Chapter 338: In Honor

Adriana was reading Julian’s book when I returned to our rooms.

Not the schoolbook.

The other one.

Loose pages had begun gathering beneath a simple stitched cover. Garrick Valewood had helped him fasten them, leaving room for more.

There were accounts of Lyradon.

The pony Cassia had hidden in the covered passage.

A cloak clasp King Roderic had repaired because Julian kept pulling it loose.

The first attempt to mend the wooden horse at Greykeep.

Near the back was a drawing of Westmere’s garden, with the disputed tree root shown in considerable detail.

Adriana had stopped at the page about her father.

Evelyn sat beside her, sorting the ribbons the children had selected for the wedding banner.

There were too many.

That had apparently been the purpose of allowing them to choose.

“Julian said we could read it,” Adriana told me.

“I know.”

“He writes very carefully now.”

I sat on her other side.

On the page, the account of the broken clasp occupied half a sheet.

The rest was a drawing of a large hand holding a small piece of metal.

“He was worried about forgetting,” I said.

Adriana touched the edge of the paper.

“So am I.”

Evelyn put down the ribbons.

For a while, we sat together without trying to improve that admission.

Then Adriana smiled faintly.

“Father was terrible at mending clasps.”

I looked at her.

“Julian made it sound as though he did it often.”

“He did. Because they kept breaking.”

Evelyn laughed softly.

“Did anyone tell him?”

“Mother suggested the tailor several times.”

“And?”

“He said it was a matter of principle.”

Adriana’s smile became warmer.

“Mostly, I think he liked having Julian stand still long enough to talk to him.”

I looked back at the drawing.

Then at her hand resting near her stomach.

There was something I had been considering since Aurelia told us about the baby.

Until then, I had not known how to begin.

“If it is a boy,” I said, “what would you think about calling him Roderic?”

Adriana became very still.

Evelyn looked toward me.

“After your father,” I continued. “He died defending your retreat. He helped give you and your family the chance to reach us.”

My voice sounded quieter than I expected.

“I would like our son to carry his name.”

Adriana looked down at Julian’s page.

Her fingers tightened against the cover.

“Roderic,” she whispered.

I waited.

Then she turned toward Evelyn.

“Would you want that?”

My wife took her hand.

“Very much.”

Adriana searched her face.

“You don’t have to agree only because—”

“I know.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Our son Garrick carries my father’s name. I would be happy for a son of yours to carry your father’s.”

She rested her other hand over mine.

“And Uriah asked because he means it.”

Adriana looked at me again.

I nodded.

For a moment, she seemed unable to answer.

Then she leaned forward and kissed me.

When she drew back, her eyes were wet.

“I would love that.”

We did not know whether the child was a boy.

Nothing about choosing a possible name changed that.

Aurelia had given us no such answer, and none of us intended to turn every quiet moment into an examination.

There was time.

For now, the name existed as something we might one day say across a breakfast table.

Roderic.

Adriana spoke it once more while Evelyn gathered the scattered ribbons.

“He would have been impossible,” she said.

“The baby?” I asked.

“My father. If he knew.”

“Proud?”

“Very. While attempting to appear modest.”

She wiped her cheek.

“He would have failed.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Garrick’s grandfather has never recovered from the honor.”

“I have noticed.”

A laugh escaped Adriana, unsteady but real.

Then she closed the book carefully.

“Can we tell Mother?”

“Of course,” I said.

She stood too quickly and immediately stopped.

Evelyn rose with her.

“Slowly.”

Adriana sighed.

“I miss standing without instructions.”

“We will add it to your list of grievances.”

“It is becoming a long list.”

I offered my arm.

She accepted it, still smiling.

Mirelle was in the smaller sitting room with Helena and Julian.

Cassia occupied the chair nearest the window, where she was attempting to conceal a piece of wedding cloth beneath a cushion.

Adriana noticed immediately.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“That is rarely reassuring.”

“Then ask a different question.”

Mirelle looked up from the list in her hands.

She saw Adriana’s face and set it down.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Adriana said quickly. “Everything is all right.”

Julian closed the book he was reading.

I sat beside Adriana on the couch.

Evelyn took the other side.

“We have been talking about a name,” I said.

Mirelle’s expression softened.

“Already?”

“One possibility.”

I looked at Adriana.

She nodded for me to continue.

“If the baby is a boy, we would like to call him Roderic.”

Mirelle did not move.

The room became very quiet.

Julian looked from me to his sister.

“Father’s name?”

“Yes,” Adriana said.

