The Rose Throne (33 page)

“As long as it suits him, I suspect. But I swear I shall come soon. Unless you are tired of waiting for me and ready to find another man who would be better suited to Weirland?”

“Of course not,” Issa said. “I will never love anyone else but you. You must know that.”

He kissed her again. “I like to hear it even so. And Issa, I will never love anyone but you. Promise me that you will trust me.”

“But it is dangerous here in Rurik,.” she said. “Now more than ever, with King Haikor so angry and anxious to prove himself.”

“You must trust me. I have the taweyr. I know how it must be wielded for the best of both
kingdoms. Do you argue with me on that point, now that you claim to have the taweyr yourself?”

“No, Kellin,” said Issa.

“Then do not argue with me now. Trust me. I shall come to you. Nothing can stop me from doing that. I have hoped for too long to give up my chance with you now.”

“King Haikor will try to stop you,” said Issa.

“Let him try,” said Kellin, and he kissed her one last time. Issa would have been glad for it to go on forever. She did not need to breathe so long as she had Kellin in her arms.

But he pulled away and helped her on her horse, and she rode off with her servants, leaving Kellin behind to prove that their love would be stronger than King Haikor’s hatred.

Over the next few weeks, the company made its way north through Rurik to the land bridge and then home to Weirland. The weather was cold and wet as autumn marched on, but to Issa, the journey home seemed shorter than the earlier one. Word traveled ahead of her, and she was greeted by many people who had gathered at the gates to see her return. It was such a relief to be home that she had only just passed through the gates when she slid off her horse and let her feet touch the ground.

She let her sense of the neweyr spread out to include the whole palace, and then the kingdom beyond. There were her forests. There were the fields of grain ready for harvest. There were the streams and the sun-drenched orchards. There was her sky, her clouds, her winds. Her world. She had not ruined it with her misuse of the neweyr, after all.

But the castle, when she turned to it, looked smaller than it had been. Her father, too, seemed smaller as she greeted him formally. They retired to his chambers later, and she told him all that had happened in Rurik with Haikor and Edik and Ailsbet. Only what had happened privately with Kellin she left out. He did not interrupt her once, nor ask her questions when she was finished. There was a new relationship between them. She was no longer merely his daughter and a princess. She was not a queen, either, perhaps, but she was something else. It would have to be seen how useful she would be to her people and her kingdom now, and if she would ever again use the neweyr as a weapon.

Lady Neca was waiting outside her father’s chambers to take her to her own.

“I am glad you have come back,” said Neca.

“Am I back?” Issa asked.

Neca looked at her. “I think you will be, when
I’ve put your hair into a proper braid,” she said.

Issa laughed ruefully and put her hands to her hair, which she had worn loose since she left King Haikor’s palace, all through the journey north. It had bothered her, but she had not wanted to braid it in case it gave away too much of her identity. She had told the female servants in the party to wear their hair loose, as well. Such a simple thing, but it mattered so much. She had missed the single plait down her back. “Oh, Neca. You know just what to say, don’t you?”

Neca spent the next hour teasing Issa’s hair gently out of its tangles, sometimes with neweyr, sometimes with her own hands. Then she plaited it tightly and handed Issa a mirror to look at herself. The sight of herself in the mirror only added to her sense of being at home and at peace, at least for now.

“Do you truly have the taweyr?” asked Neca in her blunt fashion, which only made Issa realize how she had forgotten this way of speaking while in Rurik.

“No,” said Issa easily. It felt good to tell the truth again.

She told Neca about Kellin now. Every detail, from their first meeting to their last one, and his promise to come after her.

“Does your father know?” asked Neca.

“Not yet, but I will tell him.” She hoped her father would not object. She would tell him, in time.

But in the morning, she took Neca first with her to see Kedor. The young man had grown several inches since Issa had seen him last and looked full-grown now. Certainly, Neca seemed to treat him so, and as a consequence, Kedor paid very little attention to Issa at all.

She told Kedor that Kellin had promised to come to Weirland to see them both, and that he loved her.

“Trust him, then,” said Kedor. “He has never broken a promise in his life.”

“I must trust him.” He must come back to her. She would wait however long she had to, so long as she knew that he was coming, and that they would be together at last.