## Chapter 454 — Equal Interest

Morning reached the western house slowly.

The light at the bedroom windows began as a pale greying of the glass, too weak at first to distinguish the branches outside from their reflection. The stream behind the house had never entirely stopped sounding through the night. Now a bird joined it from somewhere beyond the rear wall, tried three notes, waited, and repeated them as though expecting the world to answer properly this time.

Ian was awake before Lethira.

She slept facing him, one arm resting across the space between them. Her ash-brown hair had come loose during the night and spread untidily across the pillow and along one shoulder. One long Wood-Elf ear showed clearly through it. The rest of her face had none of the attentiveness she carried through roads, courts, contracts or divine realms. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth rested without expression. Sleep had left her simply herself.

Ian looked at her.

The blanket covered most of her body. A shoulder and part of one arm remained above it, lean with the strength of a woman who had spent most of her life walking, climbing, drawing a bow and carrying what needed carrying. Old marks remained where old injuries had earned them. The slight imperfection at one wrist remained too, part of the ordinary history visible at this distance.

He smiled, happy, content, until she awakened.

Lethira moved gradually. Her fingers tightened once where they rested against his forearm. Her eyes opened, unfocused at first, then settled on him, and a smile arrived.

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Not for the eternity that such a view deserves."

Lethira considered the answer with sleepy seriousness. "Almost good enough to excuse staring."

Her hand shifted from his forearm to his wrist and drew him a little closer. She kissed him without hurry, then stayed near enough that her hair brushed his cheek. "Good morning, my aide."

"Good morning, my lady."

A moment later Ian added, "Still in sync. I'm in my bed in my world too."

That pleased her more than the first answer had. "So this is actually morning for both of you." Her fingers moved once along his arm. "Good."

She shifted closer beneath the blanket until the remaining space between them became mostly unnecessary.

"I liked last night better once you were there too."

There were clerks waiting somewhere in Merrowford, or at least there would be once the civic offices opened. Downstairs, the southern-parcel registry confirmation and standing-use agreement still carried Ian's name alone. The promise to inconvenience the clerks had survived another night.

Lethira glanced towards the paling window. "They will exist later." Then she looked back at him. "But not yet."

Ian kissed her, slowly, tenderly. His hand reached to gently stroke her ear.

Lethira's breath caught at the first light pass of his fingers along its edge. Her eyes closed and her hand tightened around his wrist, not stopping him.

"Careful." The word carried no warning. Her eyes opened again. "I rather like that."

"Then you'd best keep me here so I can keep doing it."

His free hand continued to trace her ear as he kissed her again, before brushing down the side of her neck.

Lethira made a quiet sound against his mouth and drew him closer. Her head tilted slightly, giving his fingers easier access to the line of her neck.

"That can probably be arranged."

Whatever claim the clerks had on the morning weakened further.

Ian's body reacted as male bodies do. He shifted down slightly so he could kiss her neck, his hand pushing at the blanket so her shoulder and arm were freed, so that he might continue to trace down them.

Lethira's breathing changed beneath his mouth. One hand slipped into the short hair at the back of his head. The other stayed around him, holding him close with the comfortable strength he had asked for the night before.

"You are making a very persuasive argument against getting up."

"Being held in place by you is contributing to the argument too."

Ian brought his hand back to her face, brushing some hair away to make it more visible. It returned to teasing her ear. He kissed her cheek, her lips. His body responded and pressed eagerly against hers, below her waist.

Lethira noticed. Her leg shifted against him beneath the blanket, and the amusement in her expression became warmer.

"I wasn't planning to let you escape yet."

"I surrender," Ian said, smiling, breaking the kiss briefly. His mouth traced a path down the back of her neck. He glanced down. "Part of me is attempting to be... imprisoned."

He kissed her again, deeper and more passionate.

Lethira laughed softly into it and held him deliberately closer.

"That sounds dangerously like consent."

Her attention stayed on him, warm and intent.

Ian whispered into her ear, "I do consent, my lady, my love. Take me into you."

Lethira stilled for the smallest moment and looked at him properly. "I love you." Then she kissed him again and drew him with her beneath the disordered blankets.

The clerks opened without them.

