“A stairway, I should think,” Grimult explained, pointing to where it might go. “So you may come and go as you please.” He turned them both and pointed past the crest where they had just come. “But our home should be there, perhaps. For privacy’s sake.”
And if her cheeks pinked just a little, he felt himself very accomplished.
“I would like that,” Penryn admitted, and he leaned down and kissed her softly, promising all that would be theirs as soon as he was able to craft it for them.
Perhaps it would even have a little bathing room. And if he was very clever, might see if he could work with the blacksmith to fashion some of the strange pipework that brought water up from seemingly nowhere.
And made his wife smile so when she could have a bath whenever it so pleased her.
There would be challenges yet, of that he had no doubt. There were too many unknowns, with their borders guarded not from mystical unknowns, but from a people, solid and real, forging a new existence of their own.
Of sages who no longer held mastery over histories now exposed.
Of a treaty beyond a far away Wall, who still needed a representative once a generation.
He did not know yet what the world might be once it settled back into place.
But here...
He was content.
He held his wife close, and Penryn gave a little sigh against him as she settled so sweetly there, so right and perfect in his arms.
Until suddenly there were a great many more embraces surrounding him, and yes, the girlish chatter of sisterly chastisement for taking far too long to come back, and he was a brute for his selfishness because didn’t he know that they couldn’t be wedded until he was home again...
And then their mother shushing them all and tightening her grip about his waist, audibly sobbing in relief.
And had she heard right that he was married now?
And Grimult laughed.
They were home.
Also by Catherine Miller
Tomes of the Lightkeep
Guardian of the Lightkeep
The Deridia Series
Mercy
Trade
Thrall
The Wholeness Project
Designation 932
Designation 261
Additional Works
Remnant
Destruction of Obsession
A Rose in Winter
A Civic Duty
A Nymph Without Mercy
The Making of a Lady
The Phantom’s Witness
