Nora left her to return to the others. Bavel, Viktor and Lysander had withdrawn to bed. Only Ewan remained. He sat alone before the fire, staring idly into the flames and drinking from a large goblet.
Ewan didn’t appear drunk, but a cloud of sadness engulfed him.
Nora dropped her gaze to the lute at his feet. “Are you all right, my lord?”
He grunted.
She waved her hand in front of his face.
At first he paid her no heed until finally he blinked and looked up at her.
“Are you planning on going to bed soon?”
“I know not,” he said quietly. “Mayhap in a bit.”
She took a seat beside him, wanting to banish the sadness she saw inside him. Wanting to add a little humor to his night. “Did you ever look up at the sky as a child?”
He frowned. “Not really.”
Nora leaned back on her hands and looked up at the bright sky where millions of stars twinkled down at them. “My mother used to tell me that every star in the heavens has a story attached to it.”
She pointed to a star just south of Ursa Minor. “That one there she told me was once an ancient Greek soldier named Abrides. She said he was a noble Spartan commander whose wife had died. Distraught, he looked up at the heavens and demanded vengeance on the one responsible.
“The queen of the sky...” she pointed to a collection of stars a little way over that looked like a lady... “told him that in death there is no satisfaction. Only pain will find you. So he asked her when the pain would lessen. The queen told him never. The pain is what shows us how much we loved them. If you truly love someone, then the pain of their loss will always be in your heart.”
He gave her a hard stare. “Why are you telling me this?”
She returned his stare, hoping to make him see past his guilt. “I’m telling you this because if you loved Kieran so much that you still ache like this after his passing, then he must have known how you felt before he died.”
“Aye, and he died because I betrayed him.”
“Nay,” she said. “He died because he wasn’t capable of living with the pain you have.”
A tic worked in his jaw as he turned away from her. “This is not comforting me.”
She put her hand on his arm and felt his biceps flex. Her poor Ewan. Would he ever find a way to forgive himself for something he’d had no part in?
How she wished she could make him lay aside his guilt and find happiness once more.
“The Queen looked at Abrides,” she began again, “and asked him who he would have her kill for his wife’s death.
“Kill me, he said. For it was my want of a son that cost her her life. Had I been content as I should have with her alone, she would be with me now.
“The queen shook her head in sorrow and said to him, ‘we all must die. Nothing can ever change that. But it is how we live when we are here that matters most. I will not kill you,’ she said, ‘because your death will not set things aright. Only by living can you do that.’”
“Living doesn’t make things right,” Ewan said, his deep voice scarce more than a whisper.
“Perhaps. But do you really think your brother would want you dead?”
“If he were alive, I am quite sure he would kill me.”
Nora gave a small, sad smile at that, not believing it for a second. “Beat you perhaps, but not kill you. I think had Kieran had the strength to live, he would have found someone worthy of his love and that now the two of you would be laughing over the foolishness of his infatuation with Isobail.”
Anger flashed in his eyes, turning them a stormy blue. “You’ve no right to speak about my brother. You didn’t know him and you don’t understand?—”
“I do understand, Ewan.”
She reached out and touched his face, turning his chin until he looked at her. She wanted him to see the truth. Desperately. “I know exactly what it’s like to love someone with the whole of one’s heart and then to have to smile as that person goes off to marry someone else. I know how much it hurts. I know how much I wanted to die when it happened to me, and every time I think about the fact that had I married him, I wouldn’t be facing a life with Ryan now, I could scream with the frustration of it.”