---

A little—or more than a little—later, they lay embraced in bed, considerably less covered than before.

The blankets had travelled towards the foot of the bed and gathered there without anyone accepting responsibility. Lethira lay partly on her side, partly against Ian, hair in a worse state than when she had woken and entirely untroubled by it. The morning light had strengthened enough to reach the room properly now.

Ian pulled back slightly and looked at her, much more visible than before. She looked beautiful—her chest, her perfect stomach, her shoulders, her face, her hair, everything.

"Whilst I'm happy to feast on your beauty... Croissants in bed again? I shall remember to clear up the mess this time."

Lethira looked down at herself, then at him.

"You appear to be managing the first part without assistance."

She pushed herself upright against the pillows. Nothing about the movement suggested she intended to dress.

"And yes. Croissants."

"I would be disappointed and starved if you were to dress."

Her bare chest and thighs in particular distracted Ian from a fully coherent sentence. He pulled himself together briefly. A tray appeared with croissants, jam and soft butter, plates and knives, and this time freshly squeezed orange juice.

Lethira looked first at the tray and then at Ian. "You have learned absolutely nothing from being told limitless power requires restraint."

She took one of the glasses anyway. The orange juice earned a second drink before she commented. "That is very good."

"Only when it comes to eating—and being with me a little while longer."

He slid his hand over her thigh, being farther down the bed now that she was sitting up to eat.

Lethira rested her hand over his for a moment before reaching for a croissant with the other.

"Those are acceptable responsibilities."

Breakfast took its time. Butter softened against warm pastry. Jam escaped one edge of a croissant and was caught before it reached the sheet. The orange juice disappeared faster than either of them expected. Their less eager play continued between bites, kisses and the occasional requirement to retrieve a plate which had migrated somewhere impractical.

Morning stayed unhurried even after they decided to face the day.

Ian sat naked on the bed, watching Lethira's bare form move. There was grace even in the ordinary act of dressing; he could not help but watch.

Lethira dressed by habit. Underlayer first, then trousers, shirt and belt, each movement efficient because she had done it thousands of times. She noticed Ian's attention before long.

She caught him looking while fastening her belt. "Watching me dress is a less convincing preparation to leave than watching me undress was."

Ian stood and retrieved his underwear, which even after putting it on did little to hide his desire for her.

"I've made a start, my lady."

Lethira looked down, then back up. "Technically." She finished fastening her belt.

"But if that is your definition of progress, I understand why gardening requires forty-three more beds."

Ian finished dressing, willed the croissant flakes away and followed her downstairs.

The breakfast tray remained where they had left it.

Downstairs, the scarred table held a different kind of unfinished business.

The deed to their original western holding named them both. Beside it lay the southern-parcel registry confirmation and the executed standing-use agreement across the lower town ground, each still recording Ian alone.

Lethira gathered the two newer documents and tapped their edges square against the table. "Right. Shall we go persuade Merrowford that you accidentally acquired too much property by yourself?"

"Yes, can't have lowly attendants owning more than their lady."

Lethira stopped with the papers beneath one arm. "Lowly." Her eyes travelled over him with deliberate assessment.

"The same lowly attendant who owns half my house bought the adjoining parcel, negotiated a river right and occasionally rearranges reality when breakfast would otherwise require stairs."

Her mouth curved. "I shall try to remember your humble station." She reached for the door. "Although if the clerk asks, I am not accepting your land because you have finally acknowledged my feudal superiority. I asked to become joint owner."

Ian smiled and walked with her, hand in hand, into town.

The lane remained cool where the trees held the morning shade. Damp lingered in the wheel-ruts. Someone farther ahead led a mule carrying two uneven panniers towards Merrowford, and for a while the animal's patient pace gave them something to follow without thinking about it.

Lethira carried the papers beneath one arm and Ian's hand in the other. "You know," she said after a stretch of quiet road, "I rather like this part." She squeezed his fingers. "Walking somewhere ordinary with you after doing something ridiculous."

Ian smiled and joked, "I didn't think I was that ridiculous before breakfast."

He squeezed her hand.

"But yes, I agree."

Lethira looked across at him. Her expression held for two steps. "That depends which part of breakfast we're counting."

