by Aldrea Alien
Soft amusement huffed out his lover’s nose. “Do not sell yourself short, mea lux. You is more than enough. And dowries are to placate parents. I am not usually one to brag, but my father is already a very wealthy man.”
He didn’t know where the chuckle that escaped his lips came from, but it carried little in the way of mirth. “What good am I to you besides the obvious? I cannae be an ambassador to a kingdom who sees me as dead and you already have me willing enough to warm your bed.”
Indignance tightened Darshan’s features. “Do you honestly think I would have put myself through those trials if you meant no more to me than a place to stick it?”
Hamish shook his head. “I ken exactly why you competed. But me mum’s disownment invalidates the contest.” If Darshan had been a Tirglasian noble, such an act would’ve led to a feud between their clans.
“Meaning no binding claim to your hand should I change my mind?” Darshan scrubbed at his face and Hamish caught the mumbled words, “What is it about me that has people rejecting my offers of marriage? I am certain I have more than enough credentials to make me a good catch.”
“You…” Hamish peered at him. “You’ve suggested marriage to someone in the past?” That sounded like something the man should’ve mentioned before now.
“Under vastly different circumstances, I assure you. I hardly think you would consider her as a threat to my affections.”
“Her? Dar—”
Darshan waved his hand. “It was not one of my finest moments, but Rashmika is an old friend and I was trying to help her out of a dangerous situation. Her father was a rather influential man. He convinced my father to train her as my sister’s handmaiden.” He scrunched his nose, the act disturbing his glasses. “Her father used to beat her. Her magic healed the bruises, of course, but it was there in her eyes. I was just a young man, barely eighteen. Marrying me would have kept her safe. Just like it would keep you safe.”
“And why would you need to be concerned about me safety?” Wasn’t being at Darshan side enough for the Udynean people?
“Bringing you into the Crystal Court will upset quite a few people. Being a member of the royal household, even through marriage, comes with a certain level of protection from those not of our family.”
Hamish’s thoughts drifted to the scar on Darshan’s torso. An arrow wound given to him by his own half-sister. “And what about those within your family clan?”
Darshan hummed noncommittally. “Most will fall into line immediately. Those who do not—” He shrugged. “Their actions would largely depend on my father’s feelings over all this. Marriage to a Mhanek, or even his heir, is forever.”
And yet, he had almost thrown away any chance of marrying for love. “Is that why this Rashmika woman refused you?”
His lover nodded. “She knew my reasoning, knew I had no physical interest in her. That, had I wed her, only her death would have freed my hand for another.” One side of his mouth lifted. “She is happily married now, to a cousin on my mother’s side of the family. I believe they even have children.”
“And how do you think your father will take the idea of marrying me? Especially with how you plan to make bairns?” He couldn’t imagine the Mhanek being at all happy about the trade and alliance deals falling through, but maybe he would be placated by the idea of a grandchild from his heir.
Grimacing, his lover sighed. “I honestly wish I knew. Any objections he has should be minor. Hopefully, I can mollify him on the important ones. Everything else?” Again, he shrugged.
“Fair enough,” Hamish mumbled. They were definitely going to need to discuss how they faced Darshan’s father, but it didn’t need to be now and certainly not here. “We should get going.”
Darshan combed back his hair, seemingly composed once again. “In a moment.” Moving with deliberate slowness, he dropped to one knee before Hamish. “I suppose, all things considered…”
Hamish took a step back. “What are you doing?” There was only one reason he could think of for a man to be kneeling before him and they’d hardly the time for anything sexual, nor was this really the place.
“Hopefully, proving how serious I am to retain my claim to your hand.” He grasped Hamish’s fingers, holding them between both hands. “I was going to insist upon this before we reached Udynean borders, but now is just as a good a time.”
Unwilling to reclaim his hand just yet, Hamish He shuffled on the spot. “For what?”
