“Actually, the truth is, in over a century of life, I have hardly allowed myself to consider that I might someday become a father.” His gaze grows intense as it finds mine again. “That I might meet someone with whom I’d create a new life. An heir. A…a family.” Any trace of the soft, relaxed demeanor I saw moments ago is gone. His spine is ramrod against his seat, his shoulders stiff beneath his doublet. “The inherent limitations of my power prevented me from even entertaining the possibility. Until…”
Until?
I am no longer breathing at all. The very air seems to still around our table—the palm trees overhead no longer thwacking in the night breeze, even the taper candles ceasing their flickers. Around us, the wedding frivolity carries on throughout the gardens, but it feels very far away. As though we are in a bubble of our own making, sequestered from the rest of the living world.
This is a topic we have never broached. A topic I did not even dare to think of, let alone address with him.
Marriage.
Children.
Legacy.
Love.
Pendefyre has never confessed to wanting any of those things. He has always acted as though the price they demand is too high to pay; has always stated, unequivocally, that tying himself too tightly to anyone would result in a conflagration of direst consequence.
Has he changed his mind?
I cannot bring myself to ask any more than he can bring himself to say. Poised on the edge of a knife that threatens to slice straight through my future, I do the only thing I can do.
I wait.
“I—I don’t—” Penn takes a breath that broadens his whole frame, then takes a sip of water before he attempts again. “I do not know what my future holds, in that regard. I cannot say if I will ever take a wife, or sire a child of my own. Not now. Perhaps not ever.”
Of course not.
“In the meantime,” he goes on, not seeming to notice my flinch, “I will do my best to help raise Nevin. I will try to honor Uther’s legacy any way I can, and support Carys however she will allow. I will keep them close enough to protect.”
But not to love.
He still cannot allow himself to make that leap. Still cannot convince himself that loving is not the same as forfeiting; that to surrender one’s heart can be done without losing one’s free will.
I wonder, not for the first time, if he will ever be able to love freely, or if his affections will forever remain trapped along with his power in a cage of rigid self-control. The one person he ever truly allowed himself to care for, body and soul, is long gone. The fading shadow of a memory. A ghost who haunts his every new beginning, reminding him of the worst repercussions that can come of mixing passion and power.
Enid.
The thought of her no longer pains me, as it once did. Instead, it offers a shred of enlightenment about Penn’s complex past. And, in a concurrent stroke, illuminates some harsher realities about his future.
I exhale, long and low. As I do, I feel the world come rushing back in—light and laughter and sound returning in one great whoosh. There is the thwacking of the palm fronds overhead, the faint sway of the glowing paper lanterns, the stomping of boots on the dance floor. There is Yara’s snarky commentary, and Vaughn’s resounding laugh, and the warbling whine of a fiddle.
We are back in breathable air.
Back on stable conversational ground.
Setting aside the perilous prospect ofus, I clear my throat. “You describe this new guardianship as a responsibility. I think it can be more than that, Penn. If you let it. It can be a source of good, and joy, and harmony.”
He stares at me, seemingly at a loss for words.
“Don’t doubt yourself or your capabilities. Nevin is lucky to have you.”
He blows out a breath. “I am hardly a perfect role model.”
“Children don’t care about perfect.” I smile at him, thinking of my own wizened, occasionally crotchety mentor. “The man who raised me wasn’t, but I still miss him terribly each day. I—”
Reminiscences of Eli are snatched away as Yara’s screech of mirth cuts across the gardens. My head whips to the side in time to watch Farley, drunker than I’ve ever witnessed, falling in a dead faint to the dance floor.
“Timber!” Yara claps her hands, laughing uproariously at her downed partner. “Down he goes!”