EPILOGUE
At the Kudarung Inn
Rajmuat in the Copper Isles
April 2, 464 H.E.
In the morning the Tortallan delegation would sail home, with reports for their monarchs on the new queen and her government. For this occasion some of its members had taken a private room for a very private dinner. Their two local guests came separately, one as a crow who changed into human form once he reached his father-in-law's chambers. Aly came disguised as a Carthaki lady, complete with veils.
She and Nawat sat at the table with her family, everyone full of good food and busy with lively talk. Aly, whose morning sickness extended sometimes to evenings, had contented herself with a mild broth and fruit juices. She looked frequently at the slight swell of her belly, mystified by the thought that another human being was taking shape beneath her navel.
She sat between her father, George Cooper, baron of Pirate's Swoop, and her mother, Alanna the Lioness, lady knight and King's Champion of Tortall. From that position she could look at her brothers. Alan wore a squire's gear. His knight-master had allowed him to carry word to his parents that it was time to come home, and to attend his twin's wedding before he returned with them. Thom was bouncing Sarralyn Salmalín on his knee, explaining to the two-year-old the difference between a star and a moon, while Sarra beamed up at him. Next to him Veralidaine Salmalín, known as Daine the Wildmage, gently rocked baby Rikash and talked softly with the crowd of darkings assembled on the table before her. Her husband, the mage Numair, was deep in conversation with Aly's grandfather, Tortall's official spymaster, Myles of Olau. Eleni, lady of Olau, discussed bird lice cures with Nawat.
“Well, I never thought you would do it,” Alanna remarked as she sat back in her chair.
Aly gave an inward sigh, certain she was about to get a speech in how she ought to behave. “Do what, Mother?” she asked, keeping the impatience from her voice. It's the last time I'll see her, she scolded herself. I can take a little lecture from her, surely.
“Find a cause that caught you up and gripped you in your very veins,” Alanna replied quietly, her eyes on the raka tapestries on the walls. “Find some passion that would consume you. Make you a fool with the rest of us fools.”
“I'm hardly consumed,” Aly began to say. Then she looked at her mother, at the lines at the corners of her mother's famed violet eyes, at the blue pearl drops hanging from her ears, Aly's Midwinter gift, at the callused and scarred hands that Alanna had folded on the table. Slowly Aly's sense of reality overcame her. Her mouth twitched. Her mother was right. Aly had found something to consume her, even if she didn't show it as her mother did. “Have I ever mentioned that I hate it when you're right?” she asked instead.
Alanna shook her head. “No, I don't believe you have. As far as I could tell, you never thought I was right.”
Another bubble of vexation fizzed up out of Aly's belly and popped. She could see a smile tugging her mother's lips. “Since you mention it, no. Except now, Mother.” She offered her hand.
Alanna took it and kissed Aly on the cheek. “Goddess bless you each and every day,” she whispered. “The Great Mother is surely too wise to hold a grudge simply because you helped her brother.”
Finally Aly and Nawat had to go, or fall asleep on the table. Aly took leave of her family, hugging everyone hard, fixing their faces in her mind. She saved her father for last. Standing on tiptoe, she whispered, “Da, I'd like all of your agents out of the Isles by the end of the month. Elsewise I'll arrest them and ship them home.”
George looked down at his daughter, his eyes lighting up with amusement. He raised an eyebrow at her.
Aly knew what he meant by it. He would simply recruit new people in the Isles, because that was his job. Smiling wickedly, she raised one eyebrow of her own.
Back in their palace quarters, Nawat watched as Aly walked onto the veranda. The late-night air blew around her, molding her light nightgown to her body. “You will find ways to see them, and they to see you,” he called to her. “They are not lost to you, or you to them. They will always be your flock.”
“I know,” Aly called, looking up at the sky. The sliver of the moon and the dots of the stars were as they had been in the months before the gods had waged their battle in the Divine Realms. Kyprioth had reclaimed his true throne in full, and Mithros and the Goddess were still searching for their shields. “I know. There's no reason we can't see each other, if we're discreet. Though we're going to be frightfully busy.”
“There is much for us to do,” Nawat agreed. “But there must be time for fun as well. Fun, and sparklies, and nestlings, and all the other things that make life interesting. For example, you could make my life interesting right now, if you chose.”
Aly laughed. “And where would you be if I didn't choose?” she asked, walking inside once more.
Nawat smiled at her, the smile of a man who loved a woman. “Right here,” he said confidently. “I would wear you down.”
Aly was drifting off to sleep when a familiar, crisp voice whispered in her ear, There's a girl. You get some rest. The Isles will give you all the interesting things you can stand. Kyprioth added, And so will I.