“I learned my lesson, though. Stopped asking interesting questions. Stopped being... myself, I suppose. Started playing it safe. Agreeing with everyone. Laughing along with the jokes like I was in on it, like it didn’t feel like being stabbed every singletime. My friend Jennifer—she’s deaf, that’s how I learned sign language. We met at university—she’s the only one who knows how much it really bothers me. Everyone else, I just...” She made a vague gesture. “I talk. I fill the silence. I make jokes so no one notices I’m...”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t find the words for the hollow feeling that had lived in her chest for years, the bone-deep certainty that she was too much and not enough, all at the same time.
Gareth moved closer. Close enough that she could feel his warmth against the cold night air, close enough that when he raised his hands to sign, she could read every gesture clearly despite the darkness.
You talk because silence makes you feel invisible.
It wasn’t a question. It was an observation, precise and devastating in its accuracy.
“Yes.” The word came out as barely a whisper. “If I stop talking, I disappear. That’s how it feels. Like I’m only real when I’m making noise, when I’m filling the space, when I’m proving I exist. Pathetic, really. Absolutely spinach-fudging pathetic.”
His hands moved again, slower now, each gesture weighted with something she couldn’t quite name.
I understand. For me, it is the opposite. I am silent because words betrayed me. Words were how he lured me to my death. Words are... dangerous.
“But you’re learning signs.”
Signs are different.He paused, and she watched him search for how to explain, his brow furrowing in concentration.Signs are chosen. Each one, I choose to make. They do not escape. They do not betray.
Elodie turned to face him fully. In the moonlight, she could see the scar at his throat—a brutal line that ran from beneath his ear to his collarbone. She’d noticed it before, of course, butshe’d never let herself really look. Had carefully avoided looking, actually, because it felt too intimate, too much like trespassing.
“May I?” she asked, reaching toward it before she could think better of it. “I mean, you can absolutely say no. I’m being horribly forward, I just?—”
Gareth went very still. For a moment, she thought he would pull away. Then, slowly, he inclined his head.
Her fingers touched the raised edge of the scar, tracing its path across his skin. The tissue was smooth, silvery-white against his tanned throat. She could feel his pulse beating rapidly beneath her fingertips—this warrior, this silent knight, his heart racing at her touch.
“It must have been terrifying,” she said quietly. “Lying there, thinking you were dying. Alone. I can’t imagine—I mean, I literally cannot fathom what that must have been like, and I know I talk too much, but sometimes there truly aren’t enough words for?—”
His chest expanded with a deep breath. His hands lifted, hesitated, dropped. Lifted again. When he finally signed, he wasn’t looking at her—his gaze fixed somewhere over her shoulder, as if the words were easier to form when he couldn’t see her face.
I was not afraid to die. I was afraid of what I had not said. To my sister. To the people I loved. I thought I had time.His hands stilled for a moment.I was wrong.
Only when he finished did his eyes find hers again. That same waiting. That same vulnerability, raw and unguarded in a way that made her heart crack.
“And now you don’t speak at all,” she said.
Now I choose my words carefully.Something flickered in his expression—not quite hope, not quite fear, something in between.I do not know whether I can speak. I have tried, butnothing comes out. Mayhap one day I will speak, and then it will mean something.
She withdrew her hand from his throat, but she didn’t step back. Couldn’t seem to make herself step back. They stood close enough that she could see the individual strands of bronze and gold in his dark hair, the fine lines around his eyes that spoke of pain and vigilance and years of solitary watching.
“My friend Jennifer,” she said, “the one I mentioned—she’s been deaf since childhood. She taught me sign language when we were at university together. I learned it because I wanted to talk to her, really talk, without barriers. Without having to write everything down or rely on lip-reading.” She smiled at the memory. “She’s brilliant. Proper genius. Designs graphics for fancy London firms and refuses to let anyone treat her like she’s limited. She’s also the only person who’s ever told me to shut up and actually meant it lovingly.”
His hands rose.She sounds like a good friend.
“The best. Honestly, she’s more like a sister. She’s the one who made me understand that communication isn’t about volume—it’s about connection. About actually being heard, not just making noise.” Elodie’s voice went soft. “I’m not very good at that part, obviously. The being heard part. I’m excellent at making noise.”
Gareth’s hands rose to respond, then stilled. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read—something between wonder and wariness, hope and fear all tangled together.
The moment stretched between them, fragile as spun glass. Elodie became acutely aware of her own heartbeat, of the warmth radiating from his body, of the vast silence of the night pressing in around them. Here on the battlements, in the dark where no one could see, their conversation felt like something secret. Something that belonged only to them.
He reached out. Slowly, giving her every opportunity to pull away. His calloused palm came to rest against her cheek, warm and rough and impossibly gentle.
His other hand moved.Thank you. For trusting me.
Elodie turned her face slightly into his palm, a gesture that was answer enough.
They stood like that for a long moment, connected by touch and moonlight and the shared weight of their wounds. The wind rose and fell. Somewhere in the castle below, a dog barked once and fell silent.
