Chapter 315: I’m going. To Ashford. As soon as it’s safe

He was quiet for a moment.

"My mother," he said slowly, "told me my father was a sailor."

"Was he?"

"He was a thief." He took a sip of tea. "Hanged at Marrow Bridge when I was six. I found out when I was fourteen, from a man in a pub, who thought I knew." His mouth twisted. "I was angry for a good while. I’d built a whole ship, in my head. With a figurehead."

"What happened?"

"I went home." He set down his mug. "My mother was sitting by the fire. She looked up, and she saw my face, and she said, ’Who told you?’ And I said, ’A man at the Lantern.’ And she nodded, as if she’d been waiting a long time, and she said, ’Good. I was tired of hiding it.’"

Morgana’s breath caught.

"We talked until dawn," said Garrick. "I’ll not say it was easy. But I’ll say this." His eyes were steady. "I have never once been sorry she lied. And I have never once been sorry she stopped."

She looked into her tea.

"Both can be true," he said gruffly.

"Yes."

"A woman who lies to her child to keep it safe, that’s not a thing I’d call cruel. That’s a thing I’d call love. Even when it’s wrong." He cleared his throat. "Especially when it’s wrong."

Her eyes stung.

"She reminded me to always keep warm," she said.

He blinked.

"At the end. A postscript. She told me to always keep warm."

"Did she."

"She’s dying, Garrick. And she wrote about how i should make sure i do not freeze to death."

His craggy face did something strange. It creased, and shifted, and she realized with astonishment that he was trying not to laugh.

"Sounds like a sensible woman," he said.

"She is."

"I’d like to meet her."

"You will." Her voice was thick. "I’m going. To Ashford. As soon as it’s safe."

"Aye. I thought you might."

"Would you...." She hesitated. "Would you come? I know it’s far. I know there’s the stables. But I thought, perhaps, if I asked the king...."

"Girl."

She stopped.

"Ask me again," said Garrick, "in a week, when you’ve an escort and a date. I’ll not say no. But I’ll say this." He leaned forward. His big hands rested on the desk. "That horse out there has been standing at the back of his stall since you rode through the gate. He’s not eaten right in two days. He keeps looking at the door."

"Shadowmere?"

"Aye."

"Is he ill?"

"He’s waiting." Garrick’s mouth twitched. "Same as before. Go and see him. He’s been nosing at the latch since dawn."

She was on her feet before he finished.

She did not remember crossing the room. She only knew that the door banged behind her, and the cold morning air was in her face, and her boots were ringing on the cobbles as she half ran toward the far stalls. Behind her, Corin muttered something and broke into a trot. The lanky girl scrambled out of her way.

The last stall stood at the end of the long aisle, with its heavy bolted gate.

She slid the bolt.

He was waiting.

He stood in the middle of the stall in the half dark, huge and black and silent, with his head lifted and his ears pricked. The morning light fell through a high window and lay across his shoulders, and the dull coat had a faint sheen to it, like silk. His dark eye found her.

For a moment they only looked at each other.

Then Shadowmere came forward, slowly, and lowered his great head, and pressed his forehead against her chest.

She put her arms around his neck.

He was warm. He smelled of hay and horse and cold air, and something else, very faint, that she could not name. It was old and vast and patient, like the smell of a cave, or a mountain, or a place where a fire has burned for a thousand years. She pressed her face into his mane and breathed it in.

Atheris, she thought.

She did not know why.

The horse stood perfectly still, with her arms around his neck. His heartbeat was steady and slow against her ribs. And somewhere beneath it, so faint she might have imagined it, she felt a second beat, vast and deep and far away, like a drum in the roots of the world.

"I know," she whispered. "I know. I’m going. I will."

Shadowmere breathed out, long and warm, against her shoulder.

***

Draeven was alone in the east study when she found him.

He had not heard her come. He stood at the tall window with his back to the room and his hands clasped behind him, looking out at the pale morning. A letter lay open on the desk behind him. A pen lay across it. She recognized the shape of the handwriting, firm and square, and understood that he had been writing to her mother.

In your name, he had said.

She stopped in the doorway.

For a moment she only looked at him. The line of his shoulders. The dark hair, a little disordered. The faint shimmer on his neck, where the light caught a few pale gold scales he had forgotten to put away. He looked tired. He looked like a man who had slept three hours and spent the rest thinking of someone else.

"Draeven."

He turned.

It was instant, and the whole of his face changed. The weariness fell away. The golden eyes lit, and softened, and fixed on her, and he took one quick step toward her before he checked himself.

"Morgana. Are you well?"

"I’m well."

"You’ve been crying."

"A little."

He did not move. He stood in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides, and she saw that he was waiting, with enormous care, to be told what she needed.

She crossed the floor.

She stopped in front of him. She looked up. He was so tall, and so quiet, and so still, and she found that she could not quite remember the speech she had prepared.

"My mother wrote me something," she said. "In our cottage. A letter. She wrote down everything." Her voice shook. "Everything about my father. And why. And what she’s been so afraid of. She says it’s there, and I’ll understand when I read it."