The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [231]
“She can’t possibly want to marry me.”
“Oh, don’t be an ass, Gerro!” Branna had had quite enough of polite sparring. “Of course she does, and I’ll wager you cursed well know it. You’re not that doltish.”
Gerran opened his mouth and shut it several times.
“Well?” Branna said.
“Here, I’ll tell you the truth if you promise not to tell her. Or anyone, not even Neb.”
He grinned so smugly at his proposed bargain that Branna felt like swearing at him. Honor and curiosity wrestled in her mind. Curiosity won.
“Oh, very well, I promise.”
“I do want to marry her.” Gerran lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “But if I ask her, and she agrees, what if I’m killed when we bring down Zakh Gral? She’ll be betrothed to a dead man, a widow in everyone’s eyes, and who’s going to marry her then?”
Branna was so surprised at this decency that for a long moment she could find no words to respond. Gerran had a long swallow of ale and resumed staring at the ashy hearth.
“I do see,” Branna said at last. “And truly, you’re right. If you told Solla that, she’d say it wouldn’t matter to her, and you’d probably end up announcing your betrothal—but it does matter. I shan’t tell a soul. I’ll just pray with all my heart that you ride home again from Zakh Gral.”
That night, the last before the Red Wolf left Cengarn, the air inside the broch turned so humid and hot that Branna couldn’t sleep. She slipped out of bed without waking Neb, threw on the first dress she found, and went barefoot up to the roof for the fresher air. A cool wind frayed a few stray clouds and sent them scudding off toward the east. The last-quarter moon seemed to sail with them, glimmering free, then disappearing again into cloud.
Distantly from the west Branna heard a sound like thunder, but by then she’d heard enough dragons in flight to recognize it for the beat of wings. She surveyed the sky, and at last she saw Rori, gleaming more silver than the moon with the Wildfolk of Aethyr clinging to him as he flew. She was expecting him to go on by, but he headed for the tower as if he might land.
Instead, at the last moment he lowered one wing and began to circle around the broch, as if to greet and salute her. As Branna stood on that particular tower with Cengarn spread out below her and watched a dragon circle in greeting, she suddenly remembered standing there long before and watching a man riding another dragon, waving as he passed by. The memory was so strong that she turned to speak to Dallandra, who had stood next to her at the time, only to find her, of course, not there.
For a moment Branna felt as if she might fall to her knees in a faint or trance. She started trembling, suddenly cold, as another vision came to her. Two times, two lives rose up before her, a shimmering memory, a clear view, one overlapping the other, then breaking free, as if they danced side by side inside her mind. She could see the silver wyrm flying over Dun Cengarn. She could see a man standing in a doorway with bright sun behind him, and over him the shadow of a pair of enormous wings, his dark wyrd. The two sights fused.
“Rhodry!” she called out. “Rhodry, I’ve come back! I’m here!”
It seemed the stupidest thing in the world to say, but the dragon tossed back his head and roared. She could hear joy in that greeting. He circled once more, then flew off due north. Branna watched him until he disappeared into the gloom of the horizon.
“Well and good, then, Jill,” she said aloud. “It’s going to take both of us, but you swore a vow that you’d pull him back from the brink of that wyrd, and by every god and goddess, I’m going to keep it.”
GLOSSARY
Alar (Elvish) A group of elves, who may or may not be bloodkin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.
Alardan (Elv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.
Astral The plane of existence directly “above” or “within” the etheric (q.v.). In other systems of magic, often referred