Sisters Three (Completed)

29. Morna (1/2)

"Stop looking so worried! They won't miss you for a few minutes!" Morna said, laughing as she turned Afton's face to meet hers. He smiled into their kiss and then sighed.

"I'm trying not to, but it just feels like I should do... something," he said. "With word of Revours almost taking Latterstill it makes me feel as if I should jump on a horse and riding down there to see for myself what damage he wrought."

"But you can't," Morna said. "So let me take your mind off of it! Robbin called General Hammag from Latterstill and he'll be able to tell you everything you need to know. So waiting is all you have to do, and I want you to relax those shoulders and that brow." She pressed her thumb in the space between Afton's eyes, which seemed to perpetually house a crease of late.

The heavy foliage of the trees rustled in a breeze and the coolness of the forest felt blissful after the stuffiness of the indoors. A path cut through the small woods to the side of Glenfarrow House, and the smell of the ocean floated in the air. Away from the confines of the women's sitting room, Morna felt almost giddy with freedom.

But Afton's mind was apparently on other things. "Robbin's another thing to worry about," he murmured.

Morna grunted in frustration but didn't interrupt him. Heaven knew he held the weight of the country on his shoulders, and she didn't have the heart to tell him to stop. His worrying would wear him out eventually, but she let him think out loud. It was better to hear his thoughts than to have to try to guess what was going on in his mind.

"Darling, your brother is headstrong and rash, but I don't think he will do anything that will jeopardize the mission."

"Every single council meeting he has to team up with General Rydon and their supporters to try to bully me into taking up the Grellan Queen's men. No matter how many times I tell them I won't be a part of lying to a neighbor by going back on giving her what she wanted for the mercenaries, they always mention it again."

"Well, we only need to come up with a better plan and they'll soon forget about Grella."

"I talked to Robbin today about maybe seeing if we can get the peasants to join our army."

"There, that's a splendid start. Soon they'll all be too busy with that to think of mercenaries."

They walked down the path, cutting toward the cliff side. It jutted out over the ocean, hemmed in by the trees on one side. It was far enough away that the pull from the waves wasn't strong enough to distract Brenna, but close enough that the cool breeze could soothe them. They walked at a lazy pace and Afton took her hand in his.

"I'm sorry you have to deal with a war when you should be in your own home bossing around the servants and writing letters to your aunts on fine stationary."

"I'm perfectly happy. Those things can wait until you have your place on the throne," Morna said.

"Still, we used to have such grand houses before the queen died, and I would have loved for you to have had one," he said. "I promise to buy you anything at all that you want once the fighting is over."

"Well, you can give me something I want right now, and it doesn't cost a single coin."

"Oh?" Afton asked, a grin forming as he slid his arm around her waist.

Morna tilted her head and tapped her lip with her finger. Afton leaned in, but Morna ducked out from his grasp with a laugh. "Oh, only it's too bad you can't give it to me with your guard dogs watching us," she teased.

Just behind them on the road she'd glimpsed armor through the trees and the scowling face of Afton's bodyguard. Where there was one, there would be the other three.

Afton turned just in time to see the lead man duck out of sight.

"I think they'd follow me to my bath if they thought they could," he said, groaning.

"Let's just keep walking and maybe they'll get bored," Morna said.

Up further, they came across a small lake that fed into a stream, carving down from the cliff's incline. With the ocean on their left and the lake on their right, Brenna's shoulders tightened. Afton gently guided her closer to his side, giving her a nod of reassurance.

As she stared at the way his fingers entwined with hers, a sudden sense of disbelief washed over her. Was this really happening? It wasn't long ago that she'd cowered in her bed, sick and tortured by her water curse, all alone in her aunts' house and missing her family. She realized with a start that she'd been a supremely terrified young girl. Her entire childhood had been one long fight to escape the water, yet that fighting kept her in a perpetual state of loneliness.

Now, she was walking alongside the ocean and a lake with someone she sometimes thought she'd explode with loving so much. He saved her, she was sure. He buffered the water, but beyond that he'd noticed her when she'd been nothing but an afterthought to her aunts and Brenna. He'd fought her curse and banished her loneliness by loving her.

She crept closer to his side, and perhaps he felt the outpouring from her, for he looked down and stopped walking.

They stared, lost to the world, found to each other.

"Forget the guards, I'm going to kiss my wife," he said.

As Afton leaned forward, Morna caught sight of the guards just rounding the corner, talking casually and strolling slowly to try to avoid impeding on their master's privacy. Even though she always felt strange laying claim to Afton in public, at that moment she wouldn't have cared if they were on display in Latterstill's market square. She loved Afton to bursting.