Page 108 of The Moon Blessed King
‘And you – you’re willing to live with this lie?’ He asks this of Fen, and she tilts her chin up.
‘Yes. It’s what’s best for everyone.’
‘You will be judged and condemned for resurrecting two people in the midst of a pandemic while countless others suffered also yet were not raised.’
‘I know. I’ll accept it.’
Elician doesn’t seem entirely mollified by this, but he nods. Acquiesces. Perhaps, though, he merely needs time to think.
Adalei clears her throat, asking, ‘How is Alest…truly?’
‘As well as he can be right now, but if we can avoid going back to Alerae for a while, that’d be for the best.’
‘And do you have a plan for that?’ Lio asks.
‘Somewhat,’ Elician replies. ‘We’ll discuss it at the summit once it’s prepared. Unless there’s another assassination plot or child you’d like to bring to my attention?’
‘Not presently.’ Adalei shrugs. Elician grins at her then, wicked and sharp.
He tilts his head towards Cat. ‘I’m going to find our lodging…and Sunny.’
‘Sunny?’ Adalei asks.
‘Alest’snightcat.’ Elician sighs.
‘Hisnightcat?!’ Fen blurts, mind buzzing with the merethoughtof it!
‘Found her in an alley of all things and apparently saved her from death. She’s all but imprinted on him in the process. She’s a damn menace, but I might as well get her before she mauls some poor soul. Let him know where I’ve gone?’ They nod, and then Elician holds his hand out. ‘Lio? Walk?’ Lio kisses Adalei’s cheek and falls perfectly into place at his king’s side like he never left, and they duck out of the tent.
Fen hesitates, and that leaves her and Adalei at last alone together too. ‘I know you didn’t save Kassandra and her child for me,’ Adaleisays just as Fen is preparing to make her escape. ‘But thank you, for not siding with Hamad.’
Fen nudges Adalei’s shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you, Adalei. And…you’ve shown I have a lot to learn.’
‘We all do,’ Adalei replies. ‘Some of us still think telling our king that we disinherited a child he never wanted while avoiding a coup attempt at the same time should be done in person.’ Fen snorts, shakes her head. ‘Thank you too…for your sacrifice. The people will be angry.’
‘Let them be,’ Fen replies. ‘I don’t owe them anything. But I owe my family everything.’
Adalei nods, thoughtful and sincere. She waves her hand. ‘Go on. I know you want to see this nightcat too.’ Fen does. She does very much.
‘You don’t want to see it?’
‘No…no, I think I’m quite happy here.’ And Fen glances outside, knows full well that Cat and Cieli will likely be busy for a while yet, and that Elician and Lio are going to take their time in their own duties.
‘I can stay with you,’ she offers. ‘What can I do to help?’ And it seems to surprise her cousin, but in the end, they spend the rest of the day side by side, Adalei showing her how she’s organized the upcoming summit and Fen willing, each moment, to learn.
It’s late by the time Fen and Adalei finish for the night. There are still members from both countries’ governments that have not yet arrived. Adalei is disappointed by the delay, but it will only be for a short while. Neither Cat nor Elician wants to be the sole voice dictating the terms of the peace. They want full transparency. Full compromise. And that will take time to sort out – trade agreements, reparations, a future. It will take a lot of time. And so, they will waitfor everyone to arrive so that when the meetings begin, they can be done right.
Fen wanders the Kingsclave. Someone is playing music, there’s singing – joyful and pleasant notes echoing between walls and temporary structures. Fen finds her brother and Cat sitting by a large fire, eating soup and bread and watching their people intermingle. Their bare hands rest side by side, their fingers nudging against one another. Open and shameless and utterly unafraid of showing who they are and what they can do.
The exhaustion that seemed to plague Elician when he first returned from his captivity has lifted somewhat, and though his smile seems more dim than it once was, there is a peace within him that is certainly new. For the first time in his life, all the world knows who and what he is, and he does not care who sees or assumes what. And each time he touches Cat, he does so with an open and daring defiance.
As she draws near, Captain Partho bends down to ask Cat for something, and her friend rises to stand. He goes to put his glove on, and she realizes that while Cat was willing to make Elician an exception to the open contact he was slowly starting to learn, he was not willing to extend that to others. They are, it seems, exceptions to one another in all things. Elician finds the lost glove at his side. He holds it open and gently guides the glove over Cat’s fingers until it stops perfectly at the wrist. A practised move so shockingly intimate that Fen looks away. Misses their parting. Sees only how Elician stares after his husband as he goes.
‘Do you love him?’ Fen asks as she slips into the space Cat vacated.
Elician glances at her from the corner of his eye. His lips curl up at the corner. ‘I know him now,’ he says. ‘And there is much to love. And much I hadn’t expected to want to call my own. And much I want to see, tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. All the way until the end of time.’
‘So, yes,’ she summarizes. And he laughs, loud and joyous andknocking his shoulder into hers like when they were young and free of thoughts of war and bloodshed. Before she knew the truth about his abilities, and before she understood what it meant to be a Giver beyond the whispered tales of children in the night.
