Page 73 of Beds and Blades

He was quiet for a moment. The fire settled. Then he turned me gently, his hand at my jaw, tilting my face up toward his. He looked at me for a long moment before he spoke.

“I love you,” he said.

No preamble. No qualification. No, you must know, or I think, or I feel like—the hedging language of men who are not entirely sure of what they are saying. Just the words, in his voice, with settled weight.

I had heard those words before. My ex-fiancé had said them with the frequency and conviction of a man fulfilling a social obligation. The way you say drive safe or have a good weekend. The words were correct and the meaning was entirely absent.

Skip said it differently. He said it with certainty and no apparent interest in revisiting the position.

I felt it land.

“I love you too,” I said.

He kissed me. My hand found his arm—warm, solid, real—and the contact registered through my entire body with the focused insistence of a nervous system that had been through a great deal this evening and had opinions about what it wanted next.

I analyzed the situation.

The man I had just told I loved had, within the last hour, freed the woman he had claimed from the darkness she had been imprisoned in for years. He had watched her body burn on a funeral pyre. His eyes were still slightly wet. The fire was still burning.

I filed my nervous system’s opinions under the heading: The body’s objection is noted and respectfully overruled.

We went inside when the fire burned low. Skip poured two cups of moonroot.

It was darker than tea and richer than deeproot, but where deeproot sharpened the mind while easing the body, moonroot asked nothing of either. Its warmth spread slowly, carrying with it the unmistakable instruction that the day was over and I was permitted to stop surviving it. It tasted like hot chocolate designed by someone who took the assignment seriously. The calm moved through me in one deep, warm wave, loosening muscles I had not realized were still braced. Sleep waited just behind it.

We sat with the cups and looked at the stars.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

Skip nodded.

“When did you know? About me.” I paused. “Specifically.”

He did not hesitate. “The horse.”

I had suspected this.

“That was the first day.”

Skip smiled knowingly.

“You decided on the first day?”

“I decided on the horse,” he said.

I considered this.

“My body decided on the horse,” I said. “My brain required an extended peer-review process. The conclusions were consistent.”

“You are thorough,” he said. “I did not mind the wait.”

I laughed.

The moonroot carried us to bed before either of us thought to argue with it.

Chapter thirteen

The Ring