court. His would be the mirror image of hers, with a fireplace in the wall the two rooms shared, a desk, several chairs, and a small couch where someone who was ailing or infirm (as many senior diplomats were) could recline at his ease. He led the way to the couch, and she sat down beside him. The light from outside was beginning to fade, but no servant would dare venture in here to light candles until they were called for, which was exactly how she had ordered it. They would be undisturbed until she wished otherwise, for the first time in her life.
'I need to know something right now,' she said, as he visibly searched for words to begin the conversation. 'What are your long-term intentions and plans? As regards us, our relationship, that is.'
He swallowed, and took a deep breath. 'I'm taking this all very well, am I not?' he replied, with a weak grin. 'Actually, you flung a rock into what had been a quiet and ordered pond. I was going to keep myself strictly in the background. I had intended to suborn myself to your needs and wishes, and keep everything so discreet that no one would ever guess what was going on. Firesong and I had even planned on creating the fiction that he and I were shay'kreth'ashke, just to throw anyone off the scent. After all, we'd already convinced Shion of that. But now - I suppose I don't need to.'
'No, you don't,' she replied, then grinned. 'In fact, I'd rather like it if you were as blatant as possible. The more ineligible I make myself for the throne, the better. Although I know there is going to be at least one person who would prefer the original plan. Poor Firesong is going to be terribly disappointed!' She gave him an arch look. 'After all, it was your hair that he wanted to braid feathers into!'
He stared at her a moment longer, then broke into laughter that came within a hair of hysteria but never quite crossed the line. She smiled but didn't join him this time. Her neck and stomach were taut with tension, for he still hadn't answered her question. There was something in her pocket that was burning a fiery hole in her heart.
Finally he calmed, and wiped his eyes. 'Well,' he said at last, 'my intentions are honorable, at least. I should like very much, Elspeth k'Sheyna k'Valdemar, if you would accept a feather from my bondbird.'
'I hope you have a spare,' she replied, with a chuckle born of intense relief and a desire to shout with joy. 'I would like very much to accept, but Vree will never forgive me if you run back into your room and pluck him.'
But to her surprise, he reached into an inner pocket in the breast of his clothing and brought out a forestgyre primary - one with a shaft covered in beadwork of tiny crystals hardly bigger than grains of sand. It had a hair-tie of a silver clasp with two matching silver chains ending in azure crystals.
'I have held this next to my heart for the past several months,' he said solemnly, 'Never thinking you would be able to wear it openly, and not sure you would even be able to accept it at all.'
Her vision blurred as he spoke the traditional words that signified a Hawkbrother marriage. 'Elspeth, will you wear my feather, for all the world and skies to see?'
She took it from him, her hands trembling; started to fasten it into her hair, but her hands shook too much to do so and he had to help her. Her heart raced as if she had been running fast, and she could not stop smiling - her skin tingled and burned, and she wanted to laugh, sing, cry - all of them at once.
Instead, she took out her own gift. 'I don't have a bondbird,' she said. 'I don't know how Gwena will feel about this. I can only hope she feels the way I do.'
She held out the ring on her open palm, a silver ring with an overlay of crystal. Sandwiched between was an intricately braided band of incandescently white horsehair, hairs carefully pulled from Gwena's tail, one at a time, so that each hair was perfect. She'd had the ring made up by one of the hertasi several months ago, never really hoping she would be able to use it, but unable to give up the dream that she might.
He took it and placed it on his ring finger, and she noticed with a certain amount of pleasure that his hands were trembling as much as hers now. 'Hertasi work, isn't it?' he asked, rather too casually.
She nodded. He looked at the ring closely.
'In fact - I think I know the artisan. Kelee, isn't it?'
Again she nodded. 'I've probably had it as long as you've had the feather,' she ventured.
He chuckled. 'And the hertasi, no doubt, have been chortling to themselves for some time. They are inveterate matchmakers, you know.'
She thought about the sly way that Kelee had looked at her when he had given her the finished ring, and could only sigh and nod.
'Well,' he said at last, after a long silence. 'This is a good thing. I think that my parents and Clan would approve.'
Elspeth squeezed his hand and said quietly, 'It doesn't matter if they do or not. My feelings would be the same.'
Darkwind smiled. 'Mine as well.'
