Page 31

Rory, clearly intrigued now, leaned forward.

“But I had reason to believe something may have been amiss about their story. I’ve asked them, of course, but never received any answers. When I met Galien, I asked him about Dennochbrook, a word I’d heard more than once in relation to my birth. But none seemed to know of it, or were willing to discuss it. Joan remembers my parents being childless one day, and then claiming me another. But like most, she remembers little else. I’ve looked in books, spoken to the priest, the abbess near Anbarth—but there was no reference to Dennochbrook that I could find. So I asked Galien.”

“The years add correctly,” he told Rory. “When she asked of it, I knew immediately who she was.”

“Or who he believes me to be,” she added quickly.

Galien knew she did not want to believe it. Who would wish to think their parents had lied all their lives to them? Or, worse, could have had a hand in such a horrific event as what happened at Dennochbrook? But he had no doubt. Reina was the babe.

“They shielded her from Scots,” Galien added. “Reina has never even been to the Tournament.”

“Nay?” Rory asked her.

For a noblewoman living so close to the border, such a thing was unheard of. Amidst chaos and turbulence, the Tournament of the North was the only respite at times. English and Scottish came together for the only melee that didn’t, usually, end in death.

“Nay,” she said, not with the hint of regret one would expect, but with a resignation he admired. Reina might find herself incurably naive, but he had begun to see it differently. These past years had hardened his heart to those who refused to take a stance. To indifference. To a trust he saw as deadly. Because of it, though, Galien’s life was nothing more than a series of training and battle, more training, more battle. Sometimes in the open field, others at tables such as this one. But always battling.

Never enjoying.

“I’ve led a good life at Anbarth. A fulfilling one, with loving parents. And a kind mentor.”

“The healer,” Galien clarified.

“As the daughter of an English baron.”

Leave it to Rory to remind her. Galien glared at him until Reina, once again, laid a hand on his arm. It spoke of a familiarity that two people of the opposite sex, unmarried and unchaperoned, should not have.

“I may not always speak of it,” she told him, “but my birth, my parents, are nearly always on my mind.”

He grunted. “I will let you live, for now,” he told Rory.

“So kind of you, cousin.” He tilted his head to the side, thinking. “Perhaps Magge may know of something.”

“I spoke to her already. We were there. She knew nothing more than we.”

“That is where you got the mount? And your ridiculous sword?”

He’d left it at the door, as was customary. But Galien couldn’t disagree. It was the sword of a squire. But better than none. “Aye.”

“You lost Brynjubítr,” Rory said.

At Reina’s expression