"They will."
"And I need to go back to the archives. There's a section in Chamber Three I haven't—"
"Verity."
She stopped.
"Sleep."
She smiled against his chest. "You're very commanding."
"I am the warchief."
His hand moved to her hair, fingers working through the tangles with absent gentleness. She felt her eyes grow heavy. The rhythm of his breathing slowed beneath her ear, deep and steady, the breathing of a man who was not lying awake waiting for something to go wrong.
She had done that. She had given him that.
The thought settled in her chest like a stone finding its place in a cairn. One more marker on a trail she was building. One more sign that said:this way. I came this way. I chose this.
Tomorrow there would be letters to write and terms to negotiate and archives to catalogue. Tomorrow she would begin the work of building the bridge Varresh had designed, document by document, gap by gap, until the two halves of history finally touched.
But tonight, she was here. In his bed. In his arms. In the fortress she had chosen over everything she'd thought she wanted.
She slept.
Epilogue
The courtyard was full.
Targesh stood at the center of it and let his people look at him.
He had stood in this courtyard a thousand times. He had addressed the clan from this spot after raids, after losses, after the long grinding negotiations that kept the peace intact and the borders quiet. He had delivered news of the dead from here. He had stood where he was standing now and told Brenneth that Torunn was not coming home.
He had never stood here for this.
The elder sat in the carved chair that had held every Mountain Clan elder for three hundred years. The stone was worn smooth on the arms where generations of old hands had rested, and the current elder's hands rested there now, still and patient. His staff lay across his knees. His yellowed tusks caught the afternoon sun.
Warriors lined the walls. Support staff filled the gaps. Brenneth stood near the front with his arms crossed, and beside him Delia Stonefang, seven months along now and showing it, one hand resting on the curve of her belly. Ralvar was at her shoulder, close enough to catch her if she swayed, though she did not often sway. Soldra stood against the eastern wall, gray-haired and watchful. Durgan was beside her, for once not talking. Kira had come from the kitchens with flour still on her hands. Thessaly stood near the archway with her herb-threaded braids and her careful healer's eyes.
Even Torgun was there. Standing straighter than he had three months ago. Growing into something.
They were all watching Targesh.
He was not wearing anything different. Gray wool tunic. Dark trousers. His boots, his belt, the plain leather that he had worn every day of his twenty-year command. He had considered, briefly, whether the occasion demanded something more, and had dismissed the thought almost as soon as it formed. He was not a man who dressed for moments. He was a man who showed up to them as himself, and that had always been enough, and if it was not enough today then nothing he put on his body would compensate.
He carried one thing that was not part of his usual dress. A book, held under his left arm.
The courtyard door opened.
Verity came through it, and the crowd parted for her the way they parted for him. Not from fear. From recognition.
She was wearing a blue dress that followed the generous lines of her body. Her hair was braided. Thessaly's work, he suspected, the intricate patterns that meant things in the old language. Protection. Strength in the bond. Her brown eyes were very bright.
She had a quill tucked behind her ear. He doubted she knew it was there.
In her hands she carried a single folded piece of paper.
She crossed the courtyard. She was not graceful. She had never been graceful. She moved the way she always moved, slightly distracted, as though some portion of her attention was still in the archives turning over a problem she had not yet solved. Her feet were steady on the stone. Her chin was up.
