The afternoon found them in the solar, as had become their custom. After the chaos of the morning—the training, the castle’s daily business, the endless small crises that demanded the lord’s attention—Gareth retreated here. And increasingly, Elodie retreated with him.
Ready?she signed, settling into the chair across from his.
He nodded, his large hands already lifting in response.Ready.
They fell into their routine without discussion. Elodie would introduce new signs, working through them slowly, demonstrating each one multiple times until Gareth’s hands shaped the movements correctly. He was a quick study—quicker than she’d expected, given that he’d probably never encountered anything like sign language before. But he approached the lessons with the same intensity he brought to sword work, practicing each sign until his execution was flawless.
She’d noticed over the past se’nnight that his questions had changed. In the beginning, he’d used their lessons to probe—slipping pointed queries between vocabulary words.Your family, where?He’d signed after learning the word for home.Your lord, who?After she’d taught him allegiance. Always watching her face, reading her reactions with the same careful attention he brought to everything.
But lately, the interrogation had softened. He still watched her—would probably always watch her, a man that thoroughly betrayed—but the wariness had begun to shade into something else. Curiosity, perhaps. Or the first fragile shoots of trust.
Today she started with emotions.Happy, she signed, her hands moving in a small circle near her chest.Sad. A downward motion along her cheeks, like tears falling.Angry. Fists clenched, moving outward in sharp jerks.
Gareth mimicked each sign with precision, but something flickered across his face when she demonstrated afraid. A tightening around his eyes, quickly suppressed.
Afraid, she repeated, showing him again. Her hands trembled slightly near her chest, fingers spread, moving in quick, nervous patterns.
He copied the motion perfectly, then signed.You were afraid. In the clearing.
Elodie’s breath caught. They’d spoken of that night—she’d babbled her way through those first terrifying hours, and he’d remained silent, watching her with those silver eyes as she spun half-truths and desperate explanations. But they’d never spoken of it like this. Directly. Honestly.
Yes, she admitted.Very afraid.
Not now?
She considered the question carefully. Outside, the wind was picking up, carrying the scent of rain from the moors. Inside the solar, the fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls. The castle that had seemed so menacing a fortnight ago now felt almost... safe.
Less afraid, she signed finally.This place feels... safer.
Something shifted in Gareth’s expression. Not a smile—she’d never seen him truly smile—but a softening of the severe lines around his mouth. He signed back,Good.
They continued the lesson. She taught himtired, hungry, cold, warm. He absorbed each one without complaint, his large hands surprisingly graceful as they shaped the unfamiliar movements. When she introducedgrateful, he paused.
Show me again, he signed.
Elodie demonstrated. One hand moving from her chin outward, palm up, like offering thanks.
Gareth copied the gesture. Then, deliberately, signed it again while meeting her eyes.Grateful. For this.He gestured between them—the space where they stood, the invisible bridge they were building word by word.
Elodie’s throat tightened. “You’re welcome,” she said aloud, her voice gone rough. Then, remembering, she signed it.You are welcome.
The afternoon passed quickly. Marian joined them after her kitchen duties were complete—and, as usual, she learned fastest of all. Within days of starting lessons, her small hands had begun flying through signs with an ease that put the others to shame.
“My grandmother was deaf,” Marian had explained when Elodie first praised her speed. “We had our own way of talking, but nothing so... complete as this.” Her gap-toothed grin had widened. “Gran would have loved it.”
Now she’d become Elodie’s shadow—appearing at her elbow to practice, asking questions about signs for increasingly specific things.Bread. Butter. Burned bread. Lord Gareth is angry because Thomas burned the bread again.
“You’re making sentences,” Elodie said, delighted.
Marian grinned, hair escaping her cap as usual. “I’ve got a lot to say, my lady. Always have. Now I’ve just got more ways to say it.”
They moved from the solar to the hall so others could join them as well. Old Bertram appeared as well, his arthritic hands moving slowly but determinedly through the basic alphabet.
“Bless my soul,” the steward muttered when he finally managed to spell his own name without error. “Never thought these old bones would learn new tricks.”
“The thing about communication,” Elodie said, settling onto a bench as more students gathered, then stopped herself before she could mention telephones, texting, video calls. Or the read receipts she’d ignored from colleagues who didn’t really care, anyway. “The thing is... speaking isn’t the only way to connect.”
“What other ways are there?” Marian asked, settling beside her with the eager attention she brought to everything.
