Page 127 of Stardust Child

She nodded, and the two knights took their usual places on either side of her, seated on the high roots of the oak tree with a view of the valley and a carpet of crunching leaves around them. It was the place theyhad often gone to discuss such things, and he hoped it would incline her to be open-minded.

“There are reasons why Sir Justenin and His Grace thought you ought to have hallows,” Leonin began in his most reasonable tone. “You must know how dangerous it is, even though you are of celestial lineage. Few people in the Empire would dare harm you, but they might abduct you. Someone without reverence for the stars might do worse.”

“I know what people might do.” Her fingers knotted together in her lap, a habit that Leonin’s mother would have broken from his sisters in childhood. “I don’t see why that means I must have hallows.”

“You might be separated from guards, my lady,” he answered promptly. “As you cannot be from your hallows. At the word of the Emperor, or at the behest of the Temple, perhaps. Or even if you just go somewhere that men are forbidden. If we take oaths as hallows, we will no longer be considered men.”

“What?” She looked up then, shocked. “W-why? Where did you hear that? Why would you ever want to?”

“It was in one of Sir Justenin’s books.” And now he was sorry he had brought it up. “The thought does not trouble me, my lady, I assure you.”

“Well, it troublesme,”she said, looking sick. “I don’t want that to happen to you because of me. You should be safe and happy with families of your own. I don’t want anyone to do that for me.”

“M’lady, way I see it, you’d be my family,” Davi said gently. “I would be pleased to share your name and get adopted into House Andelin. I never thought it was right, what happened to His Grace. I admire what you’re both trying to do here. I don’t like anyone trying to stop it, especially with such dirty tricks. My own family’s safe, and there’s plenty of them to carry on my blood. You’d be the family I’d choose. When you think it’s right.”

“I know.” She offered the older knight a weak smile. “I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, if you meant the oath that way. I just don’t want…”

She trailed off, her eyes flitting to Leonin, clear and transparent as glass, and he understood what she wasn’t saying. She didn’t want to accept the oath fromhim.

“Why?” The question burst out before he could stop it, gray fingers of fear and dread clawing him inside. It was a struggle to maintain hispolite, bland expression. There was nothing more unseemly than a man who put his emotions on display. “My lady.”

“Because you want to swear to the Duchess of Andelin,” she said flatly. “But after we die, I’ll just be me. And you’ll be stuck following me forever.”

This made no sense to him at all. Of course, he was swearing to a duchess. That was who needed to be protected, and he wasn’t much concerned about what happened after he was dead. Only a lifetime of careful circumspection kept him from saying as much.

“You told me you wanted to do it because it’d be hard,” Davi prompted. “That’s why you picked me, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it.” Leonin’s lips tightened. Yes, he had been the one to approach Davi, even though the other man was the commonest sort of peasant, one-eyed and disreputable, andstillthe best swordsman in the barracks. He had done it because Remin Grimjaw wantedtwohallows for his wife, and Leonin would do anything to be one of them. “If we must speak of this, my lady, I would prefer to do so privately.”

“Davi,” she said after a moment. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my lady.” Rising with an unfolding of long limbs, Davi shot Leonin a warning look and went to stand at a polite distance.

“I don’t understand why you won’t say it in front of him,” Duchess Andelin said, wrapping her arms around her knees. “If you’re my hallows, we’ll be together every day for the rest of our lives. We won’t have any secrets. You’ll know everything about me.”

“I will keep your secrets,” he assured her quickly. “That is part of the oath, to guard your dignity. I have thought of that. If you ever go to Segoile, I would be able to help you. You are a princess as well as a duchess. There would be many expectations of you.”

She was silent for so long, Leonin worried that he had already lost the argument.

“It’s not about that,” she said finally. “All this time, I was only thinking about the oath itself. The words. But everyone has their own way of keeping it, even if they swore the exact same oath. And everyone has their own reasons for swearing it, too. I…I won’t do it just because I’m the Emperor’s daughter, or Remin’s wife. And I don’t think you should swear it to me because of that, either.”

Sometimes he forgot how smart she was.

“I said I wanted to do something difficult,” he forced himself to say. It was as if he was dragging the words out one at a time, dredging them from the bedrock of his soul. He had gone to war, searching for them. “I want…I want to do something thatmatters,Your Grace.”

It was nothing less than the deepest and most desperate wish of his heart, and she did not look impressed.

“My only skill is with my sword,” he went on, feeling foolish. “But what use is that in Segoile? What honor is there in war? I have thought about what we must learn, how we will train, incorporating other martial traditions. We are all swordsmen here, but that is not the same as the skills needed to protect someone. And if this is my talent, then this is how I will choose to use it. Protecting you. Only the best will serve the House of Andelin. I want to set the standard. No, I want to challenge myself tobecomethe standard. One day, I want to be able to stand between you and a dozen Remin Grimjaws.”

“You want to build something, too,” she said unexpectedly.

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.” He hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was true. “I want to build a tradition of the best guardsmen in the world, judged on their merit rather than their birth. And only the best among them would have the privilege of becoming a hallow. It is a privilege,” he added. “I do believe that. To commit your whole life to someone is…a serious thing. I meant to earn it.”

More silence. The breeze lifted, chilly and moist with coming rain.

“I guess if Remin had said he wanted hallows for our…our children, I wouldn’t have argued,” she mused, her brows puckering. “But it would have been wrong. It would have been an oath to their position instead ofthem.In that book Sir Justenin gave me, it was all important people that had hallows, geniuses and leaders and holy people, and people wanted them to live to finish their work, and that’s why they swore. But I…I’m not important, myself.”

“But you are,” he protested automatically, and she silenced him with a glance.

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