Chapter 131: Unmarried, Unchanged

On Sunday I fell over seven times.

Roderic counted. Avarn said again about a hundred and fifty times, and once, toward the end, when I stepped off the line of his staff instead of back from it and the staff went past my ear instead of into it, he said nothing at all for nearly a minute. Roderic said afterward that was the highest praise he'd ever seen Avarn give anyone, and that he'd once watched him say nothing for a whole minute to a sparrow that landed on his staff.

At seven the bell rang. Avarn said tomorrow. And when I turned around to pick my coat up off the wall, Carol was sitting on it.

"Walk with me," she said.

"Where?"

"The stream," said Carol. "The stone." She stood up and gave me my coat. "I want to tell you something. And I want to tell it to you there."

* * *

You don't fold to the stream. I've said that before. It's a rule nobody ever made; we just never have. You walk.

So we walked. Out through the postern in the east wall and down the long meadow below the castle, through the frost, in the thin early light, with our breath going up in front of us. The grass crunched. A heron got up out of the reeds by the water and flew off, very slowly, looking offended.

The stone is where it always is. Long and flat and gray, the size of Helena's kitchen table, half in the water and half out, at the place where the stream bends. Nobody's ever named the stream. Nobody's ever needed to.

There are two marks on the stone. You can't see them. You can feel them, if you put your hand flat on the dry end, the end out of the water: two small warm places, side by side, where two children once sat with their feet in the stream and gave back everything a god had stolen, one thing at a time, and sang a song with no words while they did it.

Carol sat down in her place. I sat down in mine. We fit. We always have, even now; it's like putting your feet into the same boots you wore yesterday.

For a while neither of us said anything. The stream went past, very cold and clear, with a skin of ice at the edges.

* * *

"Iggy and I talked all day yesterday," said Carol. "After the tilt yard. We went up on the roof and talked until it got dark, and then we came down and had supper, and then we went back up and talked until Thor came to get him for the nursery door."

"I know. I could hear you. Through the middle."

"Could you?" She turned her head. "What did it sound like?"

"Like two people arguing very kindly," I said. "For eleven hours."

She laughed. It was the first time I'd heard her really laugh since Saba sang.

"It wasn't arguing," said Carol. "Not really. It was deciding. It just sounds the same from outside."

* * *

"We decided three things," said Carol.

She held up one finger. Like Caitlin does when she counts something that matters.

"One. We're still not getting married."

I didn't say anything. I hadn't thought they would. But I let her say it.

"We talked about it," said Carol. "Properly. For the first time in years. Because of the saying. Because of joined. Iggy thought, last night, that maybe if we were married it would be... I don't know. Clearer. Something with a name. Something people could point at and say there, that's what that is." She shook her head. "And then we both realized at the same moment that the saying doesn't care. It isn't a priest. It doesn't want vows. Joined is just joined. A wedding wouldn't make us more of it, and not having one doesn't make us less. And we didn't want the first reason we ever got married to be a god across the sea." She looked at the water. "That's not a reason. That's a fist."

"So nothing changes."

"Nothing changes." She held up a second finger. "Two."

* * *

"Two is harder," said Carol.

She was quiet for a long moment. The stream went past.

"Iggy thought," she said, "and I thought too, a bit, at three o'clock on Saturday morning, that maybe we should decide never to have a child. Ever. Because of the saying. Because if it could happen twice. If there could be another one. Another whole one. Then that's two for him to want instead of one, and we'd have made it, and we'd have handed it to him." She swallowed. "And it would be so easy, Garrick. To just decide that. To be very sensible. To take it off the table forever, and say there, that's done, he can't have what doesn't exist."

"That is very sensible," I said.

"I know," said Carol. "I hate it."

* * *

She put her hand flat on the stone, on the warm place where she'd sat at three.

"And then we realized," she said, "that that's him deciding too. Just the other way around. If we decide never, because of him, that's his hand in it. Same as if we decided now, because of him. Either way he's in the room. Either way it's his fist on the table." She turned and looked at me. "So we decided not to decide. Not now. Not because of the saying. Not because of anyone. If we ever have a child, it'll be because one day, years from now, one of us asks the other. And the other says yes. And nobody else's hand is anywhere near it. Not his. Not Malachar's. Not Father's. Not even yours."

"I'd never—"

"I know you wouldn't." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "I'm just saying. It's ours. Whenever it is. If it is. It'll be the two of us asking. That's all."

