Does she guess? Garric wondered.
“If she wants to know, she knows,” Carus said. His look was far away, on his own past and a woman there who had died. “Anyway, they’ll all know soon.”
Garric levered himself to his feet, using the stone railing as a brace. He turned and looked eastward, over the city that had returned to the Kingdom of the Isles for the first time in a thousand years.
The sun had almost set. Streaks of cloud on the western horizon cut its swollen redness into three segments. Light flared onto the bank of clouds far to the east, rosy columns mounting from the sea to the high heavens.
Liane would be coming across the Inner Sea on the squadron that brought Reise. A feeling of warmth eased the pain Garric felt from standing.
“I’m not going to move the capital from Valles back to Carcosa,” he said, speaking aloud but in a whisper that only he and the ancient king could hear. “But I think it’s a good place to hold the marriage.”
“Yes, lad,” said the grinning Carus. “It’s a fine place for the King of the Isles to wed!”