The meckanshü, swathed in thick furs and wearing a mitten on his left hand, lowered his eyes. The silver of the mail used to replace the flesh of his face glittered around the right edge of his black mask. “I would ask you to introduce me to your husband.”
“But…” She hesitated. “You already know him.”
“That is not why I ask, Highness.”
From behind her Crow spoke. “He asks, my love, because I’ve not spoken with him yet. I’ve refused.”
Alexia heard pain in Crow’s voice and watched it tighten Sallitt’s expression. She turned to Crow. “Why would you refuse?”
“Because I have no family outside you and Will and Resolute.” Bitter anger strained Crow’s voice. “All that was taken away from me.”
Sallitt’s head came up. “And it was taken away from me, too.”
“You still have your mask. You still have our family.”
“But not our complete family.” The meckanshifs metal hand snapped into a fist. “Tarrant, you don’t know how it was.”
Crow snorted. “It doesn’t take much to figure it out.”
Alexia gripped Crow’s forearm. “Give him a chance.”
Crow nodded and the tension flowed out of his forearm.
Sallitt’s metal hand opened slowly. “After the Okrannel campaign they brought me back to Valsina. That was before the Draconis Baron had figured out how to make meckanshü. I was useless. You’d had your mask stripped away, but for what I didn’t know; and our father forbid us from mentioning your name ever. I knew you weren’t dead and had I been whole, I’d have found you.
“Then the stories started saying you were dead and that you’d killed yourself. I couldn’t believe them, but I couldn’t prove them otherwise. Several years later, long before I ever heard a song of Crow, the Draconis Baron sent for me and made me as I am now. He gave me a purpose. I accepted my position at Fortress Draconis not, as some have said, to redeem our name, but to continue the fight we’d both been part of.“
Crow said nothing, but a tremor began to run through him.
Sallitt’s hazel eyes flashed from within his mask. “Some meckanshü suffer what we call ‘metal fatigue.’We get tired of trying to be human because we so clearly are not. We try to forget who we were because our injuries carry with them a lot of mental pain. I had that, plus the way our father had changed, and the loss of my little brother. I was lucky, though, and met my wife—gods grant Jancis still lives. She brought my human halfback, and it’s that human half that makes me seek you, brother. To tell you I’ve never believed what has been said of you.”
The man who had been Tarrant Hawkins looked up. “But when you were told who I was at Tolsin, you rode away.”
“I did, yes, because I felt betrayed.” Sallitt’s eyes tightened. “We’d been long on the road together. You’d saved my life and yet you had not trusted me with who you were. Should I have known? You, traveling with Resolute, in the company of a Norrington, it all seems so obvious now, but it wasn’t then. You were Crow, a living legend. Had you been Oriosan, you’d have worn a mask, so I never made the connection. But you knew who I was, and you didn’t trust me. That hurt me and made me doubt.”
Crow’s lips pressed together for a moment, then he slowly nodded. “You’re right. I did you an injustice. I’d spent so many years refusing to be Tarrant Hawkins that even though I knew you were my brother, I couldn’t be your brother. Too much pain there, too.”
“I guess I can understand that.” The elder Hawkins chewed his lower lip. “No one in the family believed the charges against you. Even though Father would not speak of you, the rest of us did, secretly. I know he didn’t believe them, though. I think after he took your mask, he learned the truth.”
Crow shook his head. “Our father had his own reasons for doing what he did. How is… How are they?”
“Father died about six years ago. In his sleep. Mother lives with Ellice now. Everyone else is well.” He smiled weakly. “We will have time to talk about them on the road.”
“Perhaps we will.” Crow nodded, stiffly at first, but easing. “I have spent more time being Crow than I ever did being your little brother. It will take time for me to get used to that role again.”
“The day you left Valsina you stopped being my little brother. I saw it when we met at Fortress Draconis. A little brother I don’t need. A friend and comrade I know and trust, on the other hand.”
Crow extended his left hand and took his brother’s flesh-and-blood hand in a firm grip. “Agreed.”
Sallitt nodded to Alexia. “Thank you, Highness. I will leave you two. I have things to take care of. Good luck, Princess.”
“And you, Colonel.”
The meckanshü departed quietly despite being half-metal. Alexia smiled at Crow. “I think it is good you spoke with him.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I know your family was important to you and renewing those ties will be good.”
Crow sighed. “I hope you are right. Here and now, though, it is my new family that most concerns me.”
“It made me happy to be included in it.”
“You are it.”
“No, you included Resolute, who can take care of himself, and Will.” She reached up and tucked a long lock of white hair behind his ear. “Speaking of whom, Will might want to talk to you about Sayce. Do him a favor and listen.”
Crow looked up from tightening the cinch strap around his horse’s middle. “What is going on? What have I missed?”
“He and Princess Sayce have become close. Parting will not be easy for them.” Alyx choked down a lump in her throat. “It’s not going to be easy for me, either.”
“I know.” Crow nodded, then crossed to her and reached out to brush his left thumb over her right cheekbone. Alexia half closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his palm. “Alexia, I have been dreading this parting more than I dreaded being executed in Oriosa, more than I have dreaded anything else in my life.”
He gave her a thin smile and brought his right hand up on her shoulder. “There was a time—there were decades, in fact—when going out to do what we’re going to do meant nothing to me. Not because I’m stupid or I was suicidal; it was just because that was what I did. It was the life I’d chosen—or the life that had chosen me, I don’t know which. Resolute and I would just go out to harass Chytrine’s forces and if we didn’t return, it was another oath broken, another prophecy tested and proved false.
“I never thought my life empty until you came into it and made me want more than just Chytrine’s destruction. I still want that, yes, but I want it because it means there will be a future for the world, for us, for our heirs”
A jolt ran through her. “You would want to have children with me?”
“After all this is over, Will should be able to take care of himself. Resolute will have a homeland to deal with, so I’ll be at loose ends.”
“Don’t joke about that, Crow, please.”
“Forgive me. I’m not joking.”
Again his thumb stroked her cheek. It felt rough, but strong, like the rest of him, and Alyx knew their children would possess his strength and hers. They would stand tall, be brave and intelligent, relentless in the pursuit of that which would make the world better. Her right hand came up to cover his on her cheek, and her left hand strayed to her middle.
She immediately thought of how she had run her hand down her belly to shock her aunt. This time, though, she wanted to feel a swelling. She wanted to feel life beginning within her.
That shook her. Her entire life had been spent in training. She had been forged into a tool to liberate her homeland. Yes, she had thought of being married, having children, but that was always something that would occur after the liberation. As with many other nobles and warrior-women, she had an elven charm on an anklet that prevented pregnancy, because children would be an unnecessary complication in her life.