I looked at her for a long time.

"That's two," I said.

"That's two." She held up the third finger. And then didn't say anything at all.

* * *

"Three," I said eventually.

"Three is why we're here," said Carol.

She stood up on the stone. Right up, balanced on the dry end, with the stream going past on both sides and the ice tinkling at the edges. Like when we were small and she climbed everything; she can never just sit on a thing for long without standing on it.

"We chose each other," she said. "The first time. That summer when I was seventeen. On the north tower roof, under the rods. Nobody else was there. Nobody knew for weeks, except you, because you always know, and Helena, because Helena always knows." She looked down at me. "It was just the two of us asking, that time. And it was enough. It's been enough for six years."

"And now?"

"Now there's a saying," said Carol. "And a god across the sea who wants half of Iggy. And a whole war coming." Her voice didn't shake. "And yesterday he nearly left. Because he thought he was keeping me safe. And I sat on his bag for an hour in the dark, and I was more frightened than I've been since the fountain." She took a breath. "So we want to do it again. Choose. Out loud. Knowing all of it this time. Not because anything's changed. Because everything has, and we're still choosing the same thing."

She held her hand down to me.

"And this time," said Carol, "I'd like a witness."

* * *

I took her hand. She pulled me up onto the stone beside her. We stood there, the two of us, balanced on the dry end, in the cold, with the stream going past.

"Me?" I said.

"Who else?" said Carol. "You were there before I was born. You were there at the stream. You're there through the middle every single day of my life, whether I want you or not." She squeezed my hand. "You're the only person in the world who'll know if I mean it."

"You always mean it."

"Then you won't have to do much," said Carol. "You just have to say the word. At the end. You know which one."

I did.

* * *

We walked back up the long meadow together without saying much.

At the postern gate, she stopped.

"There's one more thing," she said. "I want to tell Father. And the mothers. Before tonight. Not ask them. Tell them." She made a face. "It's different."

"It is."

"I don't know how to tell Father something without it sounding like asking," said Carol. "He has that face. The one where he's waiting for you to finish, and you can tell he'll say yes, and that makes you want to ask him even when you don't need to."

"I know the face."

"Will you come?"

"Yes," I said.

* * *

They were in the little kitchen, at the scrubbed table by the garden door, with the pear tree black and bare against the window and the blackbird on the step. My mother and Adriana, side by side, in their dressing gowns, with one teapot between them. Grandpa at the head of the table, sanding a wooden horse's ear. Helena at the stove with the spoon. And my father at the far end, in his socks, with little Uriah on his knee eating toast, or rather wearing it.

Carol stood at the end of the table.

She didn't sit. She'd thought it through; I could feel her deciding not to, through the middle, because sitting makes it a conversation, and this wasn't one. This was news.

"Iggy and I are still not getting married," said Carol.

Everyone looked up.

"We're not deciding anything about children because of the saying," said Carol. "Not yes, not no. We'll decide that ourselves. One day. Or not." She took a breath. "And tonight we're going up on the north tower roof to choose each other again. Out loud. Garrick's going to witness." She folded her hands in front of her. Then unfolded them. Open. "That's all. I'm not asking. I'm telling you. Because you're my family and I wanted you to know."

* * *

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Little Uriah held up a piece of toast to my father and said, "Ta."

"Thank you," said my father, and took it, and ate it, without taking his eyes off Carol.

Then he put little Uriah down on the floor, carefully, beside Grandpa's chair, where there was a basket of wooden horses waiting to have their ears done. And stood up. And came around the table.

He stopped in front of Carol. He looked down at her. And his face was the face she'd been afraid of: the one where he's waiting for you to finish, and you can tell he'll say yes.

Except there was nothing to say yes to. And he knew it.

So he didn't.

"Heard," said my father.

Just that. And put his hand on her head, the way he did when she was small, the way Cerys puts her hand on Malachar's. And took it away again.

Carol let out a breath I hadn't known she was holding.

* * *

"I'd like to say something," said my mother.

She hadn't got up. She was still sitting beside Adriana, with her tea in both hands, and Adriana's shoulder against hers.

"When your father and I married," said my mother, "it was a wedding. A proper one, with flowers and speeches and far too many guests, and I hated every minute of it, and I'd do it again tomorrow." She glanced sideways at Adriana. "And when Adriana married him, it was a treaty. Signed at a table, in the war, with half of Lyradon sleeping in our halls. Nobody thought it would be anything else."

