The second man came in fast and hard, clearly hoping to catch Gareth while he was engaged. A mistake. Gareth was already turning, using the first man’s momentum against him, and somehow—Elodie couldn’t quite follow how—the second soldier ended up sprawling face-first in the mud.
The third hesitated.
Smart man.
Gareth waited. Patient as death itself. His chest rose and fell with slow, measured breaths, and his eyes—those storm-grey eyes—didn’t miss a thing. He held his practice sword loosely, almost carelessly, like it was an extension of his arm rather than a weapon.
The watching soldiers had gone quiet. Even the boys who’d led her here stood frozen, their earlier bravado replaced by slack-jawed awe.
The third man finally committed. He feinted left, then drove right with a strike aimed at Gareth’s unprotected side.
It should have worked. Anyone watching could see it should have worked.
Gareth didn’t block. He moved—a half-step to the side, a slight rotation of his body—and suddenly the soldier’s blade was cutting empty air. Before the man could recover, Gareth’s sword swept up in two devastating moves. A block that rattled the weapon from the man’s grip, and a controlled strike that stopped a hairsbreadth from his throat.
Silence.
Then Gareth stepped back, inclined his head in acknowledgement of a bout well-fought, and?—
And turned. And saw her.
Their eyes met across the training yard, and something passed between them that Elodie couldn’t name. The air seemed to thicken. The sounds of the castle—men talking, horses stamping, a dog barking somewhere—faded to a distant hum.
He looked at her the way he’d looked at his opponents. Assessing, weighing, calculating. But there was something else under the scrutiny. Something that made her breath catch and her pulse do something distinctly embarrassing in her throat.
Stop it,she told herself firmly.He’s a medieval warlord with a reputation for killing people. You’re a time-displaced archaeologist with impulse control issues. This is not a romance novel.
But her feet were already moving, carrying her toward the edge of the yard before her brain had fully signed off on the decision. The soldiers parted for her, some crossing themselves, others simply gaping as she approached their terrifying lord.
A large man with a red beard and a face like a map of old battles moved to intercept her. Miles, she remembered—she’d seen him briefly last night. The captain of the guard. His hand hovered near the sword at his hip, and his expression suggested he was having serious reservations about letting the strange faerie woman anywhere near his lord.
Gareth held up a hand.
Miles stopped, though his eyes didn’t leave Elodie’s face. Neither she noticed, did anyone else’s.
“Right,” she muttered under her breath. “Not at all intimidating. Absolutely no pressure. Just a medieval courtyard full of armed men staring at me like I’ve grown a second head and looking for m wings.”
She stopped a few feet from Gareth and looked up. Up close, he was even more imposing—taller than she’d realised, his shoulders broader. The scar at his throat was an ugly thing, raised and silvery-white against his tanned skin, and she found herself wondering what kind of blade had made it. What kind of violence? What kind of pain?
He watched her, waiting. Not hostile, exactly, but not welcoming either. Wary, she decided. Like a wolf encountering something it couldn’t quite classify as threat or prey.
Say something intelligent,Elodie instructed herself.Something calm and measured that will establish you as a rational person deserving of basic hospitality.
“That was...” She gestured vaguely at the training yard, at the soldiers still picking themselves up from the mud. “I’ve read about medieval combat techniques. Manuscript illustrations, archaeological reconstructions, the occasional very poorly researched documentary.” She was babbling. She couldn’t stop. “But I’ve never seen anyone actually move like that. It was like—like watching mathematics, if mathematics could kill people.The angles, the economy of movement, the way you seemed to know where they’d be before they?—”
She clamped her mouth shut. Took a breath.
“Sorry. I’m doing it again. The talking thing.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I promise I’m not usually this bad. Well. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I talk quite a lot. But usually people just ignore me until I stop.”
Gareth’s expression didn’t change. But something flickered behind his eyes—surprise, maybe, or curiosity, or possibly just profound confusion at the strange woman who’d wandered into his training yard to ramble about mathematics.
“I’m Elodie,” she tried again, slower this time. “Elodie Hart. We met last night in the forest. You didn’t kill me, which I appreciated. Very much.” She winced. “That sounded better in my head.”
Around them, the soldiers had begun to drift back to their training, though she noticed most of them kept one eye on the bizarre conversation happening at the edge of the yard.
An idea struck her.
“You don’t speak,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Bertram had told her as much last night—the lord who had been silent for three years, whose voice was stolen or cursed or sworn away depending on who told the tale. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t communicate, does it? You gave orders just now, with your hands. Your men understood.”
