Toward the woman he had left waiting in the dark for weeks.
Ariella.
He could already picture her face when she learned it was over. The question in her eyes. The hurt she tried to hide. The way she had stood in his path and asked for truth, only to be given duty instead.
He wiped his blade clean on the grass with a motion that felt automatic, then turned toward the gate.
His men parted for him, still cheering, still smiling.
Maxwell walked through them like a man moving toward judgment.
Because the battle was won, but now he had to face the one person he knew he had failed most.
25
“Hold still. If ye jerk again, I’ll bind ye to the table.”
The soldier on the cot tried to laugh, but it turned into a hiss through clenched teeth.
Ariella leaned closer, her sleeves rolled up, fingers slick with blood as she pressed a clean cloth against the gash on his forearm. The cut was deep, ragged at the edges where steel had torn flesh. He was pale beneath the soot and grime, but his eyes stayed on her face as if it were the only steady thing in the room.
“I am nae jerking,” he rasped.
“Ye are,” Ariella replied, and she did nae soften it. “And ye are bleeding because of it.”
He swallowed hard and forced himself still.
Around them the castle had become a living thing, loud and frantic. Men groaned in pain. Buckets clanged. The healer’s assistants moved like startled birds, darting between beds, calling for water, clean cloth, boiled needles. The scent of smoke still clung to everything, threaded through the sharper smells of iron and sweat and herbs.
Ariella’s voice carried over the noise without rising. “Moira, I need more linen here. And hot water, if ye have it.”
Moira, who had taken one look at the bloody hall and decided she was in charge of half of it, snapped, “If ye ask for hot water one more time, I’ll boil the whole river for ye.”
“Then I’ll ask one more time,” Ariella replied, and Moira’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Ariella tied the bandage with a firm knot. “There. Keep it clean. Daenae pick at it.”
“I will nae,” the man promised.
“Ye will,” Ariella said flatly. “So I am telling ye now, if ye do, I’ll have ye scrub pots for a month.”
His eyes widened. “Me lady, I am a warrior.”
“And ye’ll be a warrior with infected flesh if ye daenae listen,” Ariella replied, already turning away.
She moved down the line of cots, hands steady, mind focused. It was strange, how quickly a person could become calm when there was no time for fear. She had learned that over the past weeks, watching Mairi labor, watching life arrive amid chaos. She had learned it again now, with blood and groans and the raw aftermath of battle.
“Lady McNeill,” one of the younger men called, voice hoarse.
Ariella stepped to his side, crouching. His leg was wrapped in cloth, dark with blood. His face was slick with sweat.
“Tell me where it hurts,” she said.
“Everywhere,” he whispered.
Ariella’s mouth curved, brief and reassuring. “Aye. That means ye’re alive.”
He let out a shaky breath that might have been a laugh.