“I am unsure of your people’s customs in regards to a proposal, so I am afraid you shall have to forgive my use of Udynean ones.”
“Pr-proposal?” he managed. “We… we dinnae have…” Tirglasian couples didn’t propose. They made arrangements, sought out the Goddess’ favour and married only once an agreement on children was reached.
All of which Darshan had done.
Sweet Goddess…
How had he not realised that sooner?
“Still, I am only going to ask this once, so it would be less embarrassing for the both of us if you answer correctly the first time.” He audibly swallowed and something about his face changed. The mask that he so readily slipped on had vanished, not even a thin veneer remained. “Hamish, will—?”
“Are you two ready?” Gordon’s voice boomed down the corridor, growing louder as he approached.
Hamish had just managed to convince his body to face the doorway as his brother appeared.
“Why do I smell smo—?” Gordon froze, his mouth still opened. His gaze darted between Hamish and Darshan. “I…” He held up his hands. Only the Goddess could possibly understand what was going through his brother’s mind. “I didnae mean to intrude. I’ll just…” He pointed over his shoulder with both forefingers, backing up even as he mumbled a rushed, “I’ll be in the courtyard.”
Heat blazed across Hamish’s face. “This isnae what it looks like!” he blurted after his brother. It was one thing to be aware that his brother knew Hamish was intimate with Darshan, quite another to have Gordon think he had walked in on such an act.
“I beg to differ,” Darshan grumbled. “I am most certainly asking you to marry me.”
“He wouldnae be thinking that you—” Shaking his head, he let the explanation go unsaid. He could do that once they were out of the castle. “You nae finished asking.”
“I believe I just did.”
“That… that wasnae a question. It’s barely a statement.” With a hint of an order, if he was honest. “And me brother doesnae think you’re proposing, because we dinnae propose like this. He thinks you’re about to suck me off what with you kneeling like you are!”
Darshan swiftly got to his feet. “I hardly think this is the appropriate time or place for that.”
“You’ll get nae disagreement from me there.” Maybe when they were tucked away in some cosy inn room where they could rest and be guaranteed a bit of privacy.
“But I am serious about the proposal. I care not a whit about what you have or what political ties our people could have formed. I have never cared. Not when it came to being with you. I certainly have no need of a dowry. The only thing I would ever want from you is… you.” He once again clasped Hamish’s hand in both of his. “You are my beacon, my flame eternal. I have no desire to return to the dark, I think we have both already walked through it for far too long.”
Hamish frowned. It was true. He had had his fill of dark days. To return to where there’d be little else but more of the same? “We couldnae have that, could we, me heart?” he murmured.
“Then marry me.” Darshan clung tighter to Hamish’s fingers, those hazel eyes wide and glassy. “Please, Hamish of the Mathan Clan and light of my heart, say you shall be my husband?”
His throat tightened. Damn you. How was he supposed to say no to that? “Aye.”
Watching the grin break across his lover’s face was like surfacing after a deep dive. Darshan stretched up, coaxing Hamish lower with a slight push of his fingers against the nape of Hamish’s neck to soun
dly kiss him. Then he abruptly pulled back, his brow creased. “I hope you are aware I shall hold you to that.”
Fighting the urge to laugh, Hamish pressed closer. He cupped the back of the man’s head, drawing them together so that their foreheads touched.
“And I plan to see us married before we leave Tirglas,” Darshan continued. The warmth of his lover’s lips brushed the tip of Hamish’s nose as he spoke. “But first, we must head for the merchant guild.” Gently slipping from Hamish’s grip, Darshan shouldered his pack.
“You’ll also have to find a priest willing to wed us.” Hamish followed at Darshan’s heels as they strode through the corridors. “Which could be a problem. Especially if word’s got out to the city.” It would already be shuddering at the outcome of the union contest.
