Chapter 16: The Watchtower

The watchtower stood on the north ridge, an hour's climb above the keep, and the wind up there smelled of snow.

Kaedan had carried a rolled blanket and a lantern, and a flask of the plum wine Nerei hid in the cellar.

"It's where I came the first year," he said. "To see the bridge. To remember it was a road I'd chosen to stop on."

The stone room at the top was bare, with one slit window facing south.

Behind the shutters, the lights of Varrhold shone.

Shiori set down her bag of healer's things and looked at the blanket.

"You planned this."

"I planned a wine," he said. "The blanket was an afterthought."

"The blanket was a plan."

"The blanket was the plan."

She laughed, and he spread it out on the boards.

It was the last night.

At dawn the riders would take them to the bridge.

Sera would be waiting with her torn paper at the road south.

Nobody said what that meant.

Shiori sat on the blanket, and he sat beside her, and they drank from the flask in turns.

Dusk came down the valley.

The seals stayed quiet.

"I keep waiting for it," Kaedan said. "Twelve years, I flinched when the light went. Tonight I feel nothing but you."

"Good."

"I want to say something, Shiori. Before we go. In the old words of the house."

"Say it."

"In Varr there's a second vow. It's older than the mark."

His voice dropped.

"The mark says: you are mine. The claim says: I am yours, and I will stand in front of you at any door."

"You already do that."

"I want it said. Under the sky."

She put down the flask.

"Then say it. And I'll say it back."

He knelt up on the blanket and took both her hands.

"I, who was Haruto and am Kaedan, claim you, who are Shiori. Before the sky and the ridge and the river."

"Where you go, I follow. Where you stand, I stand."

His thumbs moved over her knuckles.

"Where you fall, I fall first."

Her eyes burned.

"I, Shiori," she said, "claim you, Kaedan. Before the sky. Where I stand you stand."

"And when it's your turn to fall, you let me catch you."

He bowed his head against her hands.

Then he lifted it and kissed her, and the kiss was nothing like the first ones.

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