Page 52 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

B radana felt well and strong during the days of that summer, as if she’d been born to carry Adair’s child. None of the sickness that had beset her mother in her pregnancy, the weariness or distress. Indeed, as the bairn grew inside her, she seemed to gain in vigor, and Adair told her she shone with beauty.

She wondered often what had befallen her mother and remembered repeatedly her last glimpse of her mam, when everything had broken apart, and she and Adair fled. Had the child been born safely? Did she have a new half-brother or -sister? Had her mother perished?

The two of them had not always got on easily. Mother was a quarrelsome sort of woman, and Bradana herself was strong-willed. But she felt closer to the woman than ever, now.

After Mother had wed Kendrick and they had come south, it was just the two of them, at first. Those days now lingered in Bradana’s mind.

The truth was, she wanted to go home. With a deep and fervent urging, she wanted her child to be born in Alba, where she herself had been born.

But she could not say as much to Adair. He worked so very hard day after day to make a place for himself here. To make a place for them. And had she not been the one to insist they come here, to Erin? For the sake of her grandsire and Morag, and all the others.

Adair would think her mad if she changed her mind. Yet she could find no peace.

The only times she felt a measure of it was while lying in Adair’s arms, or while playing her music. Caomhán very kindly continued to insist she had a great talent. She knew only that when the music possessed her, she could express all the tangled emotions inside her, the love and longing. She created song after song.

All about Alba.

While Adair worked at training, she often took walks on her own, with Wen. And she came to appreciate the beauties of Erin. The broad sweeps of green stretching to the horizon. The mist that rose from the ground of the mornings and the gentle hills. The rain fell softer here than in Alba. She could walk out through it as if it did not exist. The sun soon came out again, like a woman smiling after passing tears.

Bradana could see why Adair loved this place.

She put her energy into her music and into growing her child, and let no word of complaint cross her lips. Lammas came and went, and Erin’s fields began to turn golden.

One afternoon, Adair came home early and told her, “Baen is to become handfasted. ’Twas announced today. A woman from south o’ us. Father is hoping ’twill give us a chance to expand our holdings.”

“Ah. He has given up on expanding to Alba, then?”

“Nay. But no one has heard back from Daerg. We do not know if he is alive or dead.” For an instant, Adair’s eyes turned bleak.

“What will she be like, this wife for Baen?” The woman would one day help to lead the clan.

“Who knows? He will, so I imagine, want an heir right quick.”

Their eyes met. They had so far not told anyone that Bradana carried what might at present be the heir to the clan.

“That will make your father happy.”

“Aye, so. But no matter. I am home early with time to spend. Shall we go walking? Or will ye play for me?”

She came to him, stood close and then closer. She craved this man’s company the way she craved air. “I do no’ mind what we do.”

They kissed as naturally as breathing. She wound her arms around his neck. He smelled of sunshine and the hard work he’d done. He tasted of eternity.

What if she told him she wanted to go home? Home to the land she’d lost.

“Play for me,” he whispered when the kiss ended.

“Aye, so. I made a new song today.” A song of longing. Mayhap with her music, she could tell him what she dared not say.

*

Adair dreamed of Alba. He stood upon the shore at Phee staring out to sea, away past the islands that lay there like crouching beasts. Toward Erin.

There, in the dream, he turned his back squarely upon the place of his birth.

He now faced Rohracht’s dun, and the place was under attack. On the rise above him, the hall burned. Men fought everywhere by the garish light of the flames, a life-or-death struggle for possession.

For his heart.

He heard Bradana’s music in his ears, one of her sad and wistful laments, a complicated weaving of sound that grew ever louder with the crashing of sword on sword, sword on shield, till the very din of it woke him where he lay shivering.

“Adair?” Bradana stirred in his arms, and Wen lifted his great head from the floor. “What is it? My love?” Bradana touched his face. “Are ye unwell?”

He spoke without thinking, still half held by the power of that dream—or vision.

“I must go home.”

“Home? My heart, ye are home. Here in your own bed, in Erin.”

“I must go back to Alba, where my destiny lies.”

She caught her breath. For many moments she did not speak, merely ran her hands down his arms, soothing, and over his heart.

“Are ye certain o’ this?”

“Aye, Bradana. I know ye were the one who wanted to leave there—”

“Hear me, and hear me well. I did no’ want to leave. I thought it might save ye. My fear o’ losing ye is such that I would do anything, give anything, to keep ye from harm.”

“Aye, alanna , but there is fear, and there is destiny.” And a man must endure the latter, no matter what it cost him.

Bradana drew another breath. He felt her pull hard on her courage. “If this be what ye want, love, then I am with ye.”

“Ye will return to Alba with me, despite your fear?”

“Wherever ye may be, I am also.”

He kissed her deeply.

Would they arrive back in Alba to find the dream’s prediction come true? Would they step into battle? Would their time together be cut short?

Life was indeed about the choices one made. Adair hoped he made the right choice now.

*

They left for Alba on a day that hinted of autumn, with a bit of a cool breeze from the north. One of Adair’s friends, Oisin, was to accompany them to the coast so he could bring the ponies back once their company of three set sail.

Caomhán wept when Bradana parted from him. He made her promise to keep playing music and weaving tunes, and she whispered to him in parting, “I am carrying a child. Tell no one. Maybe he will be a grand harper someday.”

“Be sure and teach him well,” Caomhán returned.

Adair did not receive as fond a farewell from his father or brother. Baen said nothing. Bradana got the feeling he was glad to see the back of his brother se. Poised to marry and come into his own, he did not need competition from his father’s supposed favorite.

Gawen told Adair only, in parting, “Make something o’ yourself. And send word whether or not Daerg is still alive.”

“I am naught to my father but a third son,” Adair said to Bradana bitterly as they sailed away, “and of no value. They speak o’ the son returning home joyfully—he will no’ want to see me again.”

“Ah, but my love,” Bradana said, and kissed him, “ye are—ye are returning home.”