She understood the need for caution, even supported it. What she couldn’t accept was being treated like a piece of fragile glassware that might shatter if she wandered more than ten paces from the keep.
“I was just going to the herb garden,” she said for the third time, her voice rising despite her best efforts. “The herb garden. Inside the walls. Fifty paces from the door.”
Gareth’s signs were sharp, clipped.You were told to stay inside.
“I was told to be careful. There’s a difference.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I can’t spend every moment of every day locked in this solar. I’ll go mad.”
Better mad than dead.
“Oh, that’s comforting. Thank you for that, you great dolt.”
You do not understand?—
“I understand perfectly!”
Their hands flew between them—accusation, defense, counterattack. Elodie had never argued in sign language before. It was surprisingly satisfying. No one could interrupt you when you were still signing.
Gareth made a sharp gesture she didn’t recognize.
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
He fingerspelled slowly, his expression deadly serious: S-T-U-B-B-O-R-N.
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you.” Instead of yelling, she signed back with exaggerated precision.You. More stubborn. Like stone.
His lips twitched. Even furious, he found her amusing. The knowledge only made her angrier.
“I have work to do,” she continued. “I have students waiting for lessons. I have a life in this castle, and you’re asking me to give it up because?—”
Because I will not lose you.
The signs were so violent that she actually stepped back. His hands hung in the air for a moment, trembling, before he dropped them to his sides and turned away.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Elodie stared at his back—the rigid line of his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip of his hands on the windowsill. Her anger drained away, replaced by something more complicated.
“Gareth.”
He didn’t turn.
She moved closer, slowly, the way you’d approach a wounded animal. “Gareth, look at me.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. When he finally turned, his face was pale, his expression raw in a way she’d never seen before.
Why do you defend me?His hands moved jerkily, as if the signs hurt to make.You do not know The Silent Reaper. Not truly. You do not know what I have done. The people I have killed. The choices I have made.
“I know enough.”
You know nothing.He laughed—a silent, bitter exhalation.I was not always the man you see. Before Alaric, I was... I believed in honor. In service. In doing what was right. And then I learned that none of it mattered. That the world rewards cunning and cruelty, not virtue.
“That doesn’t change who you are.”
It changed everything.His hands stilled, then resumed more slowly.Three years ago, I was left for dead. The woman who found me—the healer who saved my life—she told me that I had a choice. I could let the betrayal poison me, or I could build something new.
Elodie waited, not daring to interrupt.
I chose silence,he continued.I chose distance. I chose to become the kind of man who could never be hurt again. And it worked. For three years, nothing touched me. Nothing mattered. I was safe.