What would the rumours make of his sudden eviction from the clan? Or would his mother insist on a proper mourning? One that would have the bells chiming all over the kingdom as word of his supposed death spread. She had done neither when it had come to shipping Caitlyn off to the cloister. His sister had just mysteriously vanished after the attack on their lives. Most had made up their own minds on what had happened.
“There is no rule that says the ceremony must be in Mullhind, is there?” Darshan halted just long enough for Hamish to catch up and walk beside him. “What of a temple in one of the border cities? Or a port? Surely, they shall be more lenient on two men marrying.”
Hamish shrugged. “It’ll take months to travel to the border.” By then, his mother could’ve slipped her moorings entirely. Maybe even enough to order Darshan’s capture, if not the man’s death. “The southern ports would have us out of Tirglas sooner.” Especially if they took a boat downriver and boarded one of the merchant vessels headed under the bridge at Freedom’s Leap. That would put them on the water in little over a week and nearing the closest Udynean port within the fortnight, providing there was a ship headed that way.
Darshan squinted into the distance, possibly trying to think of the route Hamish saw quite clearly in his mind’s eye. “I shall have to defer to your knowledge there.”
“Why the rush to marry?” Was he afraid Hamish would change his mind? “I thought the danger was within your family.”
“Yes. But it would be vastly safer for you to travel the breadth of the Udynea Empire as my husband than you could ever be as a mere paramour.”
The courtyard was almost empty with just his siblings and two horses standing in the centre. Even the guards had vacated their usual posts at the gates.
Darshan stiffened briefly before taking the fore position. The air around them changed, the usual wind losing its customary sharpness. Another invisible shield? Did his lover think they were being led into an ambush?
Keeping a cautious eye on the empty ramparts, Hamish followed his lover as they trotted down the stairs. She wouldnae order his death. Not here. Out in the back fields of nowhere, perhaps, where she could blame it on bandits and the like, but not right in the middle of the castle grounds.
Still, the building tension in his shoulders refused to leave until they had reached his siblings. “Where is everyone?”
“Mum called them in for mourning,” Nora answered, handing the reins of a small chestnut pony to Darshan. “We should be there, too, but we wanted to—”
Her words were muffled as Gordon enveloped Hamish in a hug. “Take care. Both of you. And you…” With one arm still wrapped around Hamish’s shoulder, his brother dragged Darshan into their embrace. “You better take good care of me brother.”
“Naturally,” Darshan replied, the words warped due to his face being squeezed by Gordon’s arm. Prising himself free, he clambered aboard the chestnut pony.
Giving his brother’s back a final pat, Hamish swept his sister up in a similar embrace. “Dinnae let Mum get her claws into Ethan.” As much as he wanted to remove his nephew from this place, to give him a chance to grow up where he’d be free to love whomever he chose, doing so would see guards hounding them all the way to the border. And they’d no guarantee that they would make it to Udynea with him.
“I’ll try me best,” Nora promised. A single tear slunk down her cheek. She hastily wiped it away. “Look at me blubbering like it’s going to be forever.”
Hamish cleared his throat. He had been trying not to think about all the people he would lose, but seeing his sister shedding the first tears he had witnessed from her in years…
He sniffed. He hadn’t been prepared for this. “I’m going to miss you. All of you.”
Gordon wrapped his arm around their sister’s shoulders. “We’ll miss you, too.”
Hamish flung himself at them, holding them tight. “I love you. Both of you. I hope you ken that.”
“We do,” Nora replied.
“I just want you to ken in case…” He gave another sniff and attempted to clear his throat.
“We’ll find a way to see you again,” Gordon promised. “Somehow.”
Hamish nodded. If there was a way it could be done, his brother would find it. “I just want to tell you, because I might nae have always shown it, how I appreciate all you’ve done for me over the years.” It might not have always gone as they had planned, but they had shouldered so much blame together that it didn’t seem fair to let them face their mother without him.
Darshan laid a hand on Hamish’s shoulder. “We should leave whilst the guards are otherwise engaged.”