They walked on together while the road widened, fences became more frequent and Merrowford gathered itself ahead through roofs, smoke and the increasing number of people who had somewhere to be.

They arrived at the temple of clerks.

The civic offices remained resolutely untemple-like: polished counters, pigeonholes, tied bundles of documents and enough people speaking quietly about records to make the building feel busier than its size suggested.

The polished-lenses clerk from the water agreement was already behind her counter. She recognised Ian, then Lethira, then the two documents in Lethira's hand.

"Mr Kirk. Mistress Dawnleaf." Her eyes settled on the papers. "I assume something has changed."

"Acceptance of gift has been achieved."

Ian smiled at Lethira.

"I'd like to update sole ownership and rights to joint, please."

The clerk looked to Lethira rather than treating Ian's answer as sufficient.

"Yes," Lethira said. "I asked him to bring both back."

The clerk accepted the documents and placed them side by side.

The parcel record came first. She confirmed that Ian was the current registered owner, that the seller transaction had already completed and that Lethira was accepting an equal interest voluntarily. The purchase price remained part of the historical transfer; nothing about adding Lethira reopened the completed sale.

The standing-use agreement required slightly different treatment. It had been issued to Ian against the parcel while he was sole owner. The clerk preferred a clean reissued holder line over a marginal note which might be misunderstood later.

"The route does not change," she said. "Nor the town's rights, the restrictions, the annual due or what has already been paid. Only the holders."

"Please do it properly," Lethira said.

The clerk began preparing the amendment and reissued civic record.

Ian leaned close enough that only Lethira could hear.

"Mistress Dawnleaf."

He kept a composed expression. Lethira kept hers too, although one corner of her mouth nearly failed. "Behave," she murmured.

The clerk continued writing with the admirable concentration of a woman who had no professional interest in whatever was happening on the other side of her counter.

When the documents were ready, she turned them around.

The amended parcel entry named **Ian Kirk and Lethira Dawnleaf** in equal joint ownership. The standing-use holder line named both of them jointly. The clerk indicated the signature places.

Ian signed in his English scrawl.

The clerk glanced at the signature, evidently confirmed that it resembled the other examples already attached to his civic identity, and moved the pen towards Lethira.

Lethira's own signature was quicker and cleaner. She handed the pen back and watched while the clerk checked both names, entered the registry notation and stamped the parcel amendment.

The standing-use reissue followed.

The clerk sanded the fresh ink, tipped the excess back into its dish and turned the documents towards them.

"The southern parcel is now jointly registered in equal interest."

Lethira looked down at the two names. "Better."

Ian smiled at Lethira.

"I have been successfully conquered."

Lethira's eyes moved from him to the amended record and back. "Conquered." Her hand found his beneath the edge of the counter.

"I seem to remember the territory arriving voluntarily, carrying breakfast, signing itself over and making several extremely suggestive comments during negotiations." Her fingers squeezed his. "A remarkably peaceful annexation."

Ian looked back to the clerk.

"And the other part?"

The polished-lenses clerk drew the reissued standing-use record nearer.

"Done as well. Mr Kirk's sole holder entry is closed for current effect and the right is re-entered to both of you as the registered owners of the adjoining parcel."

She ran one finger down the familiar terms.

"Same route. Same non-exclusive use. Same maintenance and drainage restrictions. The sixteen-heavy-silver entry payment and first annual one-heavy-silver due remain credited. The next annual due remains one heavy silver under the original schedule."

She passed the paper across. "Both records now match."

"Excellent, thank you."

"You're welcome, Mr Kirk."

The clerk gathered her office copies while Lethira placed the amended records with their papers.

"Keep those with the rest of your property documents. If you change your minds again, preferably allow me long enough to finish another transaction first."

Lethira's expression remained solemn. "We will try."

They left before either of them made the promise less credible. Outside, late morning had properly reached the street.

"What now, my love?"

Then, "I have some things today in my world, and I should probably work off some more debt. Would you like to try somewhere different in town for lunch later?"

Lethira considered the morning ahead.

"Yes."

Her hand settled comfortably into his again.

"I want to find out what we'd actually need for the range backstop instead of continuing to describe it as a large amount of earth. I may stop at the Guild as well."

