Нора Робертс - The Becoming

He found Harken in the barn sharpening plowshares. Other tools, including three swords, lay already keen on the worktable.

“It’s cold as a dead man’s arse in the north, wet as a drowned rat in the east. And you couldn’t cut the gloom with an axe over the far midlands.”

“Warm and dry enough in here.”

Keegan took the kettle from the squat stove, poured the hot water through a strainer of strong tea leaves.

“Do you want a meal?” Harken asked him when Keegan sat on the top of a barrel.

“Thanks, no. Our mother nagged me into eating before I left the Capital. I’ve only got a short time, but wanted to check with you before I go on.”

“Quiet. I saw Brian when he came through, and he says Breen and Marco will stay on the other side today until they’re needed. They both have work there.”

“Just as well for that.”

In steady strokes, with sure, patient hands, Harken continued to run the blade over the whetstone. “I can feel you poking at me. I know where I’m needed, Keegan, as I’ve told you before. That’s here. If you need me somewhere else, you’ll say.”

“And you’ll go.” Keegan took a long drink, felt the warmth spread that was as much home as a hot drink and a fire. “I had a lot of time to think—you’ll have it when you’re flying through fucking blizzards and downpours and buckets of bloody hail.”

Harken grinned as he worked. “The luxury and glamour of the taoiseach.”

“Bloody bollocks on that. I know there are many who would give all, who do give, and they’re valued for it, every one. But it’s family, Harken, that holds me up. You and Aisling, Mahon, the boys, Ma. Knowing I can go to any of you. This place. I don’t work it like you, but I need it like you.”

“I know it.” Harken lifted his gaze as he worked, met Keegan’s. “I don’t lead like you, mo deartháir , but I need to know you hold the sword and the staff. It holds me up knowing it.”

“Yet your sword’s sharp and ready.”

“So will the plow be when I’m done.”

“Gods willing I’ll help you use it after the wheel turns to the new year.” He rose. “I have to go. I’ve three more portals to check, and then it’s back to the Capital. I’ll come back tomorrow if I can.”

“ Turas sábháilte. ”

“Safe enough, but likely wet. Harken … If we’re right about Odran coming through this portal we can’t bleeding find in the Capital, and if he gets past us—”

“He won’t.” After testing the edge, Harken picked up a hooked blade. “But we’ll hold the valley, and home.”

“I trust you will.”

When Keegan left, Harken continued the task, and waited.

A few moments later, the barn door creaked open again, and Morena came in.

“I started to come in before, but saw Keegan, and felt it was a brotherly sort of talk, so went back out again.”

“It was that, and thanks for it.”

Rain dripped off the brim of the hat she’d pulled on against the rain. Mud caked her boots.

He thought, as he always did, she was the most beautiful creature ever born. And still he waited while she wandered about, so obviously restless, tense, irritated.

“You left quick and early this morning,” he said.

“Nan and Grandda needed me. Grandda’s making a rocking chair for Bridie Riley to give to her daughter, who’s having her first by Yule. And Nan’s been making apple cakes for bartering. It’s hard not to tell them about this portal that might not even be real.”

“It’s real enough.”

“How can you know?”

“Because it makes the most sense.”

She threw her hands up in frustration, and little red sparks of light shot from her fingers.

“Well, none of it makes any bloody sense to me. Why can’t he leave us alone? Do we trouble him? We wouldn’t. He has his world, doesn’t he, and can lord over it as he pleases. What does he gain by destroying ours? And why are you smiling like that?”

“As I see you’re doing all you can to work yourself up into a rage so you don’t say what brought you here. Or why you left so sudden this morning, why you’ve come back, why you’re marching around the barn like there’s fire in your boots.”

“I told you why I left, and I only came back this way thinking I might see Breen.”

“She and Marco are staying on the other side today.”

“Then I’ll go there.”

He kept working. “You won’t change what is by stomping away.”

“I’m not stomping. Change what?”

“What you feel, and what you want.” He set the tools aside and stood.

“You don’t know what I feel, and have no right to look inside me.”

“I don’t have to. I see what I see in your eyes. I love your eyes,” he said as he stepped toward her. “I love what I see in them, always, but what I see in them now, I’ve waited for. I love you, Morena. I’ve loved you a long time, and will for all the rest of time I have.”

“This isn’t the time to talk about love. What’s coming—and if I can feel it, you do—what’s coming is terrible.”

“It is, aye, so there’s no better time to talk of love. Without it, there’s no reason, is there? Just survival, and that’s not enough. You’re ready.”

He took her hands, and though she made a half-hearted attempt to tug them back, brought them to his lips.

“Ready for what? Ready to fight? I will, and so will all of us. That’s not—”

He simply touched his lips to hers.

“Bloody hell, I thought, I believed, we’d have enough of each other when we started this up. We’d have enough, and go back to being friends.”

“I’ll always be your friend, but not only. I’ve waited until you’re ready, and now you are. So I’m asking you, Morena Mac an Ghaill, to pledge to me as I pledge here to you. To wed me, and make a life with me.”

“I’m stupid in love with you. It pisses me off sometimes.”

“I know it, and well, but still, here we are.”

“I won’t promise to cook for you.”

“As you’re a terrible cook, I’ll say thanks for that.”

She had to laugh. “I am a terrible cook. It was … sitting at the table, a council. I never expected to be asked such a thing. And sitting there, listening, knowing—even though you hear and you know before—I could only think: Why do I pull away from what I want in my heart when there’s so much dark? It’s past time for the game of it. So I pledge to you, Harken O’Broin. I want a life with you, and I’ll love you through all of it, even when it pisses me off.”

He drew her in as she drew him, and kissed her long, slow, deep, in the barn that smelled of hay and oil and burning peat.

“I want to wed in the spring. I don’t want to start my life with you in the dark of winter, but in the promise of spring.”

“I can wait.” He kissed her again.

While his brother attained his heart’s desire, Keegan went to the waterfall, the Far West, then flew south.

The air warmed, the skies cleared, and the frigid cold of the north seemed like a hard dream.

It pleased him to see not a single stone from the Prayer House remained on the hill. In its place craftspeople worked on erecting a pillar of white granite. They would polish it and carve the banner of Talamh at its center. At its base would be a pool of fire and water, a flame that would never be extinguished. And above it, in the old language:

IN THE LIGHT LIVE THE BRAVE.

And all who looked on it, he promised himself, would know, would remember, would honor.

As he circled, Mahon flew up to join him. “It’s a fine thing, a strong thing. It’s the right thing.”

“Aye. And the portal?”

“The coven swears the locks and seal hold. No breaches, and no attempts.”