Or when, after waiting as long as she could possibly justify, she gave up and found her tent with Keely.
And she didn’t know what to do.
She’d gone from being the princess in an ivory tower, her mother’s political game piece, kept isolated from everyone except staff and Keely, to Ballanor’s hated wife. With no freedom of any kind in between.
She’d never been in this kind of situation or anything remotely like it. And it tore at her. Not only because of her own guilt, but because she felt Val’s pain even more acutely than her own and would do anything to take it from him.
There was movement, footsteps, outside her tent, and she stiffened, listening, wondering if it was him. But then Mathos said something in a quiet voice, probably a dirty joke by the sound of Jos’s snigger, and she settled back into her blankets.
“It’s not him.” Keely’s voice sounded sympathetic in the darkness.
“No, I know,” she answered without thinking. “I mean….” She let her sentence drift, not bothering to find an excuse. She’d already given herself away.
“I’ve seen you looking for him all day, Lanni, and I’m sorry, but he’s not coming back.”
She fought down her desire to shout at her friend in frustration. Didn’t Keely understand, after all this time, that Val always kept his promises? “Yes, he is. He said he would.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She could hear Keely’s tension in her quiet words. “He’ll come back and do his duty. But he’s not coming back to you. In fact, I doubt it if he’ll speak to you at all.”
“Why not?” She couldn’t help the agitation in her voice. She didn’t think Keely was wrong, but she didn’t understand why. She had gone to Val and told him she wanted to be with him, but all it did was enrage him. And then he had disappeared entirely.
A soft hand landed on her shoulder, and she turned over to face Keely in the darkness. “Alanna, he would have done anything for you, he risked everything for you.” Keely’s voice was somber. “But you told him he couldn’t love you and that you didn’t want him to stay with you. He has too much pride to ask again, especially when the very first time he saw you, after risking everything to save your life—again—you were flirting with someone else.”
Alanna gasped. “I wasn’t!”
“We know that. But he doesn’t.”
Alanna let out a slow, sad breath. “But I told him I wanted to go with him.”
Keely squeezed her shoulder. “That’s what you said, exactly those words, that you want to be with him?”
Alanna cast her mind back, trying to think about the words she’d used. “Not exactly. I said that I didn’t want to stay here without him.”
Keely gave her a small, exasperated shake. “Bard. Can you see how that might have sounded like you want him to stay here and look after you while you get on with your life?”
No. She didn’t want to believe that he would have thought that.
But when had she ever given him any reason to think differently? Disquiet settled over her. All he knew was what she’d told him. He had no idea whatsoever how she really felt. And yet he’d still come back for her.
Her heart thudded heavily in her chest as Keely’s quiet voice filled the tent. “If you want Captain Cranky, you need to decide and let him know. In a way that he can’t misunderstand. And do it soon, or he’ll be gone.”
Bard. Keely was right. She would have to tell him everything. And soon.
Keely turned away and settled back into her blankets, the quiet sound of her slow breaths falling reassuringly between them as she drifted off to sleep.
But Alanna couldn’t sleep. Her back itched painfully, and her face felt tender where the swelling was slowly going down. She turned over but couldn’t find a single comfortable position to sleep in.
Even when she found a vaguely comfortable spot, she still couldn’t get to sleep. She was too on edge. Too aware of every tiny movement and soft noise in the camp. Too focused on whether the footfalls she heard might be Val returning.
She lay on one side and then the other. Tried sleeping on her belly. Listened as the watch changed.
And then she heard a different noise. A long, low, tortured groan cutting through the peaceful camp.
She sat up in her bedroll and tried to understand what she was hearing. There was a gasp of agony and then a mumbled cry too slurred to make out any real words.
Someone was suffering, in real agony. Someone close.
She shook Keely next to her. “Wake up!”
