"Come on,then! Let's go before ye change yer mind!"
Ewan shook his head,but he couldn't quite suppress the smile anymore. "Ye're very demandin', ye ken that? Has anyone ever told ye that?"
The words were meantas teasing, light, and playful. But he saw something flicker across Maia's face, something dark and pained that transformed her expression in an instant. The light dimmed from her eyes, her smile faltering, and she looked suddenly smaller, more vulnerable.
It waslike watching clouds pass over the sun.
"Nay,"she said quietly, and the joy in her voice had vanished, replaced by something hollow. "Me uncle always said I was too meek. Too passive. That I had nay spine and nay spirit, that I just accepted whatever was given to me without ever fightin' back."
The casual mentionof her uncle's cruelty made Ewan's hands clench at his sides. Made that fury he'd been nursing for days surge back with renewed force.
He wantedto hunt down Callen Ferguson and make him pay for every cruel word, every moment of pain he'd inflicted on the woman standing before Ewan. Wanted to lock him in a tower for six years and see how much spirit he had left when it was over.
Wantedto hurt him the way he'd hurt Maia, slowly and systematically, until he understood exactly what he'd done.
But more than that,more than the violence, Ewan wanted to erase those words from Maia's mind. Wanted to make her see herself the way he saw her: fierce and brave and full of a spirit that six years of imprisonment hadn't managed to break.
This.This is what I can do for her. This is how I fight back against what they did to her.
"Yer uncle was a fool, then,"Ewan said, his voice coming out rougher than he'd intended.
"Was he?"Maia's voice was soft, almost tentative, as if she were testing the idea and finding it foreign. "Sometimes I think he was right. I let him lock me away for six years without really fightin' back. I tried once, tried to escape, but after that I just... I just accepted it. What kind of person does that? What kind of person just gives up?"
16
"The kind of person who was sixteen years old and alone. The kind of person whose uncle held all the power and used it to break her spirit." His voice was rough with barely suppressed fury. "Ye dinnae give up, Maia. Ye survived. There's a difference."
Ewan said,gentling his tone with effort. "Come on. Let's get ye to that lake before I remember all the reasons I should be workin' instead."
The smilethat broke across her face was worth every report he'd be reviewing by candlelight tonight.
The pathto the lake wound through the forest, following a trail that Ewan had walked countless times. The trees were thick here, their branches creating a canopy overhead that filtered the afternoon sunlight into dappled patterns on the ground.
Maia walked beside him,and Ewan found himself acutely aware of her presence.
The way she moved,the sound of her breathing, the occasional brush of her arm against his when the path narrowed. She was quieter than she'd been during their journey from Castle MacMahon—still looking around with interest, still noticing everything, but not providing the running commentary he'd grown oddly accustomed to.
"Ye can talk, ye ken,"he said after several minutes of silence. "I willnae tell ye to be quiet."
"I thought ye liked silence,"Maia replied, glancing up at him. "Ye said so durin' our ride here. That I talked too much."
"I said ye never stopped talkin'.That's different." Ewan ducked under a low-hanging branch, then held it back so Maia could pass beneath. "And I've gotten used to it. The quiet feels strange now."
That earnedhim a small but genuine smile. "Are ye sayin' yemissme chatterin'?"
"I'm sayin'the silence is unnaturally loud," Ewan corrected, but there was no heat in his words. "But aye. I suppose I miss it. A bit."
Maia's smile widened,and she turned her attention back to the forest. "Well, if ye're certain ye want to hear it... That tree there,the one with the white bark, is it the same kind we saw on our journey? The birch trees? Because the bark looks similar but the leaves are different, and I was wonderin' if maybe?—"
And just like that,she was off, her words tumbling over each other in that breathless, enthusiastic way that made something warm settle in Ewan's chest.
He let her talk,let her speculate about trees and birds and the small stream they crossed via stepping stones. Let himself simply exist in this moment, in this strange peace he'd found with a woman who should be his enemy but had somehow become something else entirely.
Something he didn't havea name for.
When they finally emerged fromthe forest, Maia stopped so abruptly that Ewan nearly walked into her.
"Oh,"she breathed, and the wonder in that single syllable made Ewan's throat tight.
