Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) (76 page)
Read Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) Online
Authors: Sharon Shinn
“I hardly think I would be looked at with any more horror than Demaray will be for
her
bad behavior,” he said. “Anyway, the people of Fortunalt expect a few mismatches in their House. Remember I told you that Karryn’s grandmother ran off with her steward? A Thirteenth House lord and a captain of the guard would not be considered nearly as scandalous as that.” He leaned in to kiss her quickly on the mouth. “So what do you think, my dearest Wen? Can I convince you to stay another year, perhaps even two? I will take it month by month if that is what you require, but I do not think I will be able to bear it if you tell me you are preparing to journey to Ghosenhall the minute you can saddle your horse.”
her
bad behavior,” he said. “Anyway, the people of Fortunalt expect a few mismatches in their House. Remember I told you that Karryn’s grandmother ran off with her steward? A Thirteenth House lord and a captain of the guard would not be considered nearly as scandalous as that.” He leaned in to kiss her quickly on the mouth. “So what do you think, my dearest Wen? Can I convince you to stay another year, perhaps even two? I will take it month by month if that is what you require, but I do not think I will be able to bear it if you tell me you are preparing to journey to Ghosenhall the minute you can saddle your horse.”
She threw her arms around his neck and muffled her laughter against his shoulder. “I have been wondering how to tell you that I do not plan to return to Ghosenhall ever,” she mumbled into his shirt. “I have been thinking, ‘He believed it was all very well to bed me when he knew I would be moving on soon, but when he learns that I want to make Fortune my home, he will be anxious and uncertain.’ I thought that—”
But now he pulled back, urgently, holding her by the shoulders so he could get a good look at her face. “Truly? You have decided to stay here? Why? Why have you forsaken the Riders, who have shown so clearly that they would welcome you back?”
She made a small gesture, all she could manage with his grip so tight on her shoulders. “It’s not so much that I would turn my back on the Riders as I cannot turn my back on Fortune,” she said. “It has come to be a part of me—all of it—Karryn, and you, and my guards, even Serephette, and now Lindy. You all belong to me. If I tried to leave, I would be lost again. Perhaps I have not been searching for absolution all this time. Perhaps I have just been searching for a home.”
He was watching her closely, on his face a mix of hope and uncertainty. “I am part of what gives you a sense of home, I hope. But how much of a part? I would be willing to follow you somewhere else—would you be willing to follow me?”
She returned his regard steadily. “I would,” she said, “but I don’t want to be made to leave and I don’t think you want to go. You might not realize it yet, but you are bound to this place as much as I am. Even if you followed me to Ghosenhall, half of your heart would be here. We have become entangled in this place, both of us. Neither of us would survive the uprooting very well.”
A small smile curved his mouth. “Like the hedge around Fortune. Glossy and gorgeous and resilient in the place where it has grown up, but doomed to wither and die if someone tries to transplant it to some more advantageous spot.”
She laughed and leaned forward to kiss him. “Just like that.”
He drew her forward to settle against his shoulder and spoke with his mouth against her hair. His deep voice fell instantly into the rhythms of verse:
I have been used to the beggar’s friendless portion.
I have been used to the gods’ unstinting wrath.
What wild chance, what fair or fickle fortune
Flung you like redemption in my path?
“I have no idea what you mean by that,” she said. “I just know that I love you and I cannot believe I was lucky enough to find you.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what the poem said.”
So her days would be delineated now by ballads as well as battles, sonnets as well as swords. There were so many prosaic matters still to settle—from how they might live together to who they might tell—but Wen supposed those were minor details that would work themselves out in time. For now it was enough just to feel this supreme contentment, this ease, this relaxed and sprawling sense of wonder. For now it was enough to see her life taking on this very simple, very solid form—one man’s unwavering silhouette to give shape to the formless future, one man’s voice to make sense of the rushed and unrhymed days.
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