She stood in the middle of the track with her arms hanging at her sides and her breathing unsteady. Hope fled through the trees, and the quiet rushed back in.
A sound came from behind her. Slow. Even. The sound of two gloved hands meeting and parting.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Every hair on the nape of her neck rose, and she turned around.
Arthur stood a few paces away in the open space between the woods and the road. His cloak hung straight and dark, and the cold morning mist glistened on the tips of the grass behind him. He wore a small, pleased smile that sat wrong in so many ways.
“Ye made a wise choice, leaving the castle.” His tone was almost kind. “I wasnae certain the letter would be enough to move ye.”
Her mouth went dry. “It was ye.”
“Aye.” He did not blink. “I wrote it.”
“Why?” The word came on a breath. She planted her feet because the ground tilted beneath her. “Why would ye do this? Why frighten me from me own door? Did ye nae want someone who loves Stella? Someone who will care for her?”
Arthur studied her as if weighing a measure of grain. The warmth left his eyes. “Nay. The only person meant to raise that child is dead. Me Moira. Ye cannae take her place.”
Her hands curled inside her sleeves. “I am nae trying to take anything from ye.”
“Aye, ye are,” he countered. “Ye are taking a life that should have been me daughter’s. Ye are taking our name from her grave and slapping it on yer own. The castle will cheer ye on, and the child will call ye Maither, and every laugh in that hall will be a nail in the coffin that holds what is left of me daughter.”
“That isnae fair,” she protested. “Nor true. I have only ever held the bairn kindly, and I will keep holding her kindly. I never asked for this. I never asked for any of it.”
“Life seldom asks,” he said. “It takes. Then it leaves the rest of us to live without what it took.”
He stepped forward, the wet leaves squelching under his boots. His cloak fluttered, and a shape at his side caught light.
“Stay where ye are,” Emma ordered.
She did not raise her voice. She could not spare breath for shouting.
Arthur kept approaching. “The woods are empty at this hour,” he said. “The men are in the hall, and the women are at their tables,and the guards are watching the main road. Nay one will hear ye. Nay one will see us.”
“Arthur,” she said. “I am begging ye. Daenae do this.”
He drew his sword. The blade slipped out of its sheath with a low hiss. A ray of weak morning sun slid along it, but then the cloud covered the sun again, and the gleam went out.
Emma took a step back, her heel scraping the soft soil and her shoulder brushing a wet branch.
“If ye care for Stella, ye will stop,” she tried. “If ye harm me, ye harm her. She needs me.”
“She needs her maither,” Arthur countered. “And her maither is gone.”
“She needs peace,” Emma insisted. “Whatever ye think of him, Jack would spill every drop of blood he has to keep her safe. Ye ken that.”
“Aye,” Arthur acknowledged. “He would. He would also take when rage asks it of him. He took from me once. He will take again.”
“He said she tried to kill him.” The words left Emma before she could choose a softer path.
His lips flattened. “He told ye a tale that kept his hands clean.”
“He told me a truth thatcosthim,” she shot back. “He didnae want to say it, yet he did. I heard nay pride in it.”
Arthur’s eyes did not soften. “He is skilled at speaking what others wish to hear.”
“I am nae a fool,” she said. “I see him as he is.”