She looked along the street.

"And somewhere different for lunch. Caswick has carried enough responsibility for feeding us."

They chose the civic offices as the easy place to meet again around midday.

Lethira kissed him before they separated.

"Go reduce your agricultural servitude."

Ian smiled.

Then their morning divided.

---

Ian's own world claimed some of his attention first.

When those things were done, the Lifegiver's garden received him again.

He arrived near the stream rather than beside her, leaving enough space that she could notice him before he entered whatever she was doing. The garden remained exuberant by any mortal standard, but the changes since his first visit were mostly absences of correction. A fallen branch still lay beneath one tree. Two shrubs crowded the same patch of light. A strip of bare soil had not been filled merely because it looked incomplete.

The Lifegiver was carrying compost in a shallow basket.

Not conjuring it. Carrying it.

She stopped when she saw him.

The smile that appeared was immediate enough to make the basket momentarily secondary.

"You came to work."

Ian looked at the soil on her hands and the basket against her hip.

"I was told I have a debt. Apparently divine creditors are ruthless."

"Forty-three beds."

"You remembered."

The Lifegiver shifted the basket against her hip, looking faintly offended by the question. "I am the creditor." Then she set it down.

For a moment neither of them crossed the remaining distance. Then the Lifegiver did.

She put her arms around him.

Ian hugged her back.

She held him with both arms for several breaths. Nothing passed through the contact beyond warmth and pressure; her attention stayed where any friend's might, on the person she was embracing.

When she drew away, one of her hands remained briefly on his upper arm.

"You look all right."

"I am."

Her expression suggested the answer had arrived too quickly.

Ian sighed.

"We saw your brother yesterday. The Sun Father."

The warmth in her face faded.

She knew which brother he meant.

"And?"

Ian kept the answer brief.

"He tried to correct me. He took this body far enough that it died. I let him because I wanted him to follow his judgement until he could see what it was doing. I was safe. Lethira and Aelira were safe."

The Lifegiver stared at him.

"He killed you."

"The projection."

The Lifegiver's eyes narrowed. She had seen the projection for herself on the previous visit. "Ian."

"Yes. He killed the projection." Her jaw tightened, but the garden around them did not answer her anger.

"Did Lethira have to watch?"

"Yes."

Ian looked towards the stream.

"That was the part I disliked most afterward."

The Lifegiver's hand found his again and closed around it.

"I'm sorry."

They stood together for a few quiet breaths before she asked, "Did he hear anything?"

"Some. He admitted his judgement isn't made infallible by being his. He left shadows in his realm after he had the power to remove them again."

The Lifegiver looked at him sharply.

"He left shadows?"

"Yes."

Ian's mouth curved.

"He also has one of your sister's apples."

She stared at him, anger giving way to disbelief.

"You gave him one?"

"He kept it."

A small incredulous laugh escaped her.

"Of course he did."

She looked towards the marked garden beds.

"Come on. You can explain how you managed to distribute our sister's fruit among the family while you work."

Ian followed.

Two new beds had already been marked beside the ones he had completed on the previous visit. The lines were not perfectly square. The Lifegiver had apparently decided that a root belonging to an established shrub was allowed to determine one corner rather than being moved for the convenience of geometry.

Ian noticed.

"You left that crooked."

"Yes."

"Are you unwell?"

She gave him a flat look and handed him a spade.

The work began with removing the top growth by hand and tool rather than asking the soil to separate itself into useful categories. The ground looked soft until Ian tried to put the spade through a mat of roots. The first cut stopped halfway.

The Lifegiver watched him adjust his footing. "You are allowed to use your weight."

"I am conserving it."

"For what?" she asked.

"Later."

"Very strategic."

She knelt at the opposite edge with a fork and began teasing roots out of the loosened soil.

The first bed went slowly. Ian dug while the Lifegiver broke apart the turned soil and separated the worst roots. They traded tools when one task became more useful than another. Twice she reached automatically towards a plant outside the marked line, saw that it was leaning into their space and then withdrew her hand.

Ian noticed the second time. "That bothering you?"

"Very much."

"Good. Builds character."

"I have enough character."

Ian looked at her across the disturbed soil. "Questionable."

