Marco peppered Breen with questions on the walk to the farm. How did she do it, how did it feel, could she do it again?
She didn’t mind. She no longer rode on the air, but she definitely rode on the afterglow of power realized.
“I don’t want to try it without Nan right there,” she explained. “I’m not sure how well I’d control it on my own.”
“Whoa, you mean you could just float off or something?”
“Well, now that you’ve put that in my head, maybe. Basically, I want more practice. On everything. Except all this,” she said when she spotted Keegan setting up targets in the training field by the farm.
“You’re getting better at the archery thing. I still suck at it.”
“You’re right. You suck at it more than I do. Look, there’s Aisling and the boys.”
“That girl doesn’t have a baby bump. She’s got a baby mountain.”
“I’d advise against pointing that out.”
“I look stupid to you?”
Bollocks ran ahead, leaping over the stone wall, then dancing circles around the big wolfhound before rolling into a tumbling wrestle with the little boys.
All Breen heard was joy as Aisling, one hand on the baby mountain, slowly walked toward them.
“Fáilte! Míle fáilte!” She embraced them both.
A little pale, Breen noted, and that was fatigue. But even the pallor had a glow, and that came from the light growing inside her.
“You look wonderful.”
“Ah now, I’m big as two cows if one swallowed the other. And all the while, the one inside is hell-bent on kicking its way out again.”
“You’re shining,” Marco told her, and lit up her smile.
“Nearing the time I’ll hold this one in my arms instead of my womb, and that’s a happy thought. And with it, you made my brother happy, Breen.”
When Breen looked over to where Keegan set up for archery, Aisling shook her head. “Not that one. Harken. He’s been singingat his work since Morena came back from talking with you. So we’ll have a wedding and a birth all but on top of each other the way I’m seeing it. And both here at the farm.”
“The wedding’s here?”
“So she said, after going back and forth on that one. No doubt her nan’s cottage is a thing of beauty, but we’ve more room here. And this will be their home, where they’ll live their life together. So here it will be.
“And here’s the singing groom now.”
Breen heard him first, the voice she’d once heard in a dream, before Harken walked out of the barn. He sang in Talamhish, but she didn’t need to know the words to translate the happiness.
As he saw them, changed directions to come their way, it struck Breen again how alike and yet how different the brothers were.
The same unruly dark hair, but a farmer’s cap for Harken rather than a warrior’s braid. A strong, leanly muscled body for both, but work gloves in Harken’s pocket instead of a sword at his side.
Handsome faces both, of sharp angles and long planes, but Keegan’s was often shadowed by a day or two’s worth of beard where Harken went smooth shaven.
He walked straight to Breen, and to her laughing surprise, kissed her warmly on the mouth.
“I can now attest Morena’s a very lucky woman.”
“Ah, she’s all that. I love my sisters,” he continued. “This one here, of course. And Maura and Noreen, who are sisters to me, and you as you’re a sister to Morena. But today, Breen Siobhan Kelly, you’re my favorite sister of all.”
Turning, he put an arm around her as Keegan walked their way. “She’s my great favorite today,mo dheartháir, so mind you’re not too hard on her or you’ll deal with me.”