“It matters,” Mairi said, firm. “Because love makes ye brave, and bravery makes ye do foolish things. Like waiting alone and pretending it doesnae hurt.”
Ariella’s throat tightened again. “I am fine.”
Mairi’s voice gentled. “Nay, ye’re nae. But ye will be.”
Ariella pressed her palm lightly against the table, steadying herself. “What if he dies?”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Mairi’s gaze softened. “Then we grieve. But we daenae borrow grief before it’s owed.”
Ariella swallowed. “I keep trying nae to.”
“Aye,” Mairi said softly. “Andthat’swhy ye’re too quiet.”
Mairi barked at a few kitchen maids who were idly chattering just beyond the stores, and Ariella begged off to get ready for bed.
That night, Ariella dreamed of a child with dark hair and solemn eyes, small fingers clutching hers. In the dream, Maxwell stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, steady and warm.
She woke alone.
By the third week, the waiting had become its own kind of battle.
The keep hummed with readiness. Arrows were fletched and stacked. Horses were shod and restless. Men spoke more quietly now, as if the walls themselves were listening.
Maxwell grew more distant.
When he did speak to her, it was brief.
“Stay inside the keep,” he told her once, passing in the corridor.
“I always do,” she replied, bitterness slipping out before she could catch it.
His gaze flicked to her face, sharp. “Ariella.”
She lifted her chin. “Me laird?”
His jaw flexed. “Dae nae be stubborn.”
“Dae ne be absent,” she shot back, then immediately regretted it.
Maxwell’s eyes darkened. For a heartbeat, she thought he might say something real.
Instead he said, “I have work.” And walked away.
She told herself that she did not care and that she can get on without him, that she had gotten on without him all these years so far. And yet each evening, she returned to the small library, tracing the names in the books, touching the place where hers sat beside his, wondering if the ink would someday be smudged by blood or grief or something worse.
The battle had not yet come.
But in the silence before it, Ariella felt as though she were already fighting one she did not know how to win.
24
“Again.”
The word cut through the courtyard like a blade.
Maxwell watched the line of men shift, shields rising in unison, spears angling, boots finding their marks on ground that had been trampled and packed hard for weeks. The morning air bit at skin and lungs, sharp with cold and the lingering stink of smoke from the forges. Iron hung everywhere. In the air. On the men. In Maxwell’s mouth, even when he had not tasted blood yet.
