“I thank Talamh, that has welcomed me home, and pledge my loyalty.”
She thought she managed the chatter, since most of it was politely formal—and Tarryn ran interference without seeming to.
“We meet in the morning,” Keegan announced. “My thanks to you all.”
Breen waited until he’d guided her out of earshot. “I didn’t notice you doing a lot of the chatter.”
“They’ve all heard me before, haven’t they? It’s you they wanted to see and hear—now they have. And now, thank the gods, we’ll have that quiet meal, and I can down a damn ale.”
“I need to change.”
“What is this obsession with changing clothes all the bloody time? Why put something on you only want to take off again?”
“If we’re having dinner with your mother—”
“It’s a family meal. You’re fine.”
“I don’t need the coat to have dinner.”
He shot her an impatient glance. “Then you’ll take it off.”
“You never change.” She muttered it as he pulled her up a curve of stone steps.
“I change daily.” Then he glanced down. “Ah, I get your meaning. Why would I change when… No, that’s not the truth. I explain much more than I did, and that’s a change.”
“You didn’t bother to explain we’d make stops on the way here so I’d meet and talk to people. Or how I’d meet the council and have to talk to them. I could’ve used a heads-up. Advance warning.”
“No, you do better without it. Not so much time to think and worry yourself over it.”
Since she couldn’t say he was wrong, she said nothing.
“And you did more than well on both things. Now you can talk as little or as much as you like, as this is family.”
He turned at an archway. “And I’ll wager a Troll bag of stones my mother doesn’t change.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Breen wouldn’t have called the room cozy, but at a fraction of the size of the banquet hall, it didn’t intimidate.
It held the warmth of a fire, the charm of dozens of candles. While the table would seat a group of fifteen easily, four plates sat at one end. It gleamed, as did the chairs, the beautifully crafted buffet, the floors.
And smelled of fresh oranges and vanilla.
Keegan went straight to a serving counter, poured wine in a glass, ale in a tankard.
“We’ve both earned it,” he said, handing her the wine.
She took it and wandered to admire the two arched windows of stained glass, each depicting a dragon in flight. And the intricate tapestries of land, of sea, of villages, of farms.
“One from every tribe in Talamh,” he told her. “They’ve hung on these walls as long as these walls have stood.”
“They look as if they could’ve been done yesterday. The colors are so vivid. I wonder, did I eat here when I came as a child for the Judgment?”
“You didn’t, no. Your mother wouldn’t have it. Your father gave it over to my family during those few days. It was kind of him, as we were grieving, and the room has warmth and privacy. And quiet. You may have before that, but I can’t tell you.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t feel familiar, but I can imagine him here. With Nan when she was taoiseach, and later when he lifted the sword. And your father, too, because they were brothers in all but blood.”
“Aye, they were.”