Karis looks around the barn, suddenly reluctant to leave. It’s hardly the finest of accommodations. He’s not sure he’ll ever get the dust out of his socks, and the piles of hay are possiblytoosoft to sleep in. But this rundown place has been a bubble of peace and quiet for the past few days. They kissed against that wall. They fucked in that loft. There, and there, everywhere, Ronan’s hands found his, and filled the gaps between his fingers.
“I’m good,” Karis says, burying his reluctance. “We should leave.”
***
They travel on foot, their route too rough and narrow for horseback. Ronan seems to know every deer trail and narrow stream in the Charaini countryside—compared to Karis, the lifelong native who only knows a few cities and well-traveled roads. Hiking beneath the autumn-gold leaves, stopping to drink from dark crystal waters, it’s like they’re the only two people in the world.
Which would be cozy and romantic if not for Ronan’s persistent brooding. Barely talking, always distant. The first night, Karis offers to set a ward spell around their camp. Save some of Ronan’s magecraft supplies for other uses. But Ronan refuses outright, not believing when Karis explains that he’s fine.
Ronan still bends down for a kiss when Karis touches his face, and he still grabs back when Karis takes his hand. Karis thinks Ronan would fuck him, if he asked, but he doesn’t want to ask with the way the man’s been acting. Maybe it’s naive of him, but he’d been getting kind of used to having a voice in things. Slaying a vaidkos was far riskier than casting a ward spell, and Ronan trusted him with that.
Karis feels like he’s back in the Radiant Order again. Expected to follow orders without question. Not allowed to go out into town with the other squires, for reasons that never quite get explained. Always supervised. He feels stifled.
He used to deal with that feeling by complaining to Stazie, or complaining to Vara, or just stewing silently by himself. But maybe he can try to fix this by talking it out, instead of throwing a tantrum. And there’s something that’s been bothering him for a while, like a dull knife slowly sawing through its leather sheath.
On the second day, they break for lunch beside a small stream. Sunlight slices through the canopy above the water, but Karis joins Ronan in the cooler shadows. Karis sits on a dry, fallen log, and Ronan sits on the ground beside it, leaving three feet of distance between them.
He wouldn’t move away if Karis scooted closer. Held his shoulder, let his fingers wander along his collarbone. He wouldn’t move away—but the physical distance is hardly the problem.
Karis turns half a piece of fruitbread over in his hands. “I’ve been wondering,” he says quietly. “How did Brother Oscar die?”
He doesn’t look up to see Ronan’s reaction, whatever it is. Maybe that’s cowardly of him. For a while, there’s only the sound of the running brook, the wind in the trees. Insects buzzing along the damp soil of the banks. Karis inhales, tasting autumn in the air.
Eventually, he adds, “Brother Oscar was the priest who—”
“I remember Brother Oscar,” Ronan says. He sets his own lunch down and rests his palms in the dirt. From this angle, his expression looks calm, but Karis can’t see his eyes. “I killed him. I didn’t learn his name until after.”
“That’s what I heard,” Karis says. “I was asking how he died, though, not who was responsible. Was it magic? A knife?” He’s heard both those versions, and more.
Ronan’s fingers tense in the loose dirt. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe.” The fruitbread has crumbled mostly to pieces. Karis scatters it to the ground. “If it does matter, you should tell me. And if it doesn’t matter, then there’s no pointnottelling me.”
Ronan relaxes a little. “I didn’t think squires were supposed to be this manipulative.”
“Nope,” Karis says. “That’s all me.”
“What matters is that he’s dead,” Ronan says a moment later. “But you’re right. You should know. The Crown of Vara was heavily protected, with a series of magical wards and traps. I triggered one of the wards as I was leaving, and the spell would have hit both of us. But I flipped a rigged coin for a shield, so I survived. He didn’t.”
Karis doesn’t need a spell to know this is the truth. It fits far better with the man he’s come to know than anything he ever heard from the Radiant Order. “So you didn’t—”
“I killed him.” Clawed-out furrows mark the earth. Ronan can’t hide the tension in his voice. “I caused his death. If I hadn’t broken into Dawn’s Tomb that day, and if I’d avoided the ward spell, he would be alive today.”
Karis bites his lip. Maybe opening up this conversation was a mistake, but he’s unwilling to back out now. “That’s still different from the story the Church of Vara tells.” He breathes a bitter laugh. “They’re supposed to value the truth.”
Ronan stands up, walks closer, in quick, jerky movements that make Karis want to back away. But he sits perfectly still, only leaning back and looking up into Ronan’s eyes, as Ronan blocks out the scattered sunlight.
Karis doesn’t run, and Ronan doesn’t draw any nearer.
“Don’t think I’ve been maligned or misunderstood.” Ronan’s low, dangerous voice evokes the chained beast he was when Karis first truly spoke to him, in the Harvest Church prison. “I worked as a mercenary for three years in Praia, and Oscar’s blood wasn’t the first to stain my hands.” He reaches out and runs cool fingertips along Karis’s cheek. His touch is damp with dirt. “Did you hear what I did to the paladin, too?”
“I’ve held the dagger,” Karis snaps, and hates the way Ronan’s eyes widen. Before Ronan can pull away, Karis seizes his wrist, feeling the strain of bone and sinew. He holds Ronan’s hand in place against him, dirt and all. “They gave me that dagger the very day I learned your name. I’ve always known. You stabbed him from behind. You took him by surprise and left him bleeding out, but he lived.”
Suspicion crystallizes suddenly. A trained fighter against an unsuspecting target. A killing blade that didn’t kill. The conclusion should have been obvious, yet it took Karis this long to figure it out—maybe he hasn’t always known the truth about Ronan, after all.
“You wanted him to live, didn’t you?” Karis asks, more softly.
Ronan grins. It isn’t cheerful. “I wanted him to live.”
