Lionheart looks the tiny kitten over, ignoring for the moment the hopeful look in his daughter's eyes.
The creature is small, with red fur streaked with brown and white paws. It mewls at him, blinking amber eyes from where it sits in his cupped hands as he crouches by the gate. It looks to be no more than eight months old.
He whistles for Tia, who perks up her grey ears from her seat by the front step. The Husky's muzzle is silver with age, but she still guards Lionheart's little family from harm.
Lionheart whistles again, and Tia stands, trotting to her master's side with a low woof. She sniffs the kitten who looks affronted at the treatment and bats a paw at Tia's face.
The Husky licks the kitten, who wrinkles her nose and attempts to whack Tia again.
"What do you think?" Lionheart asks.
Tia barks.
"That's one vote," Lionheart says with a smile. "Sarah?"
His wife grins from where she's standing by the front door, her grey eyes warm as she looks on. "I think Alice can have a kitten. We need a mouser anyway."
"What will you name her?" Lionheart asks his daughter. "She'll need a good name if she's to be the family mouser."
"Um…" Alice says, looking thoughtful as she rocks back and forth on her heels. She's hit a growth spurt recently and is almost five and a half feet. Lionheart is betting that she'll be as tall as her mother before the year is up.
It's been two years since Lucien's death and the wish that Lionheart made on the Spire. It seems like forever ago. Sarah has told him that she remembers that Lucien had come to their door with armed guards. She remembers that he had drawn his sword and then-nothing- before she had woken up on the floor of their home.
"It was as if it had all been a dream," she had said with a shudder, "or rather a nightmare."
Alice doesn't remember anything. She had been asleep when Lucien had come to her room, blade still stained with her mother's lifeblood.
Lionheart thanks Avo that she didn't remember it. That it was quick.
The Choice at the Spire had been easy. The grief still pouring from his soul, still remembering the words that Lucien had spoken.
"At last, the last of the Heroic blood will be spilled upon this hilltop; just as it now stains the walls of your family home. I would have sent one of my men to do the job, but, experience has taught me to see to such things personally."
Lionheart had chosen Love at the Spire. And his family lived again. Even Rose, who had sent him word from Oakfield, where she lived now in a cottage by the sea.
Lionheart has visited every three months, scarcely able to believe that he now has the chance to speak with his sister, mourned and lost all these years.
Now, Lionheart turns his gaze to Alice, whose sharp eyes are looking at the kitten.
"Helen," Alice decides. "I'll call her Helen."
"A good name," Lionheart says. "Helen it is."
He sets the kitten back into Alice's waiting hands and stands, brushing dirt off his pants. "Go on, let her roam about the house, see if she finds any mice."
Alice grins. "Thank you, Daddy!" she darts away into the house.
Lionheart looks over to where Sarah is smiling at him. He walks to her, pulling her into an embrace.
"Something wrong?" she asks. "You seemed sad."
"It's nothing," he says, kissing her.
And it is. For the sun shines bright overhead, and Lucien's evil has been defeated. Lionheart's family lives and it is enough for him.