“There’s nothing simple about your wound,” he says, his words low, guarded with all the things he hides from me.
I note the frown deepening between his brow, the stiffness of his jaw, the tightness of his lips.
“Have I upset you?” I grip the blanket, pulling it closer to my body.
He stares vacantly, his focus caught beyond my shoulder.
“Gabriel,” I say when he still doesn’t speak.
A muscle ticks in his jaw as he meets my gaze. “You fought with skill.”
“I fought with desperation.” There’s truth in my words. Real truth. I was desperate to save Adelaide’s life. There’s nothing fabricated about that.
“Perhaps. But it doesn’t make you any less skilled.”
“I told you,” I begin. “My father taught me how to fight. It was necessary with how often our villages were attacked.”
Gabriel runs a hand across his brow, lowers it, only to raise it and rub it across his forehead again. “What I witnessed was more than learning to defend oneself.”
There’s no way to explain why I joined a mercenary army. Not without revealing my real reason for coming here.
“Gabriel.” I lick my lower lip but find no words. At least nothing that would appease him.
He meets my gaze, his eyes distant, unreadable.
“Thank you for saving Adelaide.” Even though he speaks with gratitude, I detect everything he doesn’t say.
He doesn’t trust me. Again.
Not long ago, he pulled me to his lap, caressed me, adored my body. Now he sits stiffly, as though internally distancing himself from me.
I would never want to take back running into that square and saving Adelaide. Though, I wish Gabriel hadn’t witnessed my fighting.
Everything has changed with Gabriel like the shifting of the seasons. My summer skipped fall, and now winter is darkening everything.
ChapterForty-Seven
The next morning, golden light wanes over the city as thousands of warriors fill the sandstone streets of Astarobane. I clutch at my surcoat as hope dwindles inside me. Now that the city is filling with more Bloodstone warriors, I doubt my ability to ever find Hector.
People crowd the streets, following the long parade of soldiers and calling out to them. I walk with them, winding through the cluster of people as dread finds a solid place in the center of my chest. It’s been there since Kassandra and the attack on Astarobane.
The preparations I made before I came here seem so far away now. Everything I planned seems implausible. Roland is dead, and I have yet to set sight on his successor.
I follow the line of people into the city, lingering near the different shops, trying to catch a hint of what people are saying about the new soldiers. Hector could be among them.
When I spot a round woman dressed in a silk surcoat, I move closer.
She fans her face with her hand as she talks to the short man next to her. “They’re calling for the livery collar.”
The one Alden said he would only wear if he was the chieftain?
My throat clenches as I jerk my gaze around, but nobody else is listening.
“Then it’s true?” the man asks. “Hector has finally come to Astarobane?”
My heart thunders against my chest at those words. The ones I have longed to hear for weeks.
“Yes.” The woman fans her flushed face some more.