"It wasn't, for a while," said Adriana.

"No," said my mother. "And then it was." She put her hand over Adriana's on the table. "And none of it, Carol, the flowers or the treaty or any of it, is what made it real. What made it real was the three of us choosing it. Over and over. Every morning. Seven thousand six hundred and sixty-something mornings, according to Caitlin." She smiled. "You're not doing anything strange. You're doing what everyone does who's lucky. You're just doing it out loud."

* * *

Helena turned around from the stove.

She looked at Carol for a long moment with the wooden spoon in her hand.

"There'll be a cake," she said.

"Helena, it's not a—"

"I didn't ask what it was," said Helena. "I said there'll be a cake. A small one. For after. On the roof." She turned back to the stove. "You'll both be cold, up there, choosing things. It's a cold night for it. People should eat something after they've meant a thing very hard."

"I hate it when she's sensible," said Carol, very quietly, to me.

"So do I," I said.

"I heard that," said Helena, without turning around.

* * *

My father caught me in the passage afterward.

"The roof," he said. "The north tower. Through the broom cupboard. Up the ladder. Through the trapdoor that groans."

I stared at him.

"Since you were five," said my father. "The four of you. You and Carol and Seraphina and Ignatius. The Castellan told me the first night. So did Rysa." He looked almost apologetic. "I've never once been up. I thought it ought to be yours. But I've known."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"Because tonight Carol's going to choose something on it," said my father. "And I wanted you to know that I've always known where you go to do the things that matter. And I've always let you go." He paused. "And because I'll be in the passage at the foot of the north tower stair. All night. Not in the doorway. Not on the roof. Just there. Near." He looked at me. "In case she wants her father after. She probably won't. But in case."

* * *

At eleven that night, there were five of us on the north tower roof.

Carol and Ignatius. Me. Seraphina, because Ignatius had asked her, and she'd said, Of course I'm coming, you're my brother, who else is going to tell you when your collar's wrong. And Helena's cake, in a tin, on the leads by the trapdoor, which counted as the fifth.

It was very cold and very clear. The stars were out over the whole sky, hard and bright, more of them than you ever see except in the middle of winter. The sea was a long black line to the east, and the frost on the leads crunched under our feet, and the eight iron lightning rods stood up in their ring around the edge of the roof like the posts of a fence that kept nothing out.

They hummed. They always do, when Carol's up there. Very low, under the hearing, in time with her breathing. Davren put them up after the third strike when she was small, and ever since then they've been more hers than the roof's.

* * *

She stood in the middle of the ring. Ignatius stood in front of her. Seraphina and I stood at the edge, by the trapdoor, by the cake.

There wasn't a priest. There wasn't a book. There wasn't anything written down.

Carol held out her hands. Open.

"Ignatius," she said. "Son of Io and Lexander. The mending half." Her voice was very steady. "I chose you when I was seventeen, on this roof, and I didn't know anything. I didn't know about the saying or the flame or what you are or what's coming across the sea. I just knew I wanted to ask you." She took a breath. "And now I know all of it. And I'm asking again. Not to marry you. Not to change anything. Just to choose you. Out loud. Knowing. Unmarried, and unchanged, and yours." Her chin came up. "Will you choose me back?"

* * *

Ignatius held out his own hands. Open. And put them under hers, palms up, so that hers were resting in his.

"Carol Clara Grey," he said. "Who says no." His voice was very low. "I chose you when I was eighteen, on this roof, and I knew exactly nothing either. I knew you climbed things. I knew you'd set fire to my eyebrows twice, by accident, and once on purpose. I knew I wanted you to ask." He swallowed. "And then yesterday I packed a bag. Because I was frightened for you. And you sat on it in the dark for an hour." He almost laughed. "So I'm choosing you again. Out loud. Knowing. Unmarried. Unchanged. And I promise you, in front of my sister and your brother and a cake, that I will never again leave to keep you safe without asking you first."

"Is that all?" said Carol.

"That's all," said Ignatius. "Yes. I choose you back."

* * *

They both looked at me.

And I stood at the edge of the roof in the cold, in the ring of humming rods, with the stars over us and the sea to the east and my wife's hand in mine, and I said the word. The only one we've ever needed. The one that means I was here, and I listened, and it counts.

"Heard," I said.

* * *

The lightning rods rang.

