“You have an inspection of the new recruits this morning, a little more than one bell from now. This afternoon is free, I believe you’d wanted to review the provisions and accounting for last month.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I could manage an inspection, but my mind was too befuddled to do heavy work with numbers. “I’ll be taking a ride this afternoon instead,” I said. “Please make sure that Broadsword is saddled and ready for me after lunch.”
“Yes, captain. Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Midros left and I rose, groaning again. I just… needed more time to process what had happened last night. I went to dress, then reconsidered, catching a whiff of my own heady scent. I’d have Midros pull a bath for me after breakfast. So… I paced, waiting for my meal, and tried to make sense of things.
For four years, I’d thought Tisera had betrayed me by sleeping with Tomas, but now… Had she?
Or had I betrayed her first by running off without a word?
I didn’t really know. As much as I’d made a mistake, I still felt all the pain of seeing her with another man. Even if he’d been horrible in bed, she’d certainly seemed to have been enjoying it. Or perhaps that was just my memory of the event four years later. Perhaps I’d just been so hurt I’d imagined she’d been enjoying herself? I didn’t know and no answers lay down that road, so I stopped.
None of this was easy or clear.
I started over again.
I’d made a mistake.
And it had brought about grave consequences. We were both hurt and we’d both been hurting all this time. She’d been brave enough to face me first, to come to me and ask what had happened.
Now we knew.
Last night had been a royal mess, but now everything was out in the open. So… what did that mean?
Was there still a chance for us?
Because everything I’d felt for her had returned when I’d held her close last night. Even if she had been crying and beating on me.
I massaged my bruised chest and shoulder. I would gladly suffer her assault, if it meant I could hold her again.
Gods, I loved that woman.
But I wasn’t sure I’d ever told her. Not even in those moments we’d stolen from the darkness during the siege. They had been immediate and hard and needful and afterward, before we’d returned to the barracks, we’d lain together in silence, there had never been any words. But now… I knew. She’d loved meand I had loved her, and we’d both been too closed off to say anything.
And I… I loved her still.
But the question that haunted me as I ate, then bathed, then… went through the motions of the day was: did she still love me?
CHAPTER 20
Tisera
I could be deathlyquiet when I wanted to be. And since I wasn’t ready to speak to Daz, I snuck into the cottage in the hazy light before dawn and grabbed some clothes for the day. Then I had a cold bath — which did wonders to help revive me after a rough night — and left again.
I had to escort Veora to the palace that morning, but I still had time before I needed to get her, so I had breakfast at a rough tavern in the third ring of the city, secretly hoping some drunk would pick a fight with me. Though my bandaged hands and bloody knuckles — from punching walls last night — probably couldn’t have taken it.
But still…
And when I picked up Veora, even before she said a word, I launched into a rant about men.
“I don’t understand men!” I began, and her brows rose. “They’re just so… frustrating and confusing! Some say they love you when you’re not expecting it, and some betray you, but not really, because they’re trying to marry you, but they don’t sayanything, so you don’t know what’s happening and you mess everything up by fucking your sergeant. But it’s not my fault he didn’t say anything! And… I just, don’t understand anything!”
Veora’s voice was calm, soothing when she said: “It sounds like what you really don’t understand is how you feel.”
“I know how I feel!” I said heatedly. But then I deflated a little. “I feel… confused.”
