I would have missed her reaction if I hadn’t been watching closely, but I was always too aware of Cara.
I was across the room before I’d decided to move.
I put myself at Cara’s side. Not between them. I wasn’t going to make it a confrontation. My shoulder at Cara’s, my body an anchor rather than a wall. Cara looked up at me and couldn’t hide the way her face brightened, as if she had missed me, and my chest did complicated, rebellious things.
“This seems like a conversation I’m not invited to,” Maura said, false bright, and nodded goodbye to Anayla before veering off to a different knot of Bismyth.
I watched her go, and I caught a glimpse over her shoulder of Kien and Lawri looking up to check my reaction as she headed toward them. I gave them an unsmiling nod; she could still talk to Bismyth. I wasn’t that petty. But she wasn’t coming home.
She had been one of my best and dearest friends until she hurt Cara, and I was not sorry.
Cara’s fingers brushed mine. “Where have you been?”
“Getting a gift for you.”
That was true, though incomplete. I was always getting a gift for her. The newest one was a bundle under my arm, which she clocked with amusement.
“At least you’re not hiding these like you hid the coins.”
“You found the coins.”
“I’ll always unravel your secrets. Sooner or later.”
“Open it.” I set the bundle in her hands.
She unwrapped it to reveal a sword belt—custom-made for someone as petite as she was—with twin scabbards. She drew them, and the glinting blades reflected her face. “Thank you. But what will these do against monsters?”
“The daggers are not for monsters. They’re for far worse enemies.”
I took the belt from her hands and set it around her hips, and she let me, raising her hands to allow me space to work. As soon as I had buckled the scabbard, before I could straighten, she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
The small gesture surprised me. She smiled. “You trust me with your life.”
She had teased me about that trust when I gifted her my boot knife to replace the kitchen knife she carried.
“I trust you with my heart,” I told her, lightly. “Which is considerably more terrifying.”
From the way she smiled, she didn’t believe I meant it. Maybe I didn’t. I had never been in love before.
After watching what happened to Ander and Tesa, I had never desired love.
Anayla walked with me when Cara went to join Sera and Kiegan.
“Maura made a mistake,” she said.
“An understatement. She almost killed my wife and our rebellion.” The rebellion came out as an afterthought.
“She’s been paying for it. She misses Bismyth. She misses us. She missesyou.”
“Cara flinched when she saw her.” The words came out flat, past anger, into something quieter and more settled. “Maura can’t change that any more than Cara can.”
Anayla was quiet for a moment. “She regrets it.”
“I don’t doubt that. But I find I cannot bring myself to forgive.”
Maura had moved on to a different knot of Bismyth. They were speaking to her, but there was wariness in it on both sides. They wouldn’t cross me for her sake. “And I find I cannot get there.”
Anayla hesitated, twining a loose lock of hair around one finger. “How uncharacteristically…feral of you.”
