Eleri Lanfear's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The frost had broken by the time Kell Trembath could walk without the stick. Eleri watched him cross the Rossmore yard one spring morning, slow but steady, the old limp finally gone. Kell was the scholar who had chased the Murray chronicle for years, the man whose letters had circled the same book that had torn her family apart. He had come to Rossmore hurt, half-drowned from a wreck dive, and the healer had kept him long past his welcome. Now his leg had mended. And with it mended, there was nothing left to wait on. Senara and Kell would marry. Eleri had not expected to care. Months ago she had called this house her enemy. Now she stood in the hall braiding wildflowers into Senara's red hair, her fingers quick and sure. "Hold still," she said. Senara laughed. "You're worse than my mother was." The words fell between them easy, without sting. Eleri tied off the braid. In the mirror two women looked back who had once fought over a stolen book. She felt no edge in it anymore, only the warm press of belonging. They married in the yard under open sky. Lord Kieran gave his daughter forward, blunt and proud, his hand steady on her arm. Rhydian stood at Eleri's side with Eoghan asleep against his chest. Jory had ridden in from the north, Princess Eleanor beside him, and he caught Eleri's eye across the crowd and gave her a short nod. Even Mellyora had stayed. She sat straight-backed in dark violet, her chin high, watching a Murray wedding she had spent thirty years hating. When Senara and Kell spoke their vows, Eleri held her breath. Kell did not waste words. "I looked for one thing my whole life," he said. "I found something better instead." Senara's eyes went bright. The crowd cheered. Rhydian leaned close to Eleri. "He talks like you," he murmured. "Short. Hits the point." Eleri smiled and did not answer. She was watching Mellyora. After the feast, her mother found her by the hall door. "They're happy," Mellyora said, clipped as always. "I didn't think I'd see it." She looked at Eoghan, then at her daughter. "You chose this house. I fought you on it. I was wrong." It was the closest to an apology Eleri had ever heard from her. She took her mother's hand. "You came. That's enough." Senara crossed the floor to them, flushed with dancing, flowers slipping loose from her braid. She took Eleri's free hand. "Sister," she said. Not a title offered in politeness. A fact, stated plain, the way Senara stated everything. Eleri felt the word settle into her chest and stay. Across the hall Kell raised his cup to her, dry and certain, a scholar who had stopped searching. Rhydian pressed a kiss to her hair and Eoghan stirred and did not wake. She had come to Rossmore a stranger carrying another house's secret. She had carried a book of spells, closed a tear in the sky, borne a son with a Murray name. Now she stood between her mother and her sister in a hall that had once locked its doors to her. The feud was ended. The family she had wanted whole stood whole around her, Murray and Lanfear under one roof, and no one in the room would have called her anything but family. Eleri held her son, and for the first time she understood she had already won.