She flicked a small piece of root at his boot. Ian looked down at it. "Workplace aggression."

"Complain to your employer."

They went back to the roots.

The bed took most of an hour. By the time the soil had been loosened, mixed with the compost the Lifegiver had carried and formed into a useful planting bed, dirt marked Ian's knees and forearms. The Lifegiver had acquired a streak across one cheek after pushing loose hair away with the back of a dirty wrist.

Ian pointed at it.

"You missed a bit."

"So did you."

She indicated most of him.

They planted the bed together. The Lifegiver chose the young plants from nearby trays and Ian set them where she indicated. Once she corrected the depth of his planting. The next time he made the same adjustment before she spoke, and she continued along the row.

When the final plant was in, they stood beside the bed and looked down at it.

One side curved around the old root. The rows were good enough for plants and insufficiently perfect for the former Lifegiver.

"One," Ian said.

"Forty-two."

"Cruel."

"Contractual."

They moved to the second.

The soil there was heavier, less tangled with grass and more compacted beneath the surface. Ian broke it with the spade while the Lifegiver worked behind him. Their conversation came in pieces because neither needed to stop working in order to have one.

Ian told her about the clerks.

"Lethira's name is on the southern parcel now. And the river route. Equal ownership on the land, joint holder on the route."

The Lifegiver straightened slightly.

"She wanted that?"

"Very much."

"Good."

Ian glanced at her.

"That's all?"

"Would you like me to pronounce a blessing over the registry?"

"It might improve resale value."

She pushed the fork back into the soil.

"You said before that you wanted to contribute something which was yours to give. Now you have, and she chose to make it hers as well. I am happy for you."

They worked another stretch.

A small flowering plant had seeded itself just inside the line marked for the bed. It was not rare. It was not especially useful. The Lifegiver crouched beside it.

"This is the sort of thing that annoys me now."

Ian rested on the spade.

"A flower?"

"My first answer is still immediate. Move it somewhere better. It would have more light three paces away. The soil is richer there. It would flower longer."

She brushed one finger against a leaf without changing it.

"Then I have to ask whether I am improving the plant or improving my garden."

Ian looked at the plant.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet."

"Could leave it until tomorrow."

She looked up at him.

"You are becoming repetitive."

"It's a good trick."

The flower remained where it was, and they shifted the bed line around it. The change cost them little beyond a less convenient edge.

They finished the second bed with the same mixture of work and small corrections as the first.

The second one ended with a shallow bow where the little flowering plant remained inside its own patch of soil. Ian stood and stretched his back. The Lifegiver rose beside him, inspected the work and then looked at him.

"Two beds."

"Forty-one."

"Yes."

Four heavy silver of the advance had become earned work. No coins needed to change hands; the debt was simply smaller than it had been that morning.

They went to the stream to wash.

Ian crouched at the edge and worked soil from beneath his fingernails. The Lifegiver sat beside him with her feet in the grass, cleaning her own hands in the same water she could have purified before it touched her.

After a while she said, "I like this."

Ian glanced towards the beds. "Gardening?"

"You coming here and there being something to do which is not me being ill."

"I like it too."

She leaned her shoulder lightly against his, and for a little while they watched the disturbed water clear around their hands.

Then the Lifegiver said, "When the debt is gone, you do know you are still allowed to visit."

Ian smiled.

"I was planning to."

"Good."

She rested her head briefly against his shoulder, no longer than the gesture needed.

"Then I will try not to invent another eighty-six heavy silver of reasons."

"Very ethical of you."

"I am improving."

Ian laughed.

When it was time for him to leave, she stood with him at the edge of the stream and opened her arms. Ian stepped into them.

"See you soon, little sis."

The Lifegiver sighed against his shoulder.

"You did not bring apple juice."

"Next time."

"Then I will tolerate it."

They separated.

Ian left her beside four imperfect garden beds.

---

Lethira's morning stayed in Merrowford.

She went first to the Guild because Brannock was one of the people most likely to know which local trades could move a great deal of earth without transforming the question into a building project nobody had requested.

Brannock was at the records desk with an open ledger, three returned contract slips and a cup which had plainly been forgotten long enough to become decorative. She looked up.

"Contract?"

