Footsteps, to her left, soft but just audible.
Hurriedly Ayla opened her right hand and let the gelding snag the dried raspberries before anybody else could see.
She’d smuggled the fruit from the pantry for Gemshorn. She didn’t think the soldiers would like it if they heard she’d brought her horse a treat while they were under siege, but there was no difference in the world five berries could make to Niel’s army. And she felt bad for the horses still within the castle walls, their lives suddenly confined to stalls and trotting in circles around the courtyard paths for exercise.
Raspberries nothing but a memory, Gemshorn lipped her hands, looking for more. Ayla giggled and held up both hands to him.
A shadow moved into her vision. Ayla glanced to the side.
Niel stood four feet to her left, arms crossed over his broad chest, his dark eyes sharply focused on her. The smile on her lips died as her heart skipped a beat.
There were two Niels, she was certain. The one who kept an injured man locked in a dungeon because of his bloodline was the same Niel who’d broken faith with the crown. But the one standing in front of her, the one who’d wiped the sweat from her brow in illness, was everything a knight should be. Handsome, deadly, the perfect mix of war-ready and tender.
It was a dangerous way of thinking about him, and one she kept slipping into more and more.
“Lady Ayla,” he told her, his voice solemn. Anchor, the chestnut mare with a stall next to Gemshorn’s, stretched her head out to snuffle at the knight’s hair, somewhat ruining Niel’s serious expression. The knight reached over to scratch Anchor’s cheek, but his eyes didn’t leave Ayla’s. “You’re finally wearing gloves.”
“Lord Niel,” she murmured. He wasn’t wearing a hat, but a heavy cloak covered his armor. His dark hair was half-tied back, kept clear of his chiseled face while still falling around his shoulders. Black leather gloves covered his calloused hands.
“I told you to let me know before leaving the safety of the keep,” he reminded her sternly.
“You were hauling water for the kitchen,” she reminded him. He hadn’t even noticed her slipping out to the stable.
“Then you should have gotten one of the men. What if they shoot on the castle again while you’re out here?”
She didn’t answer, except to nod quietly. It was nothing like life with Ditmar, but she had spent so long having her pleasuresstripped away, to leave only a cage. The outdoors had been her escape from her husband. She’d already lost the mountains and the outer wall. Was she to lose the courtyard, now, too, in the name of her own safety? She tangled a hand into Gemshorn’s mane, gritting her teeth.
“I don’t wish to trouble you,” Ayla whispered. “Everytime I desire to breathe fresh air.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said, turning away from her to give Anchor one last pat. “Did you mean to exercise him?”
“One of your men already did this morning,” Ayla said wistfully. It had quickly become a favorite chore among the soldiers, who understandably would rather be with the horses than churning laundry or scouring chamberpots. They always seemed to beat her to the stable. She exhaled softly. “MustI go back inside?”
“No,” Niel said. His voice was uncertain. “I have some time. If you’d like to stay here—or—if you prefer one of my men escort you instead of me, then…”
“No,” Ayla said quickly. She was getting used to the soldiers, but she wasn’t comfortable with them like she’d become with him. “If I cannot be alone, your company will suit me fine.”
“I don’t mean to become a jailor,” Niel told her quietly. The knight’s brow was knitted, but he was still looking at Anchor instead of her, even as the mare drew back into her stall box. He was only twenty, a handful of years younger than she was. At that age, Ayla hadn’t been wed to Ditmar yet. She’d troubled herself with her father’s accounts and the attentions of the baker’s son and with apprenticing to the glass-house outside of Carinth, learning to work with a blowpipe and molten glass.
Not war, treason, and retribution.
“I know,” she reassured him. “You’re sure you can afford to entertain me?”
“It would be a welcome distraction.” His jaw was tense.
“What news did the griffon-rider bring?” Whatever it had been, it must have been urgent. The man had arrived and left so quickly Ayla had barely gotten a look at the majestic griffons in the courtyard. She’d never seen one up close before.
“Nothing. My father got my message. That’s all,” Niel said, a little too quickly.
There was something there. But she could hardly ask her captor to share every point of his strategy with her. Ayla nodded.
“Would you walk with me, then? On the inner wall?”
He nodded, and stepped back to let her pass.
It was a nice day. The sun was out, the snow wet and heavy on the ground where it hadn’t been shoveled or tramped down. The Kettalist’s cruel winds had calmed; no breeze stirred her hair. She led the way towards the inner wall that hugged the stone keep, more protected than the curtain wall where the sentries watched the Queen’s army.
On the stairs up, Niel paused to push a small pile of snow off the edge of one of the steps with his boot.
