“I would not have continued our marriage, would not have borne you an heir, if I had thought differently,” Meralda quietly replied.
Feringal’s scowl returned as he glanced back at Wulfgar. “What do you want, son of Icewind Dale?” he demanded.
Some noise to the side clued Wulfgar in to the fact that the Lord of Auckney hadn’t come to the garden alone. Guards waited in the shadows to rush out and protect Feringal.
“I want only to do what is right, Lord Feringal,” he replied. “As I did what I thought was right those years ago.” He shrugged and looked at Colson, the thought of parting with her suddenly stabbing at his heart.
Feringal stood staring at him.
“The child, Colson, is Meralda’s,” Wulfgar explained. “I would not cede her to another adoptive mother without first determining Meralda’s intent.”
“Meralda’s intent?” Feringal echoed. “Am I to have no say?”
As the lord of Auckney finished, Meralda put a hand to his cheek and turned him to face her directly. “I cannot,” she whispered.
Again Feringal silenced her with a finger against her lips, and turned back to Wulfgar. “There are a dozen bows trained upon you at this moment,” he assured the man. “And a dozen guards ready to rush out and cut you down, Liam Woodgate among them—and you know that he holds no love for Wulfgar of Icewind Dale. I warned you that you return to Auckney only under pain of death.”
A horrified expression crossed Meralda’s face, and Wulfgar squared his shoulders. His instincts told him to counter the threat, to bring Aegis-fang magically to his hand and explain to the pompous Feringal in no uncertain terms that in any ensuing fight, he, Feringal, would be the first to die.
But Wulfgar held his tongue and checked his pride. Meralda’s expression guided him, and Colson, clutching his shoulder, demanded that he diffuse the situation and not escalate a threat into action.
“For the sake of the girl, I allow you to flee, straightaway,” Feringal said, and both Wulfgar and Meralda widened their eyes with shock.
The lord waved his hands dismissively at Wulfgar. “Be gone, foul fool. Over the wall and away. My patience wears thin, and when it is gone, the whole of Auckney will fall over you.”
Wulfgar stared at him for a moment then looked at Colson.
“Leave the girl,” Feringal demanded, lifting his voice for the sake of the distant onlookers, Wulfgar realized. “She is forfeit, a princess of Icewind Dale no more. I claim her for Auckney, by Lady Meralda’s blood, and do so with the ransom of Wulfgar’s promise that the tribes of Icewind Dale will never descend upon my domain.”
Wulfgar spent a moment digesting the words, shaking his head in disbelief all the while. When it all sorted out, he dipped a quick and respectful bow to the surprising Lord Feringal.
“Your faith in your husband and your love for him were not misplaced,” he said quietly to Meralda, and he wanted to laugh out loud and cry all at the same time, for never had he expected to see such growth in the foppish lord of that isolated town.
But for all of Wulfgar’s joy at the confirmation that he had been right to return there, the price of his, and Feringal’s, generosity could not be denied.
Wulfgar pulled Colson out to arms’ length then brought her in and hugged her close, burying his face in her soft hair. “This is your mother,” he whispered, knowing that the child wouldn’t begin to understand. He was reminding himself, though, for he needed to do that. “Your ma will always love you. I will always love you.”
He hugged her even closer and kissed her on the cheek then stood fast and offered a curt nod to Feringal.
Before he could change his mind, before he surrendered to the tearing of his heart, Wulfgar thrust Colson out at Meralda, who gathered her up. He hadn’t even let go of the girl when she began to cry out, “Da! Da!” reaching back at him plaintively and pitifully.
Wulfgar blinked away his tears, turned, and went over the wall, dropping the fifteen feet and landing on the grass below in a run that didn’t stop until he had long crossed through Auckney’s front gates.
A run that carried with every step the frantic cries of “Da! Da!”
“You did the right thing,” he said to himself, but he hardly believed it. He glanced back at Castle Auck and felt as if he had just betrayed the one person in the world who had most trusted him and most needed him.
CHAPTER 22
THE PRACTICAL MORALITY
Certain that no orcs were about, for he could hear their revelry far over a distant hill, Tos’un Armgo settled against a natural seat of stone. Or perhaps it wasn’t natural, he mused, situated as it was in the middle of a small lea, roughly circular and sheltered by ancient evergreens. Perhaps some former occupant had constructed the granite throne, for though there were other such stones scattered around the area, the placement of those two, seat and back, was perhaps a bit too convenient.
Whatever and however it had come to be, Tos’un appreciated the chair and the view it afforded him. He was a creature of the nearly lightless Underdark, where no stars shone, where no ceiling was too far above, too vast and distant, otherworldly or extraplanar, even. The canopy that floated above him every night was far beyond his experience, reaching into places that he did not know he possessed. Tos’un was a drow, and a drow male, and in that role his life remained solidly grounded in the needs of the here-and-now, in the day-to-day practicality of survival. As his goals were ever clear to him, based on simple necessity, so his limitations stayed crystalline clear as well—the boundaries of House walls and the cavern that was Menzoberranzan. For all of his life, the limits of Tos’un’s aspirations hung over him as solidly as the ceiling of Menzoberranzan’s stone cavern.
But those limitations were one of the reasons he had abandoned his House on their journey back to Menzoberranzan after the stunning defeat at the hands of Clan Battlehammer and Mithral Hall. Aside from the chaos that was surely to ensue following that catastrophe, when Matron Yvonnel Baenre herself had been cut down, Tos’un understood that whatever the reshuffling that chaos resolved, his place was set. Perhaps he would have died in the House warfare—as a noble, he made a fine trophy for enemy warriors, and since his mother thought little of him, he would have no doubt wound up on the front lines of any fight. But even had he survived, even had House Barrison Del’Armgo used the vulnerability of the suddenly matron-less House Baenre to ascend to the top rank in Menzoberranzan’s hierarchy, Tos’un’s life would be as it had always been, as he could not dare hope it would be anything but.
So he had seized the opportunity and had fled, not in search of any particular opportunity, not to follow any ambition or fleeting dream. Why had he fled, then, he wondered as he sat there under the stars?
You will be king, promised a voice in his head, startling Tos’un from his contemplations.
Without a word, with hardly a thought, the drow climbed out of the seat and took a few steps across the meadow. The snow had settled deep on that spot not long ago, but had melted, leaving spongy, muddy ground behind. A few steps from the throne, Tos’un unstrapped his sword belt and lay it upon the ground, then went back to his spot and leaned back, letting his thoughts soar up among the curious points of light.
“Why did I flee?” he asked himself quietly. “What did I desire?”
He thought of Kaer’lic, Donnia, and Ad’non, the drow trio he had joined up with after wandering aimlessly for tendays. Life with them had been good. He had found excitement and had started a war—a proxy war, which was the best kind, after all. It had been heady and clever and great fun, right up until the beastly Obould had bitten the throat out of Kaer’lic Suun Wett, sending Tos’un on the run for his life.