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“I didn’t know there were festivities here at the moment,” Moiraine noted when they rode through the gates of Fal Dara. Everything was decorated in bright colors, and the streets were unusually crowded.
“They’re celebrating the new year tonight,” Lan replied. When he had still lived in Fal Dara, that had been his favorite day of the year. Perhaps that was partly why he had taken their route here. Although he had mainly come here for another reason, he just couldn’t tell Moiraine just yet.
People had spotted them already, and there were more than a few whispering and following them. He could feel Moiraine’s annoyance through the bond.
Apparently, Lord Agelmar had heard of their coming as well, because he was already expecting them. “Dai Shan,” he greeted Lan. “It’s been a while. Where have you been?”
Lan would rather not be answering those questions. He trusted the Lord of Fal Dara, but not that much. “We were just traveling.”
“You haven’t been to Chachin, by any chance?” Agelmar asked, and Lan could already tell he wouldn’t like where this was going. He knew who lived in Chachin. And who would be asking about him.
Moiraine had noticed his unease, of course. She didn’t say anything, but he could feel her eyes on him.
If Agelmar had noticed the tension, he didn’t show. “She asked about you. Wanted to know if you were married yet.” He glanced at Moiraine. “She has a daughter. Very pretty. She would like you two to meet.”
Lan suddenly very much regretted coming here. “I’m not interested.”
Agelmar raised a brow. “We can discuss this later. Someone will show you to your room.” He patted Lan’s shoulder. “Join the celebrations later.”
They definitely weren’t discussing this later. Lan glanced at Moiraine, who was not happy at all with where this conversation had gone. Her expression revealed nothing, but he knew better.
“Who asked about you?” she wanted to know as soon as Agelmar was out of earshot.
Lan silently cursed him for bringing this up. “No one important.” He hadn’t thought about Edeyn in years, and he wasn’t about to discuss this particular story of his past with Moiraine.
Of course, his Aes Sedai wasn’t about to let the topic go like this. “If she’s not important, why can’t you tell me?”
Lan sighed, holding the door to their room open for Moiraine. When she didn’t move, he gently nudged her into the room. This was no conversation to take place in the hallway.
Moiraine crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly. Lan tried to read her emotions, but he couldn’t be quite sure which part of the conversation she was upset about. Or if she was just upset with him in general. Telling her about Edeyn might just make things even worse.
“She was my
carneira
,” Lan said eventually because the silence was getting to him. “First lover in Malkieri,” he added, in response to Moiraine’s confused expression.
She looked like she needed a moment to digest that information. “So you were with her, but now she wants you to marry her daughter?”
“I wasn’t
with
her,” Lan objected. That made it sound too important.
“With her in bed, anyway,” Moiraine muttered, turning away from him. “You should go and meet her daughter. She probably is really pretty.”
Lan sighed internally. “You know I wouldn’t be interested.” Was this Moiraine being jealous?
Moiraine avoided looking at him directly. “I didn’t even know this woman existed until a minute ago.”
Lan figured this conversation probably wasn’t going anywhere right now. He wasn’t sure why Moiraine would assume he would be interested in another woman, especially one he had never met, but it was hard to explain the concept of carneiras to an outsider. Technically, he was supposed to at least hear Edeyn out. Which she knew, of course. She had brought it up with Agelmar on purpose.
Moiraine seemed to have picked up something in his complicated feelings towards Edeyn that she didn’t like. “I will go celebrate,” was all she said before she moved towards the door.
Lan held her back, although she tried to wind out of his reach. He pulled her back at the waist, her back hitting his chest.
“Let me go,” she muttered, but she stopped trying to escape.
“I’m not interested in her, or any other women,” Lan said quietly. He had assumed he had made that clear enough to Moiraine. He only had eyes for her, anyway.
There was a small flicker of appreciation through the bond at his words, but he could tell she was still upset. “Fine,” was all Moiraine said.
Lan let go of her, and she was at the door at once. Sometimes, even with the bond, he couldn’t truly figure her out.
oOo
Moiraine wasn’t sure what exactly about hearing about Lan’s past
first lover
had made her this upset. Obviously, he had bedded other women before her, she wasn’t surprised by that. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t wanted to tell her about it when she asked. If it wasn’t important, he could have just told her.
Downstairs in the palace, the celebrations were already in full swing. There was music playing everywhere, and people were dancing.
Agelmar’s sister had spotted Moiraine and came over at once. She had wanted to come to Tar Valon to train, but her brother hadn’t been very happy about it. Moiraine tried to focus her attention on the conversation, but she wasn’t able to. She was trying to figure out what Lan was doing, based on what she could feel from him, but had no success. Maybe she shouldn’t just have left.
“Have you met our gleeman yet?” Agelmar’s sister interrupted Moiraine’s thoughts. “He came from Andor. He is very talented.”
Moiraine felt the alarm bells in her head ring at the mention of Andor. That was not good. She forced herself to smile when the gleeman approached the two of them. She recognized him immediately. That was Morgase’s personal court bard.
Of course, Thom Merillin recognized her too. “Lady Moiraine,” he greeted, carrying his harp over his shoulder. “So far away from Cairhien.” He paused. “Or Tar Valon.”
Moiraine tried to shove down her worry, so Lan wouldn’t notice. If he told Morgase that she was in Fal Dara, Morgase would start to wonder what exactly the White Tower was looking for here. Of course, Agelmar’s sister had picked this moment to disappear.
“I’m just here to enjoy the festivities,” she replied, which wasn’t technically a lie, and therefore passed her oaths without problem.
