The guard grunted and shrugged and stepped aside. Struan was allowed to step out of the doorway and led the way down the hall.
The guards followed, not at his heels, but at a distance. That helped him feel less like a prisoner and more like an ordinary man taking a walk. No doubt the guards didn’t care much about that, of course. They probably didn’t want to be seen with him any more than he wanted them marching behind him.
Struan walked quickly, with no set idea of where he was going to go. The guards padded along behind in silence.
He passed the feast hall, which was already half full of people eating their breakfast. Struan smiled thinly, considering walking in and sitting down to join them. He ate all of his meals, unsurprisingly, in his cell.
He walked past the feast hall, deliberately not looking inside. His path took him towards one of the back doors and out into the watery sunlight. He paused, turning up his face to the sun, and closed his eyes.
Why can’t things ever be simple?
He opened his eyes again, and movement caught his attention. There, just a few feet away from him, Kyla sat on a low wall, engrossed in a book.
A lump formed in Struan’s throat. She was justthere, so close, so unaware of his presence. Until now, he’d worked hard to make sure he kept away from Kyla. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want her to look at him and realize, once and for all, what a waste of time he truly was.
I should turn away. Leave her in peace. She deserves peace.
And yet his feet drew him towards her. Closer and closer, and still she didn’t tear her gaze away from the book. In anybody else, he might have assumed they were deliberately ignoring him, but this was Kyla, and everybody knew what Kyla was like with books—even though they had spent years apart.
“For as long as I can remember,” Struan murmured, dropping down onto the low wall beside her, “ye have beenoblivious to the world and all around ye when ye have yer head in a book.”
She flinched, jumping so hard she nearly dropped the book. Wide eyes turned his way, framed by large, round spectacles. Kyla’s eyes got huge when she realized who sat beside her.
“Struan,” she breathed. “Ye… Ye are here.”
He smiled wryly. “Aye, lass. I’m here.”
She paused, narrowing her gaze. “Ye have been avoiding me.”
“Aye,” he answered simply. “I have.”
They sat there in silence for a moment or two, with Kyla just staring up at her brother. After a moment, she lifted her hand, shakily, and ever so gently touched the curve of his cheek.
“Sometimes I can hardly recognize ye,” she whispered.
He smiled tightly. “I hardly recognize myself. I have gotten worse, and ye have gotten better.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I only speak the truth, lass. Ye know that.”
She bit her lower lip and let her hand drop. Struan let himself recall all the stupid, foolish daydreams he’d let himself indulge in. Dreams of whisking Kyla away—this was before she saved herself, of course—and taking her with him. They would go somewhere that their father could not reach. They’d start fresh.
Too late for that. The daydreams he’d once tortured himself with were nothing more than a silly idea now. Kyla was married. She’d found a rescuer, not that she’d ever needed help to be rescued.
She doesn’t need my help. She never did. I’m the one who needs rescuing.
“Ye have had chances to escape,” Kyla said suddenly.
He hadn’t expected it and flinched. “What?”
She lifted one eyebrow. “Ye heard me. Ye have had chances to slip away. Plenty of them. But ye didn’t take any of thosechances. Can I assume that ye have finally seen our father for what he is and have chosen to leave?”
“I’ve seen him for what he is for a long time.”
“And yet ye still love him,” she stated.
It took Struan aback. “I didn’t mean?—”
