It should have been a compliment; it was probably intended as a compliment. Instead, it twisted in Hal’s gut, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow himself to accept it. Eighteen months had to mean something. He was still gripping the knight’s shoulder, still standing close enough to feel the heat radiating from that lean body. His own breathing had gone shallow.
“You think flattery will make me forget you humiliated me in front of the entire fucking circuit?”
“No,” the Nameless Knight said, voice softening to a silken drawl. The knight’s lips curved, but his eyes hardened. “I think you’ve been jousting against washed-up has-beens and green noble boys playing at knighthood. Your undefeated streak?” He gave a dismissive flick of his fingers. “A commoner beating the dregs no real knight bothers with. Today was simply... a correction.”
Something snapped in Hal’s chest. He raised his fist without deciding to, muscle memory taking over, the same instinct that had carried him through countless brawls before he ever touched a lance. He was going to hit this smug, beautiful, insufferable bastard. He was going to wipe that knowing smile off his face and make him bleed, make him hurt, make him feel even a fraction of the humiliation burning in Hal’s gut?—
The knight’s hand closed around his wrist.
The grip was firm but not painful, the fingers long and surprisingly strong. Hal’s fist hovered between them, arrested mid-swing, and he found he couldn’t pull free.
Perhaps it was only shock keeping him there. The knight’s eyes held his, silver-grey and suddenly very close, and Hal realised with a lurch of something like panic that their faces were inches apart.
He could see the texture of the knight’s lips. Slightly parted. Slightly dry. Hal had the insane urge to wet them with his own.
The knight smiled.
This smile was worse than the knight’s cruel words. It seemed to gloat with understanding. It saw something in Hal he wanted no one to see. It reached into Hal’s chest and found all the tangled, contradictory impulses he’d been ignoring—the anger that wasn’t just anger, the way his body had responded to this proximity.
“Interesting,” the knight murmured. His breath ghosted across Hal’s lips.
That broke the spell. Hal wrenched his arm free with a violence that sent him stumbling backward, his heel catching on the edge of the knight’s cot. His body betrayed him—pulse thundering in his throat, stomach twisting, skin prickling with heat that started at his neck and blazed upward. His hands wanted to shake. His lungs couldn’t get enough air. The knight was watching him calmly, so relaxed that Hal knew the Nameless Knight would let him approach him, let him. . .
Every instinct screamed to either flee or surge forward, and he couldn’t tell which urge terrified him more.
“Stay away from me,” he snarled. This was a trick, something to get in his head. And by the Gods, was it working.
The knight remained where Hal had left him, hand still extended as if holding a phantom fist. That smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, infuriating and knowing and entirely too pleased with itself.
“We’re both on the tournament circuit, Ser Hal. Our paths will cross again.”
There were only two days left to this tournament, but the knight had all but confirmed he’d be at the next, two months from now.
“Then I’ll beat you next time. Properly. On the field.”
“I look forward to it.”
Hal didn’t answer. But as he turned, the knight offered something of a peace offering.
“Alaric,” he said.
Hal turned back to stare at him. “What?”
The man shrugged. “A not so Nameless Knight now.”
Hal’s nostrils flared; why had that made him morefurious? He turned and shoved through the tent flap, emerging into late morning light that nearly blinded him after the dim interior.
The tournament grounds sprawled before him, unchanged by his world’s quiet collapse. Squires ran errands. Horses were being exercised. The next competitors were taking their positions at the lists, their drama unfolding independent of his. No one looked at him. No one knew what had just happened in that tent—the almost-punch, the almost-kiss. He ground his teeth.
He was Ser Halden the Upstart, a year and a half undefeated until this morning, a knight who had clawed his way up from nothing through discipline and determination. He didn’t have room for complications. Didn’t have room for silver-grey eyes and knowing smiles and whatever the hell had just happened.
The crowd swirled around him, oblivious to his turmoil, and he walked aimlessly until he was at the edge of the grounds where the merchant stalls gave way to open field. A wooden fence marked the boundary, weather-beaten and listing slightly. Hal gripped the top rail with both hands and stared out at nothing in particular.
His knuckles were white. His breathing was ragged.
He thought about the knight’s hand on his wrist. The precise pressure of those fingers. His lips.
Alaric’slips.
