“Snowed,again,” he informed her. “Good timing for us.”
“Will you tell me what the Queen did, to break faith with you?”
The question hit him like a punch. He grabbed hold of the windowsill to steady himself, and then turned slowly to face her. She was sitting up in the bed, the blankets wrapped around her waist and a heavy wool top over her dress.
“Why?”
“I love my country,” Ayla whispered. “I don’t see how Aronthian rule would make life here better for anyone. And I cannot quite hate you. But you are warring with my Queen. Why?Mustyou?”
Her loyalty to Enar made his jaw clench. His aunt didn't deserve Ayla's faithfulness.
“Yes. I must.”
“Is there no other way forward but treason?”
His throat bobbed. Niel approached her slowly and sank into the chair he’d placed beside the bed. He braced his hands on his knees to stop them from revealing the tumultuous flood of emotion dragging at his mind.
“No. Not for me.”
“You’re outnumbered. I know the food here won’t last forever. So make a deal. Please, do not make me watch your execution.”
“It won’t come to that. My father will send men.” He wasn’t sure why he was tellingherhis war plans, except that he didn’t like the worried look on her face.
“I do not like either outcome. There must be a way for peace.”
He stared at her face, beautiful even in her exhausted pallor, and fierce even in her softness. But it didn’t matter how badly he wanted her by his side. How his own half-marriage, which had previously felt strategic and necessary, was instead beginning to feel like a bitterly cold shackle.
“No. But you have nothing to worry about. They all know you’re my hostage. Nobody will accuse you of treason.”
“Please, Niel? I want to know why you’re doing this.”
He nodded, and shifted his weight, gripping his hands together instead of bracing them. He stood abruptly, no longer able to sit still, and paced away from her, and reminded himself to breathe. It was a small room. He couldn’t pace far before turning on his heel to head towards the bed again, his thoughts jagged.
He opened his mouth to let the truth out, and then closed it, his will resolving to iron.
There were some things he would not say. Even to her. Especially to her. She'd already seen him so sick he could barely move. He didn't want her to think of him as any less of a man than she already did.
“No,” he announced. Having decided not to reveal the truth, relief and shame flooded him, both at once and in equal measure. His face felt hot.
“What?”
“No,” he repeated, more firmly. “Go on thinking me a traitor, Ayla. Hate me if you must.”
“But…”
“Get some rest,” he said, and went to look back out the window, where she wouldn’t see his hands shake.
A Bath
She was stronger the next day, but still weak, her legs wobbling anytime she got out of bed. Still, after a few bedridden days, she was glad for the change.
“You seem better,” Niel suggested as they finished lunch, sitting at the table he’d carried into her small room just for the purpose. It had felt silly when she’d watched him do it, but she was glad now to be out of bed, and in her own chamber instead of Ditmar’s sitting room.
He sat across from her, his long, dark hair clean and spilling over his shoulders and onto his chest armor. The cuirass, gone for a few days in illness, was back. There was color in his square-jawed face again. She didn’t dare wonder how wretchedshemust look. The oily feeling of her hair was uncomfortable.
She was almost scared to meet his eyes. He was looking at her like she mattered. Not like she was a broken cast-off who hadn’t properly washed in a half a week.
Between his illness and hers, something had shifted between them. But how could she trust him, when he wouldn’t even reveal why he was tearing the country apart at its seams?
