But then, as I burst through the doors and saw that it wasn't Lucius at all, I had to hold myself back from crying. Hold myself back from falling to the floor like a little girl and crying out her loss. But not all was lost as the sight of Trice and his brother quickly incited another emotion from me and I ran towards them. This after only taking a few seconds to hide my disappointment, and shouted,
“Oh Gods please, please oh please, tell me he's…”
“He's alive, lass, Lucius' brother’s alive!” Trice said and at this confirmation I threw myself into his arms. Then I couldn't stop the floodgates from opening as tears of utter relief were rolling down my face.
“Thank the Gods, you got there in time. Gods, thank you, thank you both, you saved him!” I said over and over as Trice cradled the back of my head and held it to his chest after wrapping another arm around my back. Another few minutes and this moment passed, and I pulled back to look at them both noting that they both looked tired. Then I grabbed Gryph and yanked him to me, which would have been useless had he not wanted the hug, as it would have been like moving a redwood rooted to the ground.
“Och! Aye alright, lass!” Gryph said as he too hugged me back when I tried to wrap my arms around him and not making it all the way around. Not with all that mountain of tattooed muscle on show. And I didn’t care that he was near naked and only wearing his tartan across his bare chest like a sash. But then he was wearing trousers and his usual heavy looking shoulder armour to keep him warm. Oh, and not forgetting a thick leather strap decorated with the fangs and horns of his kills across his chest for carrying his massive war hammer at his back.
But I could tell he was holding back in fear of crushing me no doubt, as his arms were insanely huge, with biceps far bigger than my head!
“How was he?” I had to ask when stepping back and looking at them both again. And yes, I asked this even though I felt guilty doing so considering I knew how Trice felt about me. But I couldn't help it, I needed to know how Lucius was doing and more importantly, if he was actually on his way here.
“Furious, killin’ mad, lik' th' wrath o' th' Gods wis cast doon upon us all 'n' set a light up his ass,” Trice said making my mouth drop and his brother groaned with a shake of his head, making the end of his wrapped, flaming red mohawk snake over his shoulder. This was when I decided to look at Gryph for my watered down version.
“He wis mad, lass, bit happy 'n' relieved that yer are safe 'n' unharmed.” At this I released my own breath of relief before asking my next difficult question,
“And Carn’reau, is he on his way here… will the exchange go ahead?”
“I think tis safe tae say, lass, that even if Carn’reau hud doubts o' comin' 'ere, that man o' yers wid hae ended up dragging him 'ere by his lang black locks,” Gryph said and I laughed at this, knowing that it was probably true, because I hadn't been lying when I told the King that Lucius would have done anything to get me back.
“Tell me the truth, just how angry was he that I lost the Eye?” Trice gave me a tender look, which I turned away from and looked down at my feet in shame. This was before I felt him hooking a crooked finger under my chin and using it to raise my face up, before holding it there with his forefinger and thumb gripping my chin. Then he told me softly,
“He does nae blame ye.”
I absorbed those words and hoped for them to be true, because I couldn’t help but feel as though I had let him down. But then the next question I naturally asked was about time. More specifically on how long it would take before Lucius arrived. Unfortunately for me, this answer came as a disappointing one, as they just didn’t know. Because it was unclear how long it would be until Lucius got there as they had no idea how long it was until he left after them. Only that