The memory ripped through me, vivid and merciless. The screaming. The heat. The moment the roof groaned and gave way.
“I tried,” I rasped, shaking my head. “Saints help me, I tried. I went back in over and over again. I pulled out as many as I could before the whole place came crashing down. I can still smell the smoke every time I close my eyes.”
Finally, I forced myself to meet her gaze. The tears gathering there scared me in a way no battlefield ever had.
“That’s why I was stripped of my knighthood,” I said. “Not because I misunderstood an order or failed to obey, but because I chose toopenly defyhim. They marked me as a traitor for helping the people they’d deemed enemies. None of it mattered. I couldn’t be the kind of man who followed orders at the cost of his soul.”
The words emptied me. My shoulders sagged, the fight gone from my posture. “When I returned home, my commanding officer’s official report was that I had defected, harbored sympathies for the enemy, and was disloyal. I left Verdelune, the only home I’d ever known, for Oronder—a city where no one knew my name or reputation.”
Silence stretched between us. My throat burned.
Saints, what have I done? Why did I tell her all of it?
The air felt too thin, my pulse too loud in my ears. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to run or beg her to say something, anything, that would make the apprehension stop clawing at my ribs.
Quinn drew in a sharp breath, tears spilling over and down her cheeks. “The great stain on your name,” she whispered, “the shame you have carried all this time…is that you refused to commit a monstrous act?”
I blinked at her, stunned. “Quinn, I?—”
She interrupted me with a gentle kiss.
“If that is what breaking an oath looks like, abandon every vow.” She reached up and held my face in her hands. “Break every oath you ever take if it means choosing what is right over what is easy.”
My breath went ragged, my chest too tight to hold everything I felt. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Itissimple,” she said. “You saved them. You saved yourself. There is no shame in this, Mav. Only honor.”
I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking until I covered hers, trapping her touch against my face. Worried I might lose it if I didn’t hold on.
“I don’t know why you look at me that way,” I said hoarsely. “You deserve so much better than…me. I’m disgraced, Quinn. I’ve no place in polite society, no wealth to my name. I’ll spend the rest of my days chopping wood to keep a roof over my head?—”
“Enough,” she interrupted, her voice quiet but stern. “Firstly, you are a good man, and you deserve far more than what you settle for.” Mischief curved her lips. “Secondly…watching you chop wood has quickly become one of my favorite pastimes.”
A surprised laugh escaped me before I could stop it. She started to pull her hands away, but I kept hold of them, my heart beating hard enough that I was certain she could feel it.
“Quinn, I…” The rest of the sentence tangled somewhere behind my ribs.
She lifted those beautiful, impossibly blue eyes to mine. “Yes?”
Although every part of me ached to tell her what she meant to me, I bit it back. There was too much at stake—too much depending on her focus—to risk distracting her now.
“We should head to breakfast.”
The moment passed. I told myself it was better this way—silence was safer than rejection, safer than hope. Silence could shield what words might shatter. As she passed through the door I held open for her, a cold fog of certainty settled over me.
If I never fully gave her my heart, there was less chance of her breaking it.
The rest of our group waited near the base of the guest tower stairs. Branrir gave us a slow once-over, one brow raised. Thistle grinned as though she’d won a bet. Vesper rolled his eyes from Thistle’s shoulder. Quinn walked beside me, and I was tempted to take her hand, but I wasn’t sure how forward I could be in public.
A servant emerged from a side door. “This way, if you please.”
We followed the servant into yet another corridor. This one was narrower, but still lined wall-to-wall with more tributes to Edric’s ego.
Thistle nudged Branrir with her elbow, voice pitched low. “What do you suppose they serve for breakfast in a place like this?”
“I’d wager eggs poached in the king’s reflection,” I muttered. “Or fruit carved into the shape of his jawline.”
Vesper snorted, tail flicking. “Whatever we’re having, I hope it drowns out the scent of his awful cologne. My nostrils are burning just thinking about it.”