"No."

Brannock's eyes moved once towards the papers Lethira no longer carried. "Problem?"

"Large earth bank. For arrows."

Understanding arrived slowly enough to be visible. "At the new house."

"Yes."

Lethira explained only what mattered. The range already fitted safely inside the original holding. The firing line would angle away from the eastern boundary and the northern cart track. The natural rise behind the targets helped, but she wanted enough earth behind them that a bad release ended in something deliberately built for the purpose.

Brannock knew several people who moved soil. The drainage crew working the Reed-Mauler bank were currently occupied repairing the very damage Lethira had reported, so borrowing them for domestic archery would have been both difficult and obnoxious. Instead she directed Lethira towards an earthwork and cart yard beyond the market streets which had handled field banks, drainage spoil and foundation digging before.

"Tell them what it's for," Brannock said. "If you ask for a large amount of earth, they'll ask how large. If you answer 'large enough,' they'll decide you're difficult."

"I am difficult."

"They do not need advance warning."

Lethira glanced towards the contract board while she was there.

Nothing called strongly enough to change the day.

Brannock noticed the look. "Three missing chickens."

"No."

"Cellar noises."

Lethira's expression did not change. "No."

"Merchant escort."

Lethira looked back at her. "I said I was looking. I didn't say I had become desperate."

Brannock's mouth moved. "Then enjoy your earth."

The yard occupied a practical piece of town where carts could turn without destroying anyone's display of vegetables. Timber, broken stone and covered soil piles stood in separate areas behind an open-sided shed. Several workers were repairing a wheel. A broad human man with old dirt in the seams of both hands came over when Lethira explained why she was there.

He asked about the range rather than offering a price.

What stood beyond the proposed bank? How close could a cart approach? Was this occasional practice or a place expected to take heavy arrows every day? Did she want timber retaining the earth or timber pretending to stop arrows itself?

Lethira answered each in turn.

"Ordinary practice. Mine, and a beginner."

The man's gaze sharpened.

"How bad a beginner?"

Lethira thought of Ian.

"Unestablished."

"Build for worse than you expect."

"That was my intention."

They understood each other after that.

A proper earth backstop needed breadth beyond the target faces, enough height that a poor release did not merely clear it, and enough depth that repeated arrows did not quickly expose stones or timber behind the soil. Clean fill mattered more than decorative finish. Hidden rubble would be hard on arrows and irritating to anyone repairing the face later. The front should slope. Timber might hold the sides if the final shape required it, but the earth itself should do the stopping.

The man refused to guess a useful quantity before seeing the ground.

That improved Lethira's opinion of him.

She arranged no work that morning. Instead she took a short list of what he would need to see during a site visit: the marked firing line, target positions, intended ends of the bank and a cart approach which did not damage the garden or the stream bank.

A future problem had become a smaller future problem.

Lethira left the yard and bought a new coil of inexpensive marking cord from a market stall because her existing supply had already been divided among too many purposes. She considered a bundle of straight stakes beside it, then decided there were enough pieces of scrap timber at home to mark a temporary line without buying wood merely because it had been sharpened attractively.

The remainder of the walk back towards the civic offices was unstructured.

That was still a novelty in Merrowford.

For much of her life, towns had been places between roads or places where work waited: Guild counters, royal errands, inns, markets, reports, people to find and people to leave again. The western house had quietly changed Merrowford into something else. It was the nearest town to home.

A baker's window held small savoury pies she had never tried. Two doors farther on, a narrow eating-house had bowls painted on a hanging board and enough customers inside to suggest the food did not routinely kill anyone. Across the street, a stall was selling fried river fish wrapped in flatbread.

Lethira remembered the lunch promise and made no decision yet.

Ian deserved at least the illusion of choice.

By the time she returned to the civic offices, the morning crowd had thinned. The sun was high enough to put a clean edge on the building's eaves.

Ian was already there.

Lethira saw him before he saw her.

For a few steps she simply watched the familiar dark-clothed human standing outside the place where, only that morning, their two names had been put together again.

Then he noticed her.

His face changed.

So did hers.

Lethira crossed the remaining distance, took his hand and squeezed it.

"Come on," she said. "Somewhere different."