He turned toward Mirelle.

She had one hand pressed against her mouth.

Helena moved closer without speaking.

For several breaths, Mirelle looked at the three of us as though she needed to be certain she had heard correctly.

Then she lowered her hand.

“That is a wonderful idea.”

Her voice broke on the final word.

Adriana reached for her.

Mirelle crossed the small space between them and bent to embrace her daughter.

I moved enough to give them room.

Mirelle caught my hand before I could withdraw completely.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“I would like to.”

I nodded.

She held my hand for another moment.

Then looked toward Evelyn.

My wife opened her arms, and Mirelle embraced her too.

Julian remained very still in his chair.

Adriana noticed.

“What do you think?”

He looked at her stomach, then at her face.

“I think it’s wonderful too.”

His voice was quiet.

“Then someone will say his name every day.”

Nobody answered immediately.

Garrick Valewood entered from the adjoining room carrying a cup and stopped just inside the doorway.

Helena beckoned him closer.

When she explained, he looked toward Julian.

Then he set the cup down and sat beside him.

“A good name,” he said.

Julian nodded.

His shoulders eased against the older man’s arm.

Cassia was the first to recover enough to become troublesome.

“There will be difficulties.”

Mirelle looked at her.

“Cassia.”

“If he inherits Father’s expression, none of us will ever win an argument.”

Adriana laughed.

“You argued with him constantly.”

“And he remained convinced he had won.”

“You both did,” Mirelle said.

Cassia considered that.

“Then he should inherit mine instead.”

“Absolutely not,” Adriana and Mirelle said together.

Julian laughed so suddenly that he looked surprised by himself.

Garrick Valewood smiled into his cup.

I looked around the room.

For once, speaking Roderic’s name had brought us somewhere other than the road on which he died.

Mirelle settled beside Adriana.

“He was nervous before our wedding,” she said.

Cassia looked up.

“Father?”

“Terribly.”

“He never told us that.”

“He considered himself a reliable source on courage.”

Helena laughed softly.

Mirelle’s gaze moved toward the window.

“He had memorized what he intended to say. Every word. Then he saw me and forgot where he was meant to stand.”

Adriana leaned against her mother’s shoulder.

“What did you do?”

“Took his hand and moved him.”

Evelyn looked at me.

I narrowed my eyes.

“I know where to stand.”

“Today,” she said.

Julian reached for a fresh page.

“Can I write that one down?”

Mirelle watched him smooth the paper.

“Yes.”

He dipped his pen.

Then paused.

“For the baby too.”

Adriana put her hand over her mouth.

This time, she was smiling behind it.

The dragon meeting took place the following morning on open ground beyond the busiest roads.

Vaelith remained in her own shape.

We brought a table, chairs, and the records she had requested. She seemed faintly amused by the furniture until Mary explained that some of us preferred to write without balancing a ledger on one knee.

“A reasonable limitation,” Vaelith said.

“I consider it a preference,” Mary replied.

Lexander arrived with Thor. Eliza brought the witness summaries. The Castellan provided drawings of the broken restraint, clearly marked where our knowledge ended.

Vaelith listened carefully.

She asked whether the people who had reported dragons under Surtr’s banners could describe their colors, scars, voices, or markings.

Some could.

Some had seen little beyond fire and wings.

None of the accounts allowed us to identify her brother with confidence.

She accepted the answer without pretending it did not hurt.

“The elders will ask what you expect of them,” she said at last.

Lexander leaned forward.

“A shared defense. Warning of attacks. Help protecting people who cannot protect themselves.”

“And obedience?”

“Coordination,” Thor said. “A dragon joining an operation needs to know the plan and keep it. So does a king. So do I.”

Vaelith looked toward me.

“You accept orders in battle?”

“I have been practicing.”

Thor made a small sound.

“He is improving.”

Vaelith studied us for a moment.

Then she lowered her head closer to the table.

“There are dragons who will not accept a human commander.”

“Then we discuss which work they can do with us,” Lexander said. “But nobody can enter a battle under our agreement and endanger the others by ignoring its plan.”

She considered that answer for a long time.

Mary allowed the silence to remain.

At last, Vaelith nodded.

“That is something I can take back.”

We showed her the outer receiving areas before she departed.

Not the private rooms.

Not the patients who had asked for quiet.

She saw wagons unloading food, water being carried to the new houses, and a group of children arguing over a chalk line in a place where their families had once expected only temporary tents.

One of the recovered horses stood beside a handler near the supply yard.

