The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [145]
She shook her head incredulously, tearstained face bone-pale. "Marriage… children… Lady Helmfast! You're crazed!"
"Quite possibly. Nevertheless… the words are said and I mean them."
Naoni stared into his eyes, breathing fast. "I believe you'll stand by your vow, Lord Helmfast, and I give you one of my own: I'll no longer be ridden by the ghost of my mother's pain. I'll not judge you by he who wronged her. And I'll no longer pretend I don't love you."
Her lips found his, and they were warm and sweet and willing.
When at last they broke apart, breathless, Naoni murmured, "Now, that, my lord, is a beginning!"
Korvaun chuckled and stroked her cheek. "Nay, love, let it be an ending-for this night. Let the priests chant their prayers first, so you never have reason to fear dishonor or scandal."
"Haven't I vowed an end to such fears?" she replied. "Morning's not far off, and the ghosts fade. There are none to see the promises we make, or judge how we seal our vows to each other."
Korvaun shook his head. "You need prove nothing to me."
"Have I reason to fear dishonor or scandal?"
"No. Not while I live." As this was simple truth, and because she gazed at him with such shining trust, Korvaun took a ring from the smallest finger of his right hand and slid it onto her finger.
"You have my pledge and my heart-and I'll give you my name as soon as the ceremony can be arranged."
Naoni's smile was dazzling. "Give me your love, and I'll be content."
Echoing sighs faded at the back of the tomb as the last wan ghostlight winked out-and there were indeed no witnesses to the promises made in the last hours of that night.
Yet when bright morning came, neither lord nor lass doubted that the whispered promises between them would be well kept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
For the first time in his life, Taeros Hawkwinter held vigil for dawn. All night he'd paced the mooncast shadows outside the City of the Dead, praying to every god he knew to hasten the coming of morning, and dreading what dawn might reveal. The stern line of Guardsmen had been unmoved by his pleadings and use of the Hawkwinter name. Scores of times he'd cursed himself for noticing Varandros Dyre striding out of that inn. If they hadn't found Faendra to ask her where her sister had gone, Korvaun would never have gone sprinting off to find his Naoni, and-
Enough. 'Twas done, as surely as Malark's entombment, the gods save us all.
Taeros wasn't alone in his fearful restlessness. A throng had gathered outside every gate of the cemetery, anxious to learn the fates of friends and loved ones locked within-or to reclaim the dead and dying who were only too visible through the high iron gates. A veritable army of Guardsmen, Watchmen, and Watchful Order magists grimly barred passage, unmoved by threats, brandished blades, and sobbing pleadings alike.
Throughout the night several frantic folk had tried to scale the walls, only to be hurled off by warding magics. Others had wept helplessly as they recognized a familiar voice, inside the walls, raised in terror or pain. The cries soon died away, leaving only ominous silence, and still the citizens waited, shivering in the chill grey damp of the night-mists.
At last the darkness started to lighten, and men started to call, "In! In!"
Others took up the cry, and it quickly rose into a chant. Taeros stood nose to nose with the Guardsman who'd firmly denied him several times and saw the man's eyes change as someone spoke inside his head.
The officer turned and said curtly, "Open the gates."
Binding spells wavered and sighed away, locks were undone and great bars hurled aside, and the great iron gates swept silently open. With a collective sigh, the waiting throng streamed inside.
Taeros jostled with dozens of robed priests and heard the rattling progress of many haulcarts behind him. The carters would convey the known dead to their grieving families and haul the unclaimed to The Last Bath in South Ward, the grim house where unknown dead were laid out in hopes someone would miss them and come looking. Taeros prayed