She barely knew Niel. It hadn’t been long. They were both married, and he was younger than her, twenty to her twenty-four. And he was violent; deadlier than any man she’d known. A traitor, no matterhowrightly, who in all odds would be dead before the end of the terrible war stretching out before them.
She didn’t want him. Couldn’t want him. It was just new, she told herself: being without Ditmar. And Niel was handsome and gentle with her. Mercy, in her illness he’d lifted her in his arms like she was delicate and weightless.
Thatdidn’tmean she could get carried away with wanting him. There was no future there.
The door opened again, Niel striding back into the room with snow dusting his boots and another bucket of water for the cauldron. Her heart sped faster.
“Are you alright?” he asked, pausing to frown at her. She was staring at him.
“Oh. Yes,” Ayla said, and cleared her throat. She forced herself to look back out the window, feeling her cheeks burn despite the cold.
She could still see him out of the corner of her eye. He went into her bathing room for a moment, then came out with one hand wet, as if he’d been checking the water. Niel stopped in front of the hearth, facing the fire with his legs shoulder-width apart and his arms crossed in front of him. He couldn’t see her staring from that angle. She slowly turned her head to admire him: the breadth of his shoulders and the sharp outline of his jaw.
Agonizingly slowly, he unfolded his arms and rolled up each sleeve of his shirt, revealing heavily muscled, thick forearms. She gulped and looked away again as he grabbed the cauldron off the fire with an iron hook. Muscles sharp as they strained, Niel carried the heavy cauldron out in front of him into the bathing room. She heard splashing, and then he came back out, dangling the empty, steaming cauldron on its hook like it were made of cloth instead of heavy iron.
“If you like it hot, you’ll want to hurry,” Niel said. “It’ll cool fast in this weather.”
“Thank you,” Ayla whispered. He nodded, and left the room, closing the door behind him. She buried her face into her hands for a moment, resisting the urge to scream with some emotion she could not name, hot and burning in her chest. She looked up and stared at the door a moment, desperate for him to come back but not even knowing what she would say if he did.
Her feet were cold on the stone as she padded to the bathing room. He’d pulled a stool beside the tub and placed two folded towels from the shelf there. Ayla shrugged off her cloak, then fumbled at her dress with cold, stiff fingers. As she slid from the clothes the frigid air pebbled her skin. Teeth chattering, Ayla stepped carefully into the water.
The bath was hot, almost burning. She sank into it like an embrace, until even her chin was covered, and felt her body thaw. Ayla couldn’t help the embarrassing whimper from escaping her lips. The urge to cry from gratitude nearly overwhelmed her.
She had never washed so thoroughly, soaping every inch of her skin and her hair not once, but twice, until the water was filmy with soap scum. Her muscles relaxed and her skin burned as she scrubbed away the sweat from her illness. The water was almost cool by the time she was done. She was reluctant to stand, a shock of cold on her skin that nearly had her sinking back into the lukewarm tub. Instead she quickly dragged the towels around herself and ran on wobbling, exhausted legs to the hearth in her bedchamber. Shivering, Ayla crouched in front of the fire and let it steam the water from her fresh-scrubbed skin, rubbing her hair dry.
There was a breeze coming from the open window, nipping her damp skin. She dried as best as she could with the towel, then ran, shivering, on tiptoes to fetch a heavy robe and furred pinson slippers. Pulling the fabric tight around her skin, Ayla went to the window and leaned across the seat to pull the shutter closed.
She’d spent enough time watching Niel fetch water that she recognized him instantly, even as far below her as he was in the snowy yard. The naked sword in his hand gleamed as it caught the sun.
The captive Ashbrin knight knelt one-legged in the snow in front of Niel, his hands bound behind his back.
Ayla stumbled back, drawing in a sharp breath. She knew what Niel would do with that sword, and just how little effort it would take him to execute the man. He’d kept the codes of war for Ayla and ransomed her. From the look of things, the Enarian knight would face a different fate.
There wasn’t time to dress properly, or dry her hair. She wasn’t even sure she had time to get from her room down to the large castle yard. With the robe flapping open around her bare legs she charged down the winding stair, one arm against the railing to keep herself upright.
Broken
Ayla nearly fell over herself at the bottom of the stairs, her body protesting this sudden burst of energy. A pair of soldiers jumped out of her way, eyes wide at the sight of the half-clad, wet-haired woman clutching a robe around herself and sprinting down the castle's hall, slippers smacking against the flagstones.
She pushed open the heavy, wooden door to the courtyard with some effort. Twenty feet away she saw Niel’s broad back. His sword gleamed dangerously at his side in one black-gloved hand. The prisoner knelt just beyond him. Far past them was the covered lean-to full of the winter’s wood supply, the stables, and the tall castle wall separating them from Ditmar and the Queen's army.
She wasn’t too late.
It was already hard to imagine any future where a traitor could reconcile with the crown. But if he broke the codes of war and killed a captive nobleman, it would be that much harder tobroker peace. And it waswrong. Surely he knew that. The knight wasn't even one of Ditmar's men.
“I don’t understand,” the Ashbrin knight was saying. “If I've done something to offend you, Niel, I'm sure I never meant it.”
Niel hefted the sword in his hand, raising it.
She didn’t hesitate at the door. Instead Ayla plunged forward, slippers and bare calves driving into the snow. She sank halfway to her knees, a shock of ice that would have had her yelping, if she weren’t so focused on the two men. The wind filled the air with light drifts of flakes though the sky was clear above them.
“Niel!” Ayla shouted.
He jerked around at the sound of her voice, sword gripped in his fist. Niel’s mouth fell open for a second as he stared at her.
“Get back inside.” His voice was a bark, his eyes wide and wild.
“Don’t do this.”