It saw Vaelith and immediately expressed a strong preference for leaving.

She stopped well short of it.

“Sensible creature,” she said.

“Bruni would disagree,” Thor replied.

“Does Bruni frighten horses?”

“Sometimes.”

Vaelith looked toward the enormous figure helping unload a wagon.

“Also sensible.”

Before she took flight, I asked her to carry a message for Aurethar.

“Tell him we have heard from Melody. The first meetings have begun. The home defenses are holding.”

She waited while Mary sealed the written report.

“And?”

I hesitated.

Then smiled.

“The wedding is still May fourteenth. We would like him home for it, if the work allows.”

Vaelith’s gaze sharpened with interest.

“You are preparing a wedding during this?”

“Yes.”

She looked once more toward the children by the new houses.

“I will tell him.”

That afternoon, the family news returned to me in a less private form.

Carol met me outside the nursery.

She took my hand and led me directly to Adriana.

“Baby name.”

Adriana looked toward Julian.

Julian looked apologetic.

“They asked why Mother was crying.”

Mirelle, seated near the window, did not appear offended by the explanation.

“I told them they were happy tears.”

Carol pointed solemnly at Adriana’s stomach.

“Roderic.”

“If the baby is a boy,” Adriana said gently.

Carol considered that.

Then she looked at Garrick.

He was a boy.

This did not appear to resolve the matter.

Evelyn knelt beside them.

“We don’t know yet. It will be a long time before the baby comes.”

“Tomorrow?” Garrick asked.

“Much longer.”

Ignatius offered Adriana the wooden horse.

Seraphina immediately retrieved it, inspected the wheels, and offered it again herself.

Adriana accepted it with solemn gratitude.

“I will keep it safe until you want it back.”

That lasted less than a minute.

Julian helped negotiate its return.

I sat beside Mirelle while the discussion continued.

She watched her children and mine with her hands folded in her lap.

“I don’t want the name to become a burden,” she said quietly.

“Neither do I.”

“Some people will hear Roderic and begin imagining a throne restored. An army. A duty.”

Across the room, Adriana laughed as Carol attempted to explain something to the horse.

“He will be our child,” I said. “Before anyone decides what they would like him to represent.”

Mirelle looked at me.

“And if it is a daughter?”

“Then we will love our daughter and choose her name together.”

Her expression eased.

“Good.”

She reached for my hand briefly.

Then let go when Julian approached with the new page.

He wanted to confirm which part of the wedding story he had remembered correctly.

We ate together that evening.

No announcement was made in the great hall.

The child remained very small, the pregnancy still known within the family, and the name still a possibility rather than a certainty.

But Mirelle said Roderic’s name twice while telling another story.

Cassia corrected a detail.

Adriana corrected Cassia.

Julian listened with his pen ready until Helena informed him that ink and supper had different places in the household.

Garrick Valewood offered to help him write afterward.

Julian accepted and finally began eating.

Later, he found me near the hearth.

“Would Father have liked it here?”

I looked at him.

“I wish I could have asked him.”

Julian nodded slowly.

I did not want to pretend I had known a man whose children deserved better than convenient certainty.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He looked around the room.

At his mother beside Helena.

At Cassia making Adriana laugh.

At Garrick Valewood lifting my sleeping son without waking him.

“I think he would have liked that we’re here.”

I put a hand on his shoulder.

“I think so too.”

He stood beside me for a little while.

Then he went to fetch his book.

When we returned to our rooms, Adriana placed Julian’s new page on the table where the lamplight could reach it.

Her father’s wedding story.

His nervousness.

Mirelle taking his hand and showing him where to stand.

Evelyn read it while I helped Adriana settle comfortably against the pillows.

“We should keep copies,” my wife said.

“Julian wants to make them himself,” Adriana replied.

“Then we will give him paper.”

I sat beside them.

Adriana took my hand and held it against her cheek.

“Thank you for suggesting it.”

“You already thanked me.”

“I know.”

She kissed my palm.

“I wanted you to know how much it means.”

Evelyn leaned close and kissed her shoulder.

For a while, we talked about small things.

Where another cradle might fit.

Whether the children would agree that the baby could have a different wooden horse.

How long it would take Julian to teach someone very small the rules of his garden game.

“Years,” I said.

“He may begin with the rules about the root,” Evelyn replied.

Adriana laughed.

Then her hand settled over her stomach.

“Roderic,” she said softly.

There was no certainty in it yet.

Only love, and a name we hoped to give if it belonged to the child who came.