“Well. You say I introduced you to Kitai, without realizing it, because of our bond. That’s why you can speak to her.”
“Indeed.”
“Then you should trust me. Interaction with the other Marat will be just as rewarding, on some level. As it will with the Canim. And the Icemen are already watercrafting, whether they realize it or not. It’s hardly any change at all.”
“I somehow do not think that the lords of your ancestral line would agree. Nor would they agree with the concept of . . . how did you phrase it?”
“Merit-based furycraft,” Tavi said. “Those who want more of it should be able to work to get it. It’s only fair. We’re losing the contribution of talented minds in every generation simply because they were not born with enough furycraft for their ideas to be respected. If that doesn’t change, we won’t survive.”
“I quite agree,” Alera replied. “And I’m willing to implement your plan before the end. I’m just . . . surprised to find the attitude in a mortal.”
“I’ve had everything,” Tavi said, gesturing at the room. “And I’ve had nothing. And I’ve made my peace with being in either place. That’s not something many of my ancestors can say.”
“Your people will look at this year, in the future, and they will call it a great marvel. They will call it the day your kind stepped from darkness into light.”
“Provided such ridiculously arrogant know-it-alls actually survive to do so, I will be content,” Tavi replied.
“You have a century and a half, by my estimation. Perhaps two. And then the Canean vord queen will come for you.”
Tavi nodded. “Then I’ll make us ready. Or get us part of the way there, at least.”
“Strange,” Alera said. “I feel a certain empathy for you, knowing that great events are to come, but that I will not be there to see them. I feel more like a mortal now than at any time I have existed in this form.”
“That’s to be expected. You are, after all, dying.”
Alera smiled, the expression warm. “True,” she whispered. “And not true. Some part of me, young Gaius, will always be with you, and your children after you.”
“What do you mean?” Tavi asked.
But the reflection in the water was his own.
He stared down at the pool for a few moments more, just to be sure. Then he rose and firmly watercrafted the tears from his eyes and marched off toward his fate.
Tavi met Kitai outside the Rivan amphitheater, where the Senate, the Citizenry, and anyone else who could squeeze into the building were waiting. The young Marat woman was wearing a white gown that left one shoulder bare and draped across her rather fetchingly. Trimmed in gold and studded with pearls and gems, her gown was easily a match for his own tunic. Granted, the Horse Clan hair-style she wore would have scandalized the Realm, even if she hadn’t dyed her pale hair in brilliant colors. He’d pointed it out gently to her a few days back, and she’d responded that her mane was dyed in the royal colors of vibrant red and blue, and so what did anyone have to be scandalized about?
Isana and Araris were there as well, both dressed in the green and browns of Lord Calderon’s House, standing next to Bernard himself. Isana embraced Tavi when he appeared, and said, “What happened to your collar? It looks . . . stretched.”
“I stretched it, in the interests of breathing,” Tavi replied.
His mother smiled at him, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. “Well. It will do, I suppose. You’ve always looked too thin, the past few years.”
Tavi turned to Araris and offered his hand. The swordsman took it, his sun-browned skin rough and warm, then embraced him in a brief, tight hug. “Your father would be proud of you, Tavi.”
Tavi grinned at him. “Thank you, Count and Countess Rillwater.”
“For goodness’ sake, Tavi,” Isana said. “You didn’t have to appoint us to the Citizenry.”
“I’m the First Lord,” Tavi told her, smiling. “That’s what you get for having a quiet, private ceremony when I’m busy fighting vord. Suffer.”
Bernard let out a rumbling laugh and embraced Tavi hard enough to make his ribs creak. “Watch it, boy. There are enough folk around who remember how to let the air out of your head if it swells too much.”
Tavi returned the embrace, grinning. “Look how much good it did me when I was young, eh?”
Bernard snorted and put a hand on Tavi’s shoulder. He looked him up and down and nodded. “You’ve done well, boy.”
“Thank you,” Tavi said quietly, “Uncle.”
