He gripped the back of his neck, trying to find some kind of calm. Enough that he could have a reasonable conversation with her. He knew he wasn’t explaining himself. That he was making this worse. But he didn’t know how to fix it.
Keely wiped her hand down her face. “I can’t believe I trusted you again. I let you into my body. Again. Why does any kind of intimacy turn you into… this?” She waved her hand in his direction.
He stared up at her. Gods. He shook his head. It wasn’t intimacy; certainly, that had never been a problem before. It was the power of the feelings she created in him—the uncertainty and the need, the very depth and breadth of what she did to him—that’s what made him crazy.
He was the calm member of the squad, the considered strategist. Except when it came to Keely. “It’s you,” he muttered, knowing even as he said the words that they sounded utterly wrong.
She flinched, and there was a momentary breathless pause as his words echoed through the room.
And then she took a step back. “You know what, Tor, fuck you. I did the best I could formybaby. You want to hate me for leaving? Well, how about you spend a moment considering that you never, not even once, asked me to stay.”
She tilted her chin up, shoulders squared, once more the woman from the king’s banquet. All rage and strength.
Fighting for someone else, yet again, no matter how much pain it caused her. Fighting for their child. Gods, she would be an amazing mother.
Before he could finish the thought, she whirled around and strode from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Tor sat frozen. Alone in her room. Surrounded by her scent, by her things, by the coldness of her last words to him.
He rose slowly, feeling as if he’d aged a thousand years in the last few minutes, and washed his face in the lukewarm water, hardly noticing the rough cotton of the towel as he mindlessly patted himself dry. Gods.
No wonder she’d been so obsessed with the future. With him making a real, tangible commitment. She’d asked him, and he’d refused. And she was right. Again. It had never occurred to him to ask her to stay.
And now… now he’d accused her of lying to him. And then stealing his child. Fuck.
Fuck.
There was no way Keely would accept that—from anyone—and nor should she.
He stumbled across to his cloak and felt in the deep pocket sewn into the inner lining to find the letter she’d left him. Such a small thing. Folded parchment, sealed. His name a heavy black scrawl across the front.
He broke the seal and leaned against the wall to read.
Tor,
I’m not at all certain how to start this letter.
It seems, somehow, to be both immeasurably easier to write to you, sitting here in my room alone, rather than facing you in person. And significantly more difficult, here by myself, reminded of exactly how alone I am.
I would have liked to have told you. But, if you’re reading this, I’ve failed to do so. Maybe I could have tried harder. Maybe I’m a coward, after all. I’ve thought it more than once over the last few days, and I expect I’ll think it more in the days to come.
He closed his eyes and dropped his head back heavily against the wall. Gods. She had been alone, and afraid, thinking of herself as a coward. Keely, the bravest person he knew. The woman who had defied a king, knowing she would die, had been afraid to speak to him, the father of her child. She must have been terrified to realize that she was pregnant and all alone. And shehadtried.
A hot, twisting shame settled across his chest like heated wire, burning and constricting, as he forced himself to continue.
Anyway, I’ll get to the point—I’m pregnant. I hope it’s abundantly clear that you’re the father. There’s no one else and hasn’t been for many years.
You already know I’m going north with Alanna. I intend to stay there, to make a home in Verturia. I don’t know why. Perhaps because it’s the only home I’ve had that was really mine, and now I find I need one. Perhaps because I was safe there once.
I need to know that my child—our child—will be safe too.
I know that you want to stay in Kaerlud. I understand that you have a life you want to rebuild. A life that doesn’t include me and a child. And I know that this was never your intention. It was a mistake. I’m giving you this chance to continue your life exactly as you’d planned. I have no desire to live my life as a regret, and most especially notyourregret.
Maybe one day, when things are more settled for you, you would like to come and visit. My mother will be in the Castle at Duneidyn; she will know where we are. Ask for Nessia.
I wish that
Farewell,
