Seven Brothers Blessed [ Lore of Penrua: Book IV ]

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"This is ridiculous."

"Honestly, Uachi of the North." Diarmán looked up at the wall of alcoves in Padréc's aviary, his hands on his hips. He was shatteringly lovely, the lines of his figure limned by the golden sun slanting in through the open window, stray curls framing his face.

How had Uachi ever seen this man without being halted in his tracks by his beauty? A world in which he had not loved Diarmán seemed impossible.

"Honestly what?" he asked, blinking away the haze of distraction.

"That you should think this ridiculous, when you've weathered more and worse in my company. We've turned princesses into cats and back again, my sweet—this is nothing."

"That isn't what I mean." Uachi shook his head, tearing his eyes away from Diarmán. He swept his gaze over the wall of alcoves, locked grille after locked grille, behind which huddled hundreds of frightened pheasants. They had been locked in this tower for nearly a week. A week during which Uachi had marveled at the strangely liminal atmosphere in House Eldran. A week during which he had spent little and less time with Diarmán, who spent much and more with his father.

"He means the wedding." Padréc was standing against the wall, his arms crossed. He had never looked so grim. He was not a somber man, but one would think he was prepared to attend a hanging, judging from the shadows in his eyes. "This isn't right, Di, and you know it."

"I know nothing of the sort." Diarmán scoffed. "It isn't as if it's a prison or a curse. 'Tis an offer, as any marriage proposal is."

"As his proposal to our mother was? Because—"

"That's in the past." Diarmán's voice was uncharacteristically flat. "Father has promised Mother her freedom, and now he is offering a noblewoman his hand in marriage. The same thing happens every turn of the moon in Narr, and it's celebrated. She is free to accept him or decline him."

Freedom. It was such a precious and fragile thing. When Ealin had kissed Uachi in the darkness of his bedchamber below the Imperial Palace, had she been free?

Had he?

Had his friends, Matei and Mhera, been free to refuse the yokes thrust upon them—yokes in the shape of royal circlets?

When Uachi had been a boy, he could have refused his mistress's advances. He'd been free to say no, at a great and terrible cost.

What, then, was freedom? Choices were never a knot in a single thread; they were a tug on a thread wrapped and knotted around dozens of other threads, an intricate network of influence and impact. Uachi did not believe that the noblewoman who would be blessed with Han Taín's proposal would feel as free as Diarmán seemed to think she would.

"It would be better to return all of these people to their homes," he said. "If he wishes to marry, let him court and woo as noblemen do every turning of the moon, to your point."

Diarmán waved his hand. "And waste time."

"What time will be wasted?" Padréc asked. "Look at him. Father has not aged a day since last we saw him. What time will he lose? He must—"

A footfall sounded at the top of the stairway. Han Taín stepped into the aviary, dressed in a snowy linen tunic. It was embroidered at the throat and wrist with a pattern that echoed the shape of a bird in the sky. His breeches were an impossible shade of deep blue. Despite himself, Uachi stepped back as Han Taín entered; his very presence crowded the room.

"I must what?" Han Taín asked, smiling at Padréc. It was an expression of interest, lightly amused, and yet his gaze was sharp.

Padréc looked back at his father. Something had shifted in his bearing, as if a part of him had withdrawn, shrinking back from the outsized presence of his father.