She signed back.I’m happy.
And for the first time since she’d fallen through lightning and time and landed in this time, she meant it completely.
Gareth held her gaze for a long moment.Good. You deserve happiness.
He turned back to Thomas, demonstrating another stance, and Elodie remained on the battlements, watching the man she loved teach a child to fight.
From the kitchens below, she heard Marian’s voice ring out, something about bread and the evening meal, and then a burst of laughter. Thomas’s “okay” faces must have found their audience. The sound drifted up through the summer air, warm and ordinary and impossibly precious.
She didn’t try to pretend anymore that she wanted to leave.
CHAPTER 19
The messenger arrived at dawn, his horse lathered and heaving, the man’s face grey with exhaustion and something worse.
Elodie was breaking her fast in the great hall when the commotion erupted—shouts from the courtyard, the clatter of hooves on cobblestones, Bertram’s voice rising in sharp alarm. She pushed back from the table and hurried toward the noise, arriving just as Gareth emerged from the keep, buckling his sword belt over his tunic with the ease of long practice.
The messenger half-fell from his saddle into the arms of a waiting guard. His words tumbled out between gasping breaths. “Raiders, the northern villages—Hillshire is burning?—”
Gareth caught the man before he could collapse entirely. His hands moved in rapid signs to his captain.How many? Direction?
Miles translated for the messenger.
“Dozens,” the messenger answered. “Mayhap more. They came at night. Torched the grain stores first—we’d only just brought in the harvest—then the cottages. Anyone who fought back—” His voice cracked. “There were children, my lord.”
A muscle jumped in Gareth’s jaw. He steadied the messenger and passed him to one of the servants, then turned to Sir Miles with signs so sharp they looked like knife strokes.
Gather twenty men. Full arms. We ride within the hour.
“My lord,” Miles rumbled, “’tis possible the raids are organized. This could be a trap—they might be trying to draw you out.”
Gareth’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes went cold and hard as flint. He signed.Then we spring it. Those villages are under my protection.
Elodie stepped forward before she could think better of it. “What can I do?”
Gareth turned to her, and for just a moment, his stern mask softened. He signed.Stay. Keep the castle safe.His hands hesitated, then added.Keep yourself safe.
“Gareth—”
But he was already moving, issuing silent orders that sent men scattering toward the armoury and stables. Within the hour, as promised, twenty armed riders thundered through Greywatch’s gates into the thin morning mist, Gareth at their head with his dark cloak streaming behind him like a banner.
Elodie watched from the battlements until they disappeared over the ridge, her hands clenched white-knuckled on the sun-warmed stone. The castle felt suddenly hollow without him, as if his absence had drained all the warmth from the air.
Be safe,she thought, the words a prayer to any god that might be listening.Come back to me.
The second wave of refugees arrived before midday. A straggling line of them appeared on the road—women with children clinging to their skirts, old men leaning on walking sticks, young boys leading bony goats and clutching bundles of salvaged belongings. They moved with the shuffling exhaustionof people who had been walking all night, their faces hollow with shock, their clothes still reeking of smoke.
Elodie met them at the gate, Bertram at her elbow—but this time, they weren’t alone.
Agnes, a stout woman from Thornwick who’d arrived with the first wave of refugees, was already pushing through the crowd with a basket of bread. Behind her came two young mothers Elodie recognized from the east wing, their own children balanced on their hips as they reached for the newcomers’ little ones with soft words and steadying hands.
“We know what they need,” Agnes said matter-of-factly when she saw Elodie’s surprised expression. “We were them not so long ago. Come, loves, come. There’s pottage on the fire and pallets in the bailey. You’re safe now.”
The change stunned her. The refugees who’d arrived hollow-eyed and hopeless not so long ago were now the ones offering comfort, drawing the frightened newcomers into the castle’s embrace with the authority of people who’d found their footing again.
“My lady!” Marian appeared at her side, slightly out of breath. “Old Wynne’s got the healing supplies ready, and Cook’s already started another batch of bread. What else do you need?”
Elodie took a breath and relaxed just a bit. This wasn’t like before, when she’d been running herself ragged trying to manage everything alone. The castle had become a community, one that could function without her directing every moment.
