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Naturally.
Or more likely, waiting until spring, when Edan would be stronger and the roads easier.
Oh, excellent. At this rate you will be leaving when Ewan grows a beard.
I scowled down at the stocking I was mending.
Every one of my excuses was logical, which made my own mind’s mockery particularly unfair.
You do not want to leave.
Maardok had never mentioned the moon’s cycle, not once.
The impossible male had promised me I could leave whenever I wished, and apparently he intended to honor that promise so thoroughly that he would not even ask whether I still wanted to. He went about his days training warriors, helping Ewan, stealing Edan whenever the babe was fed and kissing me whenever he passed within reach, while the moon grew larger each night and he said nothing.
If he had asked me to stay, I could have told him not to pressure me.
If he had said I belonged here, I could have reminded him that I belonged to myself.
If he had so much as mentioned the stones, I could have become angry that he was trying to hurry my decision.
Instead, he left the decision entirely to me.
‘Twas infuriating how well he understood me.
One night, with the full moon only a day away, I lay beside him listening to Edan breathe in his basket and Ewan shifting occasionally in the loft. Maardok slept behind me, one heavy arm draped over my waist, and I stared into the dying fire while considering, for mayhap the hundredth time, the many excellent reasons I should not travel yet.
And was honest with myself to dismiss each one of them, because I didn’t want to leave.
I shifted irritably beneath Maardok’s arm, and he made a sleepy sound before pulling me closer, apparently determined to be infuriatingly comforting even while unconscious.
For years, whenever I’d been frightened or trapped or uncertain, there had always been something to push against. Richard’s expectations. John’s demands. Hunger, winter, the town, the endless necessity of keeping Ewan safe. Even Maardok had once given me something to resist simply by wanting more from me than I was prepared to give.
Now he wanted me and refused to demand me.
He had left the door open, kept his promise, and stepped aside.
And damn the male, there was nothing on the other side of it that I wanted more than what I already had here.
Which left me with absolutely nothing to fight but myself.
If only I could understand what there was for me here, I might be able to stop fighting altogether.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cataline
The moon came full on a cold, clear night, and ‘twas as if I were the only one in Battleborn Village who noticed it.
I knew what it meant: We passed through the veil at midnight on the last full moon, when I was bloody and confused and carrying my newborn babe. The circle of stones—whether on Islay or on the mainland or at sea—would fill with mist, the veil would thin, and for one hour, anyone could pass back and forth between our worlds.
Maardok had said I could return to my world if I wanted to.
But he hadn’t pointed it out. He came in from checking the byre, banked the fire, pulled the quilt over the pair of us, pressed a kiss to my shoulder, and fell asleep with one enormous hand spread across my hip.
He promised you could go in the spring. He did not promise to remind you when the door was open.
By morning it had passed, and the moon began to wane, and nobody said anything about that either. Not Jean, not Issa, not Rowena, not the warrior who nodded at me by the well.
