Page 50 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
Reaching the front of the crowd, Nora looked up at Adam expectantly to see him beaming down at his long-lost sword, encased in protective glass and positioned on a stand to show off its unique inscription down the blade.
“You’ve really outdone yourself, Nora.” He leaned close to speak directly into her ear so she could hear him clearly over the rumble of chatter and laughter now filling the space. His breath stirred an artfully curled tendril of loose hair framing her face as he spoke.
Nora grinned even as she teased. “You know I didn’t have to do much to get them looking this good. It’s unfair to be getting so much attention when they showed up almost exactly like this.”
“Maybe, but this exhibit does make them shine.” Adam tilted his head pensively as he continued. “Besides, it’s nice to see them shown off for their beauty and craftmanship instead of as tools of destruction. Antony would be pleased.”
Nora’s eyebrows pulled together. “Antony?”
“He made both of these,” Adam responded, bending down to the case to get a better look at the plaque bearing the “estimated” date of origin and location of recovery. “He always viewed his work more as art than as weaponry anyways. Seeing it treated as such would be right up his alley.”
“And what about you? It’s not strange to see a personal belonging of yours in a museum?”
“On the contrary, it feels right to have relics from such an important moment in time immortalized like this. And it means more than I can say to see these two next to each other again.”
As she watched Adam stare at the weapons with reverence, something she had forgotten to ask Adam about before came to the front of her mind.
“You didn’t happen to…break into the museum to try to see these, did you?”
Adam chuckled even as he winced. “I did break in, but it was actually more of a preventative measure. I sensed Shadows in the area, and I figured they knew that the weapons would be coming. I’m sorry for giving you a fright.”
“I was wondering if you knew it was me that chased you,” she said. “I’m glad that I wasn’t just imagining things.”
They fell silent in their contemplation of the display once more.
Nora’s brow furrowed. “Who did the spear belong to?” Nora questioned, realizing she had no idea how it had ended up on the field so near where Adam’s Xiphos had fallen.
Adam kept his eyes on the spear and paused so long that Nora began to think he hadn’t heard her question. She was just about to repeat herself when his response came, his voice so low that Nora had to lean in close to hear his response over the chatter around them.
“It was my wife’s.”
Nora jolted back hard enough to slosh several drops of champagne on her dress. She distractedly brushed them away as she scrabbled to form an adequate response. She settled on, “You’re married?” She attempted to feign a casual tone but grimaced when her voice came out an octave higher than usual.
Adam turned his face back to Nora, now wearing a neutral expression of somebody trying hard to seem casual and succeeding a little too much to be convincing as he said, “I was—a long time ago.”
Nora knew that it was probably rude to ask, but she supposed that had never stopped her before. “What happened?”
“She died,” Adam answered simply. His voice was calm, but a small twitch beneath his left eye betrayed his emotion. Sympathy twisted low in Nora’s gut, and she opened her mouth to apologize for bringing up such a painful subject, but Adam continued, as if now that the subject was broached, he was compelled to share. “She was killed in the Defeat, but she was incredibly brave. She fought to the last and died a hero.”
Adam’s voice had a trace of pain in it that even millennia of healing had been unable to erase, but as he spoke, his face broke into a soft smile, as if talking about her brought him real joy. His expression made Nora inexplicably wistful.
“She sounds incredible,” Nora offered, unsure of what the appropriate response was when the man that she had been shamelessly flirting with moments before suddenly divulged the details of the death of his till then unmentioned wife.
“She was,” Adam responded.
Nora searched for something she could say about a loss that happened two thousand years ago that Adam wouldn’t have heard dozens of times before. Adam, thankfully, saved her from uttering any of her woefully inadequate options.
He plucked the champagne out of her hand as he spoke. “And she would not want us to stand around like melancholy lumps on her account.” He passed the flutes to another white-gloved waiter and grabbed her hand. “She would most definitely want us to dance.”
Adam’s eyes were gleaming with mischief and a little something else as he began to lead her towards the center of the atrium, where there was indeed a dance floor. A string ensemble in the corner had begun to play at some point as well.
“Oh, uh, I really don’t know how to dance for an occasion like this,” Nora protested, caught off guard from the sudden change in subject. She glanced at the elegantly dressed couples on the floor, moving in graceful steps that she assumed would only be practical to learn if you lived the kind of life where you attended black-tie galas on a regular basis. “In case you haven’t noticed, events like this are not a part of my normal repertoire.”
“Lucky for you, I am well versed in all sorts of dancing,” Adam replied, unperturbed as he continued to usher her forward. “One of the distinct advantages of living though the Regency period is the ability to perform a solid waltz.”
They had reached the outskirts of the dance floor, and before Nora could protest again, Adam had twirled her around towards him in a way she thought only worked in movies and put one hand on her waist to pull her close. She would have been inclined to tease him about it if she hadn’t just gained a whole new appreciation for the phrase “weak in the knees”.
With that, they began to sway gently as Adam guided her around the floor. To Nora’s relief, he didn’t seem to mind that her only dancing experience involved jumping up and down like a fool to obnoxious pop music on the rare occasion that Odelle had managed to convince her that a few irresponsible decisions really wouldn’t kill anybody. If Adam noticed her initial stumbling, he had the decency not to point it out and simply tightened his arm around her waist so he could pull her with him around the dance floor.