“Lord Uncle,” corrected Amara, her gold-brown eyes sparkling as she appeared from behind her husband. She held a bundled infant over her swelling belly. “You both look wonderful,” she said to Tavi and Kitai. “Congratulations.”
“Hah,” Kitai said, staring at Amara. “You are as big as a house. How did you hide behind him?”
Amara flushed and laughed, clearly both embarrassed and pleased. “Endless practice.”
“When are you due?” Kitai asked.
“Another three months or so,” Amara said. She glanced over her shoulder, evidently an instinctive movement, and said, a bit plaintively, “Bernard.”
Tavi’s uncle glanced over to a nearby fountain, where a young girl was apparently leading two even younger boys on an expedition walking around its narrow rim. “Masha,” Bernard called, and started walking toward them. “Masha, stop trying to get your brothers to fall in.”
“Brothers?” Kitai asked.
“Adopted,” Amara said. She looked down again, her expression both pleased and demure. “There were so many children in need of a home, after Third Calderon. We weren’t expecting me to . . . to be expecting. Isana says it was the Blessing of Night that repaired the damage the Blight did to me.”
“Oh, aye,” Kitai said, nodding. “It was used for that among my people once, back before my Aleran woke up its sleeping guardian and nearly destroyed the world.”
“Will you never let that rest?” Tavi asked, grinning.
“One day. When you are old and toothless. I promise.”
“We’d best go on in,” Isana said. “Tavi, do you want someone to hold him?”
“No, thank you, Mother,” Tavi replied. “We decided that he’s coming with us.”
Kitai nodded firmly and accepted the infant from Amara. She settled him against her, fussed with his blankets, and told the child, “It is foolish, but we must endure this Aleran nonsense. It will make your father happy.”
“It’s a necessary formality,” Tavi said, nodding to the other four as they went on into the amphitheater. “That’s all.”
Kitai ignored him to continue speaking to the baby. “Like many Alerans, he places undue value upon acts performed in front of witnesses in which all manner of ridiculous things are done that would be much more simply done at a desk or table than here. But we love him, so we will do these things.”
“You love him, do you?” Tavi asked.
Kitai smiled up at him, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Very much.”
Tavi put his hand on the warm head of the little person who had entered the world scarcely a week before. His other arm slid around Kitai’s shoulders. They stood like that for a moment, not moving, both of them looking down at the sleepy face of Gaius Desiderius Tavarus, their son.
Desiderius. The desired one. Let there never be a doubt in his mind that he was welcome in their family and in their world.
Tavi felt . . .
Complete.
“I love you, too,” he said quietly. “Ready?”
“Remind me of the ceremony?” Kitai asked as they started walking.
“We go down the aisle to the podium and table. We’ll stop in front of Varg, who will do the reading. Maximus will vouch for my identity and your father for yours. Then we’ll each sign the marriage contract.”
Kitai nodded. “And then what?”
“What do you mean? And then we’re married.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. “You . . . are quite serious, aren’t you?”
Tavi blinked and tried not to sound as baffled as he felt. “That’s . . . the wedding ceremony. I mean . . . granted there’s no swordplay or arson or rock climbing, but what were you expecting?”
Kitai exhaled patiently, composed herself, and began walking again.
They entered the amphitheater, and as they did they came into view of forty thousand Citizens and freemen, Canim and Marat, and even one of the Icemen, who wore a coldstone around his shaggy neck like an amulet. To the “First Lord’s March,” that clanking and lurching piece of attempted music, they walked slowly down the aisle toward the center of the amphitheater. By the time they’d gone a third of the way, the amphitheater was already erupting into cheers.
“We both sign a contract,” Kitai said from between her teeth. No one in the crowd would see anything but her smile. “We scribble on a page.”
“Yes,” Tavi replied the same way.
She looked up at him, her warm green eyes merry as she rolled them, and said, as though mouthing a curse, “Alerans.”