The gleeman didn’t look like he believed her. “Without any other sisters?” He smiled at her. “It can’t be safe for a woman to travel all alone.”
Moiraine wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to interpret the tone of his voice. Was he threatening her, or trying to suggest himself as her companion? He must have met her brother at the Andorian court. That couldn’t have helped to make him any more sympathetic to the Damodred family.
However, the gleeman seemed to have taken her lack of an answer as encouragement. “You’re welcome to travel with me,” he suggested.
Not a threat, then. Moiraine wasn’t sure if she wouldn’t have preferred that. She was about to reply, just when she felt a strong arm wrap around her from behind. Lan pulled her against his chest, and she didn’t need the bond to figure out that he was really, really mad.
“Excuse my wife and me,” he said, and his tone was icy.
Moiraine didn’t have time to wonder about that choice of words, because Lan was already dragging her away. “What are you doing,” she muttered under her breath because he seemed to have no intentions of letting her go.
Lan only stopped when they were two corridors away from the feast.
“He’s going to tell everyone in Andor that I married the king of Malkier-” Moiraine began, but was silenced by Lan’s lips on hers. She was backed against the wall, trapped there by Lan’s body.
“You think I care about
Andor
right now?” he muttered against her lips, gripping her jaw.
Moiraine found herself not really caring about that right now either. She was too distracted by Lan’s hands on her. Maybe they should argue more often if this was what it led to.
As if Lan had read her mind, he tightened his grip on her, pushing her head back against the wall. “Was this your way to get back at me?”
Moiraine found it hard to breathe. “Maybe.” Maybe she had just tried to see how far she could push Lan’s limits. Not very far, apparently.
Lan’s jaw was clenched, but she loved the way he was looking at her right now.
He suddenly picked her up and Moiraine yelped in surprise, clinging to his shoulders for balance. “What are you doing?” She wrapped her legs around his torso to keep herself from falling, and it dawned on her pretty quickly
what
they were doing.
Lan kept her pressed tightly against the wall, returning to her mouth. Moiraine opened her lips under his, but she couldn’t ignore where they were. “We are in the middle of the palace.” They could even still hear the music from the festivities.
“So?” Lan asked against her lips, and his hands were already under her dress. His fingers dug into her thighs, adjusting her position.
“Someone might walk in,” Moiraine argued weakly, but the thought of that happening wasn’t reason enough to stop, not when his hands were
everywhere,
and he was kissing along the edge of her jaw. She couldn’t even finish the thought.
“So you want me to stop?” Lan breathed against her skin.
Moiraine shook her head, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. Obviously he knew the answer already.
“Just be quiet.” That was all the warning she got before he sunk into her, silencing Moiraine’s surprised whimper with a kiss. “I said
quiet,
Aes Sedai.”
Moiraine was pretty sure she had lost her ability to speak complete sentences. Lan was rolling his hips against her painfully slow, restricting any kind of movement from her, and she just wasn’t getting enough friction.
“Stop torturing me,” she muttered under her breath, because that was all she could manage, and she felt Lan chuckle against her skin.
“Always so greedy.”
Moiraine gasped when he fisted her hair and pulled her head back against the wall, thrusting inside her faster, barely allowing her to catch her breath.
If someone walked into this corridor right now…
That knowledge only added to the thrill of it.
Lan knew exactly where her mind had gone, and it only made him drive into her more relentlessly. Moiraine bit her lip to stop herself from making any sounds, but she failed. Lan silenced her next moan with his hand.
“You just want someone to notice, don’t you?” he whispered into her ear, his next thrust sending her higher up the wall.
Moiraine couldn’t breathe. Her entire body was on fire. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she felt the bond explode between them, everything else ceasing to exist.
She needed several seconds to return to reality, clutching Lan’s shoulders for support. He laughed breathlessly, kissing the side of her face. “You were made for me, Aes Sedai,” he muttered quietly.
He set her down on the ground gently, keeping one arm around her. Moiraine didn’t trust her legs enough to support her right now.
Lan was watching her, and she could tell he was still thinking about their conversation from earlier. They had gotten rid of the tension, but there were still things left unsaid.
“If I ever made you feel like you are not the only thing I think about every minute of every day, I apologize,” Lan said eventually.
Moiraine looked up at him, his words sinking in. She couldn’t even remember why she had been jealous. It had just been her own insecurities. Because she still had a hard time believing Lan could think that way about her.
Like he had read her thoughts, Lan pulled her against his chest. Moiraine wrapped her arms around him, closing her eyes. He kissed the top of her head. “You need to stop worrying so much,” he whispered into her hair.
oOo
Lan followed Agelmar into the cellar of the palace, heading for the treasuries. Moiraine was upstairs asleep, and he wasn’t worried that she would be waking up to miss him any time soon. His Aes Sedai had basically passed out the moment she had hit the sheets.
They finally reached their destination, and Agelmar searched his pockets for a chain of keys. He unlocked the door, allowing Lan to step inside.
There were few objects in the chamber, and Lan had only come here for one of them. He picked it up from where it was sitting inside a wooden box, turning it around in his fingers.
His mother’s ring.
He had left it entrusted to Fal Dara years ago, not even thinking that he would have use of it one day.
“She must be very special then,” Agelmar said into the silence.
Lan nodded. “She is.”
The Lord of Fal Dara sighed. “I will give Edeyn your regards. And your rejection of her offer.” He chuckled. “She will not be happy. She had her mind set on her daughter being a queen.”
Lan didn’t have any trouble believing that. But that wasn’t anything that concerned him.
He would be busy figuring out how to get this ring on Moiraine’s finger. Knowing his Aes Sedai, that would be a challenge in itself.