“I’ve been yours from the first moment, and I’ll be yours until the last. You came back to me.” She laid a hand on his heart, and the other on her own. “And my heart beats again.”

She threw her arms around him, and those who’d gathered in the courtyard, and on the stairs cheered as the queen of Geall kissed her beloved in the winter sunlight.

“S o they lived,” the old man said, “and they loved. So the circle grew stronger, and formed circles out from it as ripples spread in a pool. The valley that had once been silent sang with music of summer breezes through green grass, the lowing of cattle. Of pipes and harps and the laughter of children.”

The old man stroked the hair of a little one who’d climbed into his lap. “Geall flourished under the rule of Moira, the warrior queen and her knight. For them, even in the dark of night, a light shone.

“And that brings the tale of the sorcerer, the witch, the warrior, the scholar, the shifter of shapes and the vampire to its own circle.”

He patted the rump of the child on his lap. “Off with you now, all of you, while there’s still sunlight to enjoy.”

There were shouts and whoops, and he smiled as he heard the arguments already starting for who would be the sorcerer, who would be the queen.

Because his senses were still keen in some areas, Cian lifted his hand to the back of the chair, and covered Moira’s.

“You tell it well.”

“Easy to tell what you’ve lived.”

“Easy to enhance what was,” she corrected, coming around the chair. “But you stayed very close to the truth.”

“Wasn’t the truth strange and magical enough?”

Her hair was pure white, and her face as she smiled at him, lined with the years. And more beautiful than any he’d known.

“Walk with me before twilight comes.” She helped him to stand, hooked her arm through his. “And are you ready for the invasion?” she asked, tipping her head toward his shoulder.

“When it comes, at least you’ll be finished fussing over it.”

“I’m so anxious to see them all. Our first circle, and the circles they’ve made. Once a year for the whole of them is so long to wait, even with the little visits between. And listening to little pieces of the tale brings it all back so clear, doesn’t it?”

“It does. No regrets?”

“I’ve never had a one when it comes to you. What a fine life we’ve had, Cian. I know we’re in the winter of it, but I don’t feel the cold.”

“Well, I do, when you put your feet on my arse in the night.”

She laughed, turned to kiss him with all the warmth, all the love of sixty years of marriage.

“There’s our eternity, Moira,” he said, gesturing toward their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. “There’s our forever.”

Hands linked, they walked in the softening sunlight. Though their steps were slow and measured from age, they continued through the courtyards and the gardens, and out through the gates while the sound of children playing rang behind them.

High above on the castle peaks, the three symbols of Geall, the claddaugh, the dragon and the sun, flew—gold against the white.