I paused my work on the cottage to go to the governor’s manor. One person in Rosemere would share my sorrow in equal measure.

Morrow opened the door when I knocked as if he had been expecting me. His face was thin and pale, newly marked with a red scar. The rest of him seemed sound enough, though he still hadn’t regained his full strength. I gave him my arm as he escorted me to a large room with a crackling fire. When I was working I didn’t notice the nip in the air as much as when I stopped.

“She’s gone,” I said softly.

He lowered his head, the hair falling into his clever face. “I know.”

“How long before you go after her?”

“I’ll give her the winter, long enough to miss me.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” I guessed he hadn’t told her how he felt about her; I could’ve explained why she was so leery of men. But as promised, I had kept Tegan’s secret, and nobody knew what she’d suffered in the ruins. With Stalker dead, the truth would die with me.

“Then I’ll come and go until she asks me to stay.” His smile was a sweet and somber thing. “I’m working on your story, you know. It’s keeping me busy during my convalescence. I hope to have a draft ready for you to read by spring.”

I smiled at that. “Fade can read it to me. It’s not my strong suit.”

For a few seconds, I imagined curling up with my man before a fire, listening to Morrow’s words. I couldn’t imagine anything better. We talked a little longer, enough for me to be sure he’d be all right in Tegan’s absence, but the storyteller was stronger than he looked and he had one precious gift that rendered him invincible—eternal hope. Either that, or he was mad, which might explain why he’d followed me.

“I plan to call it the Razorland saga,” he told me.

“Why?”

“Because of something you said when you were telling me about your journey north … about how the world’s all razors that cut you no matter what you do.”

“It isn’t anymore,” I said softly.

“Thanks to us.” Morrow flashed his charming smile, but I saw the bittersweet tinge to his gaze. He would miss Tegan too.

“One thing I’ve always wondered … why do you greet the colonel by kissing her on both cheeks? It seems like that would annoy Morgan.”

“I’m Rosemere’s diplomatic envoy,” he replied. “My father knew he had to find work to satisfy my need to wander. That’s the customary kiss of peace.”

“Ah.” I should have known he was more important than he let on, just a storyteller indeed. “Then why didn’t you identify yourself when you were traveling with me?”

His look turned sheepish. “Because I didn’t have approval for the mission. My father wouldn’t have gotten involved. So I couldn’t claim to represent Rosemere when we were building Company D. That, I did as James Morrow.”

I stood, kissed his cheek, and said, “I’ll always be grateful.”

Then I went back to work, along with half the village. The construction seemed to focus Spence, giving him something else to think about, and Rex kept him company. Spence liked him best because they shared a common loss. They didn’t talk much, but a certain bond was forming between them. They were also working on a house for Edmund and Momma Oaks, a fact that delighted me. I’d kept the promise to myself at last—and given them a new home. Gavin cavorted more than he worked, proud as a young peacock in his new cloak, which bore the insignia from Company D.

With constant labor, it took under a month to complete the cottage, just before the first snowfall. Awed and delighted, I stood inside with Fade, unable to believe we had a place of our own. People soon arrived with housewarming gifts, a tradition on the isle. Stone delivered furniture that Thimble had built while Momma Oaks brought cushions and curtains for the windows. She fussed and helped me hang them while other village women offered dishes and pots for cooking, linens, blankets, and boxes I didn’t open straightaway.

It was late in the day when they all departed—and along with the small touches, we had a table, chairs, and a bed with a newly stuffed mattress. The cottage was designed much like Stone and Thimble’s; for a moment, I let my mind wander, imagining how the years would pass. While I pondered, Fade built a fire in the hearth, the first in our own home. Wonder stole my breath and called tears to my eyes. I refused to let them fall.

I opened our first gift. Someone had given us a picture frame and I knew what to put in it. “Do you still have your token from down below?”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s stupid, but I can’t make myself discard the thing.”

“I’m glad.” I placed his paper and my card inside the frame, and then I went in search of hammer and nail.

Our talismans adorned our new home, and that seemed fitting, part of the old life to carry into the new one. Next I rummaged in my pack and laid out my two greatest treasures: Longshot’s maps and the book Fade and I had found in the ruins. He came to see what I had, then he touched the leather with reverent hands, as if the story meant as much to him.

“I can’t believe you still have it. And it’s still intact, too.”

“I kept it wrapped in oilcloth. Would you read me the end?”

Fade pitched his voice low—and the story had more resonance now.

They were married that very day. And the next day they went together to the king and told him the whole story. But whom should they find at the court but the father and mother of Photogen, both in high favor with the king and queen. Aurora nearly died with joy, and told them all how Watho had lied and made her believe her child was dead.

No one knew anything of the father or mother of Nycteris; but when Aurora saw in the lovely girl her own azure eyes shining through night and its clouds, it made her think strange things, and wonder how even the wicked themselves may be a link to join together the good. Through Watho, the mothers, who had never seen each other, had changed eyes in their children.

The king gave them the castle and lands of Watho, and there they lived and taught each other for many years that were not long. But hardly had one of them passed, before Nycteris had come to love the day best, because it was the clothing and crown of Photogen, and she saw that the day was greater than the night, and the sun more lordly than the moon; and Photogen had come to love the night best, because it was the mother and home of Nycteris.

“But who knows,” Nycteris would say to Photogen, “that when we go out, we shall not go into a day as much greater than your day as your day is greater than my night?”

When he finished, I kissed him and whispered, “I love you, Fade,” because that was what I’d failed to say when I lay feverish in the wagon. Wearing a smile so broad it threatened to crack his cheeks, he scooped me up and carried me to a chair, a capacious seat with broad arms and fat cushions, cozy enough for two. Idly I wondered if Thimble had designed it for sparking. Today, my muscles ached from work more pleasant than constant fighting.

Silk was wrong,
I thought.
I have a Builder’s heart.

“I’m glad the story ends that way. So that even the king couldn’t part them. Like us.”

“What are kings to us?” Fade asked with a cocky grin. “We changed the world.”

Incredibly, it was true. I rose to set the book on the mantelshelf above the hearth. Then I added Longshot’s folio. “There. That’s perfect.”

“What will you do with those maps?” Fade asked, following me with his gaze.

“Give them to our brats,” I answered.

It was the best legacy I could envision, like giving them the world.

“I don’t want to wait to name them.”

By Fade’s expression, he felt strongly about that.

“Me either. We’ll follow topside tradition like Stone and Thimble.”

“Did you see how much food they put in our cupboards?” he asked lazily, changing the subject.

I was glad; it was a little soon to be talking about expanding our family. Cheeks hot, I shook my head. I’d been busy with Momma Oaks, making the place cozy. “A lot?”

Fade watched me with silent admiration. In a moment or two, it would ripen into desire, and we had every right to wander into the back room. Nobody would interrupt or summon us to other business. That was … astonishing.

“Enough for the whole winter, I expect.”

“We’ve earned a few months of leisure,” I told him.

“What will you do, come spring?” He reached for me then.

I sank onto his lap. Fade nuzzled my neck, and I put my hand to his jaw. “Be with you.”