Maia ignored the words, her eyes searching ahead as they passed the fish pond and then rushed down the well-worn path leading to the docks. Finally she caught sight of the Holk, tethered to the bend of the river where there was more room to maneuver. A lone skiff manned by oarsmen clove the waters, slicing the way to where Richard and Joanna and Aldermaston Wyrich waited on the docks. Her heart began to pound as she recognized Sabine sitting in the skiff. Next to her was a wild-haired old man, a man she would have recognized at an even greater distance. It was Walraven, her longtime mentor and friend.
Maia surely would have tripped and fallen down the steps to the dock if Collier had not been gripping her hand so tightly. The skiff was already secured by mooring ropes by the time she reached the end of the pier.
Sabine looked tired as she disembarked, helped by Richard and Joanna, but her face brightened the instant she saw Maia and Collier, and she rushed over to them. Maia started to weep as her grandmother wrapped her arms around her neck and hugged her tightly, murmuring softly in her ear, “Well done . . . well done, dear heart!” Both women trembled with joy, clinging to each other for a long, sweet moment.
Then Sabine pulled away slightly and reached for Collier’s hand. “I have news for you both. News I wanted to share immediately.”
“What is it?” Maia asked, wiping her eyes. Her grandmother looked burdened, as if she had witnessed and experienced unspeakable things. But her fortitude and strength had carried her through. It was just like her to want to help someone else when she could easily have justified asking to sit and rest from a long journey.
Sabine pulled Collier closer and pitched her voice low, for their ears alone. “The Medium has taught me, through a vision, that you two were always intended for each other. While I was imprisoned in Hautland, before they sent me to Naess, I had a vision through my Gift of Seering of the Earl of Dieyre in Rostick. I saw him cavorting with hetaera after the mastons left. His wife was a hetaera! I saw her kiss him. So did others. But it did not harm him. The Medium taught me that his descendants are immune . . .”
But she must have noticed their flushed smiles and the knowing glance they exchanged, for she interrupted her own chain of thought.
“I think . . . you have already learned this truth yourself,” Sabine said with a wry smile. “You cannot know how happy this makes me. Come, Maia, your friend wishes to see you again and to meet your intended. Walraven was tortured in the dungeons of Naess. He was broken and maimed when I found him there. The Medium bade me to heal him and adopt him into my Family. I would like to introduce you both to the future Aldermaston of Naess.”
Looking over her grandmother’s shoulder, Maia saw that her old friend was speaking with Richard, Joanna, and Wyrich. But upon Sabine’s introduction, Walraven looked up and caught her eye. After speaking a few words to the others, he approached and bowed to Maia.
“To see you wearing the crown,” he whispered huskily, tears gleaming in his eyes. “To see you at long last!”
She flung herself into his arms, sobbing as he hugged her. She was surrounded, completely surrounded, by those who loved and cherished her, those who had seen her through all her trials. When she finally pulled herself away from Walraven, she reached out and squeezed Richard’s hand, then Joanna’s. Her heart was so full.
As she turned back to Collier, she saw him looking at her with profound tenderness, tears trickling down his cheeks.
“She summoned you here,” Collier told Sabine. “Her thoughts drove the wind. Will you please marry us? This very instant could not be soon enough!”
Although Maia had taken the maston test and crossed the Apse Veil, she had never climbed the winding steps to the high spire of the abbey. Each abbey contained a central tower or spike, and it was at the top of this tower where marriages were performed by irrevocare sigil. She wore the supplicant robes she had donned before taking the maston test. Collier walked with her up the steps, and they followed Tomas, who had informed them that the other witnesses of the ceremony awaited them in the spire.
The feeling of the Medium grew stronger as they climbed, and Maia felt her burdens lift the higher they went. Collier squeezed her hand, and she gave him a private smile, enjoying the look of anticipation she saw in his eyes.