Exhausted from the journey, the family quarrel, and my revelation of news, we both fell asleep quickly, with my head on his arm.
I dreamed first of the sea, of riding high on the waves on Andre’s boat, but this shifted to a vision of running and playing in the apple orchards here on Volodane lands. A little girl and a little boy chased me, all of us laughing as we ran.
The shouts of laughter shifted to angry shouting, and the shouts grew louder.
I sat up. Kai sat up beside me.
The shouting came from down the passage, two voices.
“Unnatural!” one came. “I knew it! Spawned from some darkness, not from me!”
Somehow, I was out of bed first, and I didn’t bother throwing a dressing robe over my nightgown. I ran out the bedroom door with Kai behind me, wearing nothing but his underdrawers. I raced down the passage.
At the curve of the passage, outside of Sebastian’s bedroom, I saw Jarrod. His features were twisted in rage.
“Unnatural!” he shouted.
Sebastian stood before him, seemingly naked but for a blanket wrapped around his waist and a dagger in his right hand. Looking beyond him, I saw Daveed inside the room, near the rumpled bed covers, naked too except for a pair of pants he held in front of himself. I didn’t understand what was happening.
“And how would you know?” Sebastian challenged his father. “How would you know anything at all about me?”
Jarrod jerked a dagger from a sheath on his forearm. “I’ll see you dead!”
But Sebastian’s blade was at the ready, and I knew if anyone died here, it would be Jarrod.
“No!” I cried, running forward, between them, and trying to hold off Sebastian.
“Megan!” Kai yelled from behind me.
After that, things happened almost too quickly to follow. At the sight of me, Sebastian hesitated in his strike, but Jarrod couldn’t stop himself from his rush forward and knocked me into Sebastian, who caught me.
The next thing I knew, Kai had a hold of his father, pinning Jarrod’s arms to his sides, and shouting. “Father, stop! Sebastian, you stay there!”
Then he looked inside the room, probably still trying to reason out what was happening, and he saw Daveed. Something flickered across his face, and he held his father more tightly.
I pushed Sebastian backwards, and he let me.
“Close the door,” I said quietly.
His dark eyes lowered to mine, and he reached out for the door, closing it with Kai, Jarrod, and me outside in the passage.
“Unnatural,” Jarrod whispered.
“Don’t say that,” Kai answered. “Don’t ever say that.”
Somehow, we got Jarrod to bed and decided to leave facing the aftermath in the morning.
Once back with Kai in my room, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen.
“Does Sebastian love Daveed as you love me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I didn’t know such things were possible. No one had ever told me.
“Does it make you think of less of him?” Kai asked.
I thought on that and shook my head. “Why should it? It’s no business of ours who Sebastian chooses to love.”
Kai pulled me into his arms. “I fear Father feels quite differently.”
The next morning, just as we were stirring, a soft knock sounded on our door.
“Kai?” a voice asked from the other side.
After quickly pulling on his pants, Kai hurried to the door and opened it, letting Sebastian inside.
“Are you all right?” Kai asked.
Sebastian laughed without humor. “I’ve no idea how to answer that question.”
I climbed from the bed and donned my dressing robe.
Watching me, he said, “You seem to have a penchant for saving my father.”
I didn’t answer.
He turned back to Kai. “I can’t face him, not now, not ever. I can’t stand to have him looking at me as if I have leprosy. You know I won’t be able to stand it.”
Kai wavered. “I know.”
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay here, and my income depends on Father’s grand generosity.”
Kai seemed on the edge of suggesting something, but he asked, “Are you sure you and Father cannot find a way to live together?”
“And how would that work now? He’ll dismiss Daveed before breakfast.” His voice broke.
Kai sighed. “I was thinking about something last night. What if I talk him into giving you the house in Rennes, with a yearly stipend?”
“What? He’d never do that.”
“He might. I hate to say this out loud... but I think he might want you gone as badly as you want to leave.”
Sebastian’s expression flickered between hope and pain. “You’d do that for me? You’d ask him.”
Kai nodded. His eyes showed nothing but sorrow.
Two days later, Sebastian and Daveed rode out for Rennes.
Kai had made all the arrangements with Jarrod himself. Sebastian was to own the house outright with a yearly stipend large enough to cover paying for servants and expenses.
It hurt Kai to see his brother ride off, but this was the best that could be managed, and we both knew it.
The family living at the hall now consisted of Jarrod, Kai, and me.
Kai took up his duties riding out over our lands, and sometimes, Jarrod went with him. As the months passed, and Jarrod’s dependency on Kai grew stronger, Kai began expressing a voice of his own.
He managed to get his father to agree to cut back on taxes and to allow all the people living on Volodane lands to fish the streams freely, hunt game, and set snares.
I was proud of my husband.
One day, in midwinter, he asked me, “Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I could ever do for you?”
I had been waiting for this. “There is one thing.”
“Name it.”
“Lift your order that I’m not allowed to pass through the gate without your permission. No, don’t look at me like that. I assure you that out of consideration, I would not leave without telling you my destination, but it troubles me that I can’t leave without your orders to the guards. Do you understand?”
For a moment, I thought he might refuse, but then he nodded. “I’ll lift the order.”
That had been the only thing I wished.
The following spring, I gave birth to a baby girl. Jarrod went into a sulk, but Kai was thrilled. We named her Bridget.
Soon after, I found Jarrod in the nursery, humming her a lullaby, and I didn’t interrupt. I suspected he might be a better grandfather than a father.
Two years later, I had a boy. We named him Rolf.
As soon as Rolf could walk, we took both children to the apple orchard. I let them chase me around the trees, laughing, as Kai looked on. I saw peace and pride in his eyes.
I had my family, and I had love.
Chapter 21
The world around me vanished, and I found myself standing in the storage room of my parents’ manor, staring into the three-tiered mirror.
I dropped to my knees.
Now, there were three reflections of the dark-haired woman as she gazed out at me from all three panels.
In a flash, I was hit by the full memories of all three lives I’d lived out with each brother . . . Rolf . . . Sebastian . . . Kai.
“Which one?” the woman asked. “Choose.”