Nodding, Hamish dried his face on his sleeve before swinging into his mare’s saddle. She gave her customary impatient stamp of a hind hoof as he settled on her back. “Aye, lass,” he murmured. “We’re leaving.” He didn’t know if he would be able to bring her once they reached the river docks, much less aboard a ship, but it was comforting to have her on this final journey through his homeland.
He twisted in the saddle as his horse high-stepped her way towards the castle gates. “Let Caitlyn ken what happened, she’ll worry if I dinnae show come summer. Give her me love. And the others, Sorcha, Bruce, Ethan, Mac—” Although he didn’t need to, he rattled off their names. This could be his last chance to speak them. He wished he could’ve said it in person, but his mother likely insisted on having all her grandchildren at her side. “Dad, too.”
“We will,” Gordon replied.
“And Mum,” he shot over his shoulder as his mare reached the gates. No one waited outside them. Even the road leading down to Mullhind was eerily deserted.
“Uncle ‘Mish!” Ethan’s voice echoed across the courtyard.
Hamish searched the surrounding walls, finding nothing, before dropping to eye the stables and storage buildings. If any of his sibling’s children were within arm’s reach, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to let them go.
“Up here!” Sorcha bellowed.
His gaze lifted to the castle proper. His niece and nephews sat on the balcony high above the door, waving furiously. Had they been told the lie? If so, they clearly hadn’t believed it. Or had they snuck around and been there for the truth?
Hamish raised his hand, his sight blurring anew.
One by one, they replied in kind. Voices, further garbled by echoes and an attempt to speak at the same time, bounced around the courtyard.
“Be good,” he called up to them. “Stay safe. I love you.” He watched them, his siblings and their children, even as his mare continued plodding away from them. He burnt their image into his mind; Gordon holding their sister tight, his niece and nephews clinging to each other. There was no guarantee that he would ever see any of them again.
It wasn’t until they were out of sight that he repositioned himself in the saddle and took the lead for the city. His last ride into Mullhind.
Hamish gave the castle one final look over his shoulder. Had it always sat like a hulking beast on the edge of the cliff? “Do you think she’ll ever change her mind?” His mother had been harsh on all her children for as far back as he could remember and abusive to him since his teenage years, personally putting him through
a hell that even the Goddess wouldn’t do. One he had finally fought his way free of.
But he was still her son. Surely she couldn’t keep up the pretence of him being dead forever. Could she?
“She?” Darshan echoed, frowning. “You mean your mother? One can but pray.”
Pray. That was precisely what she would be doing right now. For the salvation of a son who had yet crossed the threshold to the Goddess’ side.
Maybe the Goddess would bring his mother clarity.
Swallowing the threat of fresh tears clogging his throat, he turned his back on the castle. If he started crying again, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to halt them until he was a husk. “So, the merchant guild’s our first stop?”
Darshan inclined his head. “Then we head south as per your suggestion.” His lover had become subdued since exiting the castle proper. Hamish didn’t blame him.
His gaze drifted to the southern horizon. Much of it was a haze of grey sky and green land. “I havenae travelled that way for years. I’ve had nae reason to. Nae since I was a lad with a bright future ahead of me.”
Darshan stretched out a hand, clasping Hamish’s. “It still is, mea lux. Even if we have to light the path ourselves, the future is no less bright for us.”
Hamish clung tight to the railing as another tumultuous wave smacked into the bow of the cargo ship. The briny scent of the sea filled his nostrils and the call of gulls was thick in the air, never failing to bring a lump to his throat for the home he had left behind no more than a fortnight ago.
He tucked a few wispy coils of hair behind his ear. Although the wind whisked the cargo ship along at a mighty clip, it failed to touch them thanks to the magic of Darshan’s shield.
Hamish had been lured up here by the man in question, finally relenting to Darshan’s eager insistence of leaving their small accommodations for the open air.