All eight of them. At once. Not humming now. Ringing, like the eight strings of a harp struck all together, a long clear chord that went out across the roofs of Greykeep and the inner court and the long meadow and the stream, and came back off the hills.

Carol laughed. Ignatius laughed. Seraphina, beside me, said "Oh," very softly, and her eyes went white-gold at the edges, not with anger, just with light.

And down in the passage at the foot of the north tower stair, ninety-one steps below us, I felt my father hear it. Through the stone. Through the house. Through whatever it is that connects all of us, all the time, that none of us has ever had a word for.

He didn't come up. He'd said he wouldn't.

But I felt him sit down on the bottom step. And put his head in his hands. And smile.

* * *

We ate Helena's cake on the leads, sitting in a row with our backs to the parapet, with the frost soaking through our coats. It was a lemon cake. Small and dense and very sharp, with a crust of sugar on the top. Helena makes it for birthdays and for people who are leaving, and once, the night after the stream, for two three-year-olds who'd just given away a war.

Carol ate three slices. Ignatius ate two. Seraphina and I split the last one.

And then Carol went very still.

* * *

She was sitting with her back against the parapet and her head on Ignatius's shoulder. And she lifted it. And turned and looked east. Over the parapet. Out to sea.

The rods had stopped ringing. They'd gone back to humming. But not in time with her breathing anymore.

In time with something else.

"Garrick," said Carol. Very quietly.

I felt it too. Through the middle. Through her.

Far out to sea. Very far. Further than I've ever felt anything from the north tower roof. Past the outer shoals, past the edge of anything Selvane can reach, out where the sea is just sea and nobody's.

Lightning.

Not one storm. Many. A whole long line of them, low down on the horizon, flickering, very faint, so far away that from the roof it just looked like the stars were trembling at the very bottom of the sky. And every flicker went into the rods, and the rods hummed it, and it went through the leads and into the soles of my feet.

"That's not weather," said Carol.

Her voice had gone flat. The voice she uses when she's very frightened and won't let it show.

"I know what weather feels like. I've been lightning since I was born. That isn't wild. It isn't free." She stood up. She went to the parapet and put her hands on it and looked out at that far, faint, trembling line. "That's held. Somebody's carrying it. In jars. In towers. On ships." She swallowed. "Eleven storms. From the golden city. I can count them." She was silent for a moment. "And they're coming this way."

* * *

Ignatius was on his feet. Seraphina too.

I was already at the trapdoor.

I didn't fold. You don't, from the roof; it's a rule nobody made. I went down the ladder and through the broom cupboard and down the ninety-one steps faster than I've ever gone down anything, and at the bottom, on the bottom step, in the dark, in his socks, was my father.

He was already standing up.

He'd felt it too.

"How far?" he said.

"Carol says eleven storms. Held. On ships." I was out of breath. "Far. Past the shoals. Past anything."

My father looked east. Through the wall. Through the castle. Toward the sea.

"Then they'll be at Westmere in three days," he said. "Four if the wind's against them. It won't be." He turned to me, and his face was very calm, and very gray, the face from the palace wall. "Wake your mothers. Wake Aurelia. Send a raven to Tamar. And Lexander." He paused. "And then go back up to your sister and tell her she did right. She chose first. Before any of it. That was the right order."

"Father—"

"The fleet's coming back," said my father. "We knew it would. And tonight, before it did, my daughter stood on a roof and chose the man she loves, out loud, with her hands open." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Nobody across that sea can ever take that out of tonight. Not now. It's done. It's heard." He let go. "Go."

* * *

Mary's book. Sunday night. Mary had been asleep, and was woken at midnight by eight lightning rods ringing like a harp, and came down in her nightgown to find out why, and then stayed up.

Sunday. Eleven o'clock. North tower roof. Carol and Ignatius chose each other again. Unmarried. Unchanged. Garrick witnessed. Seraphina held the cake.

The rods rang. All eight. Uriah sat on the bottom step and heard it.

Helena's lemon cake. Carol had three slices.

Half past eleven: Carol felt lightning on the sea. Eleven storms, held, far out, coming west.

Ravens to Westmere and Concordia at a quarter to twelve.

And under that, in Carol's hand, quick and slanting, the way she writes when she's just come down from somewhere high:

Carol. Unmarried. Unchanged. Chosen twice. I'd like it noted that the second time was harder. And better. And that we did it first.