Alex was walking in the garden on the fifth day and trying to convince Sage he was well enough to go on a patrol when the sentries sounded the approach of riders.
“Do you think they’ve come back?” she worried as they made their way to the inner gate. The troops had melted away after two days of surrounding the fortress, but everyone was on edge, waiting for them to reorganize and return.
The signal for all clear sounded. “I’ll be damned,” Alex said twenty minutes later as his father rode in at the head of a rider company. Sage followed but stood back several paces as he saluted the general and formally presented command of the fortress.
General Quinn looked around the wrecked ward in amazement. “I feel quite a report is coming.”
Alex nodded. “Yes, sir. But first I ask that you accompany me to the chapel.”
“The chapel?” his father said sharply. “Why there?”
Alex couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but his father read it in his face.
“Charlie?” he whispered.
Alex nodded.
“Take me to him.”
The general walked beside him silently until they reached the chapel, and Alex stopped and let his father take the last few steps alone to stand before the smallest of the three coffins laid out. Alex had no more tears left. On the third night, he’d managed to describe his brother’s last minutes to Sage alone, and she held him as he was sick several times and cried for hours. She’d taken care of Charlie’s body, cleaning and dressing him and clipping a lock of his hair for their mother.
Now Sage stepped forward. “I can open the casket for you, sir,” she offered.
The general focused on her for the first time. She wore a plain wool dress, and her sandy hair was plaited in a single braid down her back. Most of the swelling in her face had gone down, but he blinked at the colorful bruises across her cheek and forehead before turning back and placing his hand on the coffin. “No, thank you, my lady,” he said. “I prefer to remember him alive.”
Sage nodded and backed away, but Alex reached for her hand and drew her forward again. “Father, this is Sage Fowler.” She bit her lip and looked down as she blushed.
The general’s eyes dropped to their linked fingers. “I’ll take that report now, Captain.”
Alex led his father to the keep and the chamber they’d taken for a strategy room—the old Great Hall. The ladies were now housed in the rooms above, and most of the soldiers slept in the infirmary below. His father paced the room while Alex rested in a chair, flexing his left hand and admitting to himself he still had a long recovery ahead of him. It took over an hour to describe all that had happened, but he laid the credit for their success at Sage’s feet.
When Alex finished, his father filled him in on what had happened in the south. “The Tasmet brides’ escort vanished a week after you left,” he said. “I knew something was wrong, but I thought it had more to do with the pass in the south. We took a full regiment to Jovan, and the count disappeared right about when we stopped hearing from you. I feared the worst.”
“Is that why you were already halfway here when the river flooded?” Alex asked.
His father snorted. “Patience isn’t always a virtue.” He paused in his pacing. “I’m proud of you, son.”
“It wasn’t just me.”
“You said that. But I also know you.” He leaned his fists on the table. “You made some hard decisions.”
Alex swallowed. His father had no idea, and he never would. And D’Amiran’s taunts had no place in the official record. In the end, they’d been meaningless, empty. But Alex did have one thing he wanted to ask. “The duke said a few interesting things before he died. About you and Mother.”
“Really?” His father looked surprised. “Like what?”
“He said you stole Mother from him.”
The general sat down across from him, but said nothing.
“Is there a story behind that?”
His father looked at his hands. “Did your mother ever tell you she was picked for the Concordium?”
“Not that I can recall. I never considered it, seeing as I was born a year before one rather than a year after.”
“Well, she was, so I can assure you she wasn’t promised to anyone.” The general paused. “We met at the celebration of her sister’s engagement to the king. Everyone was making a fuss about her, too. Because of her family and her new connection to the royals, she was expected to be the most desirable match at the next Concordium.”
That surprised Alex. “I didn’t realize you knew her beforehand. I thought it was purely political, even though it was an off year.”
His father shrugged. “Most people did. That suited us just fine.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He smiled a little. “I was smitten.”
“So you bribed a matchmaker to put you together?” said Alex.
His father looked down at his hands again. “We may have done a few things that made matching us necessary to prevent scandal.”
The union of two powerful families was so rarely about love that Alex had always taken his parents’ marriage for granted. Ironically, it was the affection they had for each other that had made him fear matching—he could never be as lucky as they’d been. That they were as much a love match as Sage’s parents stunned him.
His father cleared his throat. “This Fowler girl…”
“Her name is Sage.”
The general looked up. “This Sage. What are your intentions?”
“I intend to marry her.”
“Is there a reason you must marry her?”
“Because I love her, and I will have no other.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant, Father.” Alex looked at him squarely. “The answer is no. But if you try to stop me, I’ll make sure there is.” He raised an eyebrow. “And now I know there’s precedence for it.”
“Relax, son, I like her. I just needed to know what to tell your mother.”
90
SUPPORT POURED THROUGH the Tegann Pass two days later, and the bridal group prepared to continue on to Tennegol. Alex was tied up in meetings, though he often slipped away in quieter moments to the tiny chapel near the burned-out armory. Clare was surprised by Sage’s sudden inclination to go there to pray, sometimes several times a day, but when she discovered why, she and Lieutenant Gramwell developed a new sense of piety as well.