I’d never felt like this before.
Not with anyone.
Not like this.
There was a girl once, Cira. A noble’s daughter with clever eyes and ambitions taller than any tower. We’d courted for a while, back when I still wore heraldry and a title. But when I fell, so did her interest. She’d ended it with a letter and a cold smile, saying she couldn’t build a future on broken foundations. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. Then I spent the next six months in a drunken stupor and pretending I hadn’t imagined what our children might’ve looked like. But I hadn’t felt empty when Cira left. I’d been expecting it to end.
What I felt now—watching Quinn sleep, knowing I only had eight more nights like this—filled me with a terror second only to her being grabbed by that bandit.
I brushed a stray lock of hair back from her forehead, careful not to wake her.
“Sleep well,” I whispered. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”
I didn’t know whether it was a vow or misplaced hope. Would the world let me keep such a promise?
Easing myself up from the bedroll, I was careful not to grunt too loudly—Quinn needed rest, not me rousing her with my dramatics. Every inch of my body ached as if I’d been trampled by a particularly vindictive herd of goats, but I was upright, and that counted for something.
Branrir sat on a large log a few paces away, a battered map unrolled in front of him, a stick in one hand tracing pathways and ridges. A cheeky grin stretched across his face when I approached.
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that look supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said, far too quickly. “Absolutely nothing at all.”
I huffed and dropped onto a nearby stone, stretching my legs slowly so my ribs didn’t protest too much. “Come on, Branrir. Imay not be a brilliant Hindsight, but I know when someone’s holding back.”
He steepled his fingers in mock innocence. “What? I’m simply enjoying a quiet evening under the stars. Not thinking anything at all about how our resident brooding knight seems to have melted into a sentimental puddle over one very particular lady.”
“If you have something to say, go ahead and say it.”
He glanced across the fire toward Quinn, peaceful and curled in sleep. “It’s not my business,” he said.
I snorted. “That’s never stopped you before.”
“Guilty as charged,” he said with a conspiratorial grin. “But I think you and Quinn might really have something.”
The words landed harder than I expected. My muscles tensed, and I regretted the sharp inhale that tugged against the bandage around my ribs. A spark of hope flared at his words before I smothered it with realism. She was bound by a tether she didn’t choose. I was the unfortunate bastard holding the rope. We’d known each other for—what? Six days?
“She’s essentially the hostage of a magical curse, and I’m the guy tied to her by proximity and bad luck. That’s not romantic.”
“You know,” he mused, “love isn’t always about time. Or logic. When it’s the right person, sometimes time’s the least important part of the equation.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you read that inThe Chronicles of Lunacy for Love-Sick Weirdos?”
He pressed his lips together. “No,” he said. “I learned it when I fell for Bradford in one conversation.”
That shut me up.
He didn’t speak again for a moment, tracing a fingertip across one of the map’s faded borders.
“My late partner,” he said finally, quiet and even. “He was abrilliant Hindsight. Stubborn. Argued with me the first time we met about the politics of post-war philosophy and called my favorite historian a verbose hack.” Nostalgia washed over his face. “I was smitten.” Sadness crept around the edges of his smile. “We danced around it for two years. I insisted it was too soon, that it was all happening too fast.”
Branrir swiped a tear from his cheek. “By the time I finally admitted how I felt, we were already running out of time. He got sick. Hedge couldn’t touch it. Neither could the Hands’ healing magic. We had ten wonderful years.” He took a shuddering breath. “We could’ve had twelve if I hadn’t been so damn afraid of what it meant to feel something too soon.”
His experiences struck a deep chord within me, leaving me speechless.
How many times had I treated love like a someday?
Someday, when I was settled.
