He paused, too, looking at the doors, the walls, the windows around them. “Aye,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Violent children notwithstanding, it has been a place of dreams. I am going to miss it.”
There was more of an impact for Elle. She moved away from the stairs, walking to the area where the boys had been lined up. She reached out to touch one of the stone walls, remembering all of the things that had happened at Brython since she had been part of the place.
“I go back a very long time here,” she finally said. “The first time I saw it, I remember thinking how intimidating it was. But also how proud I was that it belonged to the Welsh, even if it wasn’t Welsh-built.”
“It was Norman-built with Welsh stone,” Curtis said. “Those mystical blue stones that the Welsh seem to revere so much.”
She nodded, leaning against the wall and looking at him. “Blue stones to protect the gate to the Otherworld,” she said. “There’s so much about this castle that is legendary and mystical, but so much about it that is simply normal in an everyday sense. The sounds of our children, for example. Our five bright, beautiful children who carry the blood of Welsh royalty and English nobility. Theyarethe new world. I never forgot what your father said to me those years ago about that, but I also didn’t truly believe him until Chris was born. Then I saw it.”
“What did you see?”
She smiled. “Something you said to me once,” she said. “Open your eyes to the world around you, and I promise you will not regret it.Do you remember that?”
He smiled in return. “Of course,” he said. “And did you open your eyes?”
She nodded. “I did,” she said. “And you were right. I did not regret it.”
Curtis chuckled softly, going to her and putting his arms around her. It was true that they were leaving Brython for a new de Lohr post, the great and mighty Monmouth Castle, as part of the de Lohr expansion along the marches, but they were leaving behind a place that was precious to them both.
Years ago, Curtis had come to Brython with the intention of conquest. What he’d found was so much more than he bargained for. He had conquered a castle, but what he received in return changed his life forever. A firebrand of a woman who refused tosurrender, who had fought him every step of the way, and who had finally become his all for living. To him, that was the legacy of Brython.
Open your eyes to the world around you, and I promise you will not regret it.
He had opened his eyes, too. Elle had done that for him.
Much like her, he didn’t regret it, either.
*THE END*
