“That’s me done,” Darya said, finally and awkwardly. “I’ll, um, keep watch while you finish dressing. Unless you need a hand with your armor.”
“No. Thank you.”
He could have used one, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary—and the kiss had taught him that it was better not to take risks. A drunkard could resolve to stay at one glass, a gambler to only wager a few pence, and all such vows would be for naught in the moment. Best to avoid temptation altogether, or as much as he could manage given the circumstances. Besides, the clammy shirt and the clumsy process of rebuckling his own armor were useful distractions.
The neckpiece was too badly crushed to be useful. He wondered that he’d been able to get it off, and touched his neck lightly, then winced. There’d be black bruises there, if there weren’t already, and he could feel the line of a cut closing.
An hour back, he would have asked Darya to inspect it.
At last he turned to face her, unable to put it off any longer. She sat on the rock once more, dressed and armored, hands folded in her lap and face grave.
“I’m sorry,” said Amris.
“My fault as much as yours.”
The memory of her enthusiasm made that impossible to deny, and was still, even with his guilt, far too pleasant. “You have no pledged lover, you said, and certainly none only a night’s rest away.”
Her eyes flashed. “I have a partner. And a friend. That’s as much of a tie—more, really.”
Again, he couldn’t say anything in the way of denial, not even to assuage her guilt. “Will he know?”
“Not from the spell. And not from our bond.” Darya sighed. Her hair was in a neat braid again, but she made as if to push it back nonetheless. “You can tell him if you want.”
“Will you?”
She shook her head. “It was an impulse. After a fight. We stopped. In a day and a half, less if we get horses, we’ll be at Oakford, and we won’t be alone together after battles, so this won’t happen again. Telling him would just make him worry over nothing.” Darya paused, and her mouth twisted sideways into a rueful smile. “And I realize how much of a hypocrite I am right now, yes.”
“You’re not wrong,” said Amris. “I… Gerant and I…”
The trees were a green wall behind the rock where Darya sat. Beyond them was a road that Amris had known well, once. “Had this happened before, I could have told him or not, as the whim took me, and he’d have thought nothing of it. Not that you’re not—” He felt her assent, her total lack of affront. That made it easier to go on. “We knew what we were to each other.”
“He didn’t talk about you much,” said Darya. “Not a subject for light conversation. But when he did…I didn’t get the impression any other person could’ve changed what you had.”
It was good to hear, but painful: the flame of Letar, who governed love and death alike. “Time may have,” Amris said. “It’s a question we’ve not been in any place to answer yet, or even to ask.”
Chapter 22
They made their way back to the road. The hills got steeper and more forbidding as they approached Oakford, and she was almost glad they’d run into the scouts when they had. Now theycouldtake the road, and save a scramble up and down among roots and rocks.
Now they could also ride, in theory.
The horses weren’t near either of the battle sites, as Darya had expected. “They’re a little big for us to have missed,” she said, “even in a fight. My guess is they hitched them a way up, then swung back through the trees. Theythoughtthey’d be coming back.”
It still made her smile to say that, even to think it.Spiteful creature, Gerant would have teased her, though with no real reproof behind it.
The thought of him made Darya grimace. She didn’t think Gerant would be angry if she told him about the kiss. Things happened in the moment after a battle. He’d retreated from her mind for her liaisons often enough in those circumstances and had made a few comments about the body in the wake of danger that suggested he’d understand.
Understanding was one thing. Pain was another. She knew what Amris meant. A night or two far away, when your lover would be in your bed again before long, might be easy to ignore or even amusing to hear about afterward. If you had no bed and no body for him to return to, that was a different matter—to say nothing of having to work with the third party.
Looking back, Darya thought she could have probably managed the bandage on her own, just more clumsily, or just ignored the cuts until she reached Oakford. If they’d gotten inflamed, the Mourner would’ve dealt with it, or one of the herbalists would’ve slapped on a salve that burned but did the job, and the cuts probably wouldn’t have bled enough to really hurt her. Looking back, she could have kicked herself.
This was what a life of impulse did.
Cursing at herself, she walked on, and watched for sight of the horses.
* * *
“There,” said Darya, pointing to a glimmer that Amris could barely see. “Thank the gods.”
