Dreamer's Daughter (28 page)

“Elves might not shapechange, but elven grandfathers have absolutely no problem apparently negotiating with your magic to provide comfortable transportation for a sleepy dreamspinner and the man who loves her.”

She turned and put her arms around him, then smiled up at him. “Let's go home,” she said. “Courtesy of your grandfather and our shapechanging horses.”

“We lead a charmed life.”

“I believe, Your Highness, that we do.”

She soon found herself sitting in a luxurious conveyance she never would have dared dream about earlier in the year, holding the hand of an elven prince she would have been convinced during the same time belonged safely tucked in a book on fables and myths. She closed her eyes as Iteach and Orail pulled them gently up into a mist that seemed to fall everywhere but on them and tried to stay awake so she didn't miss anything, but the pull of dreaming was too strong.

She closed her eyes and surrendered to it.

R
ùnach walked along the same shore his grandmother had painted all those centuries ago and marveled at the course his life had taken. He couldn't quite believe a year had passed since he had stood on the shores of Lake Cladach and resigned himself to an ordinary, magicless life in the garrison of an unimportant lord.

He looked up at the house he had built Aisling on the bluff where he'd envisioned it the first time he'd looked at his grandmother's painting of the same scene. Very few doors, endless amounts of light, baskets of wool and silk and whatever other sort of fiber he could find for Aisling that he thought she might enjoy. Gardeners had been imported and saplings planted. And if his grandmothers had arrived at various times and spent copious amounts of time digging in the dirt with both him and his lady wife, who was he to have argued? He had been a score of years without family about him. The privilege of enjoying their company was an unexpected joy.

He realized with a start that his favorite family member was walking down the path from the house toward him. He went to wait for her at the bottom of the path instead of climbing to meet her only because he knew she savored her moments on the shore where she could put away the fabric of the world and simply breathe.

She walked into his arms and sighed. “I thought you might be here.”

“Waiting for you,” he said gathering her close. “How are you?”

“Happy,” she said, sounding very much that. “A little tired, but I think a walk along the ocean's edge will cure that.”

He nodded, then took her hand and walked toward the water. She didn't seem inclined to speak, but he expected nothing less. Selecting threads to make up the tapestry of the world was quite often a difficult business, which he knew she had expected. He was happy to walk with her when she needed it and offer the exceptionally rare single word and simple thought when she requested it. Soilléir came to supper regularly. Rùnach supposed all those years at the man's elbow had done more to prepare him for his current life than he ever would have imagined they would.

He breathed deeply of the lovely sea air and thought back over the last year of that life. It was difficult to believe so much time had passed.

He had been a little surprised initially that Aisling hadn't taken longer to recover from her work of spinning all Bruadair's magic back into itself, though perhaps she'd had help from sources that valued her light magical touch. He'd slept for close to a se'nnight, then stumbled through the subsequent fortnight feeling as if he'd been trapped in a dream. It had occurred to him at one point that perhaps that was simply his reality tapping him firmly on the head and telling him to wake up. Accustoming himself to living in a dreamspinner's palace had been an adventure, to be sure. If he hadn't grown to manhood in a land full of mythical elvish happenings, he might not have survived it.

As time had passed, he supposed he'd done his bit, removing spells that blocked the magic here and there and lending a hand where needful. He had definitely made his share of visits to various and sundry rulers of affected countries—accompanied, to his surprise, most often by his grandfather Sìle—to smooth over where necessary and chastise where appropriate. Acair had come to a handful of those meetings, looking utterly unsettled and periodically rubbing his chest as if something inside it vexed him. Heartburn, Rùnach had supposed, from not only memories of his foulness but perhaps tummy upset from being subjected to stern moral lectures from the king of Tòrr Dòrainn. Rùnach had enjoyed both thoroughly.

Bruadair had seen its share of happy events as well. Frèam and Leaghra had been restored to their throne, Alexandra and Ochadius had been married in a glorious ceremony, and Beul had become less a hellhole and more what it had been in the past, a bustling city with a grand tradition of very fine, exclusive cloth sought by the finest courtiers in the Nine Kingdoms.

His own wedding had been much quieter, attended by those he and Aisling loved, and celebrated in a great hall where it was difficult to make out the ceiling for the dreams hovering there.

He smiled at the memory, then realized that there was something in the air that sounded a great deal like a melody he recognized from somewhere. He listened for a bit longer, then pulled up short.

“Rùnach?”

He considered, then looked at his wife. “Do you hear that?”

“The song?”

He blinked in surprise. “Is it a song?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. “The palace sings it occasionally. I think it might be a thread running through the tapestry as well, but I haven't had time to investigate. You're welcome to, if you like. Why do you ask?”

He laughed a little because he couldn't help it. “Sgath was humming that tune the evening I left for Gobhann all those many months ago. I've heard it, or thought I heard it, here, but I couldn't place it.”

“I wonder where he heard it?” she mused.

“I wonder,” Rùnach said with a snort. Obviously he was going to have to make a visit with Aisling at some point and ask his grandfather how he'd known, but he had the feeling Sgath would only smile and talk about fishing.

He, however, would think of wheels that went around and around, drawing visions and lives into their centers, blending lives and hopes into the endless tapestry of dreams his wife spun.

“Rùnach?”

He smiled, kissed her softly, then nodded down to the edge of the sea. “Nothing. Just thinking pleasant thoughts. Shall we walk more?”

“A bit more,” she said, “then I want to show you something.” She smiled, but her eyes were full of tears. “I found my mother's thread in the tapestry.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Did you? I didn't think she had spun.”

“She didn't spin anything.” She smiled, her eyes bright with tears. “It was a dream.”

He rubbed his free hand over his face, then pulled her into his arms so she wouldn't see him weep. How he, son of a black mage, had come to stand in a place of wonder and hold the woman he was wed to in his arms . . . well, he hadn't done anything to merit it and wasn't sure how he would ever repay anyone with a hand in it.

Dreamer's daughter that she was.

He would ask her what that dream had been later, when he thought he could speak successfully. For the moment, he simply held her until the sun set and the sea breezes seemed to suggest a return to a warm fire and a glass of something equally warm.

“Home?” she murmured.

He nodded, took her hand, then walked with her back up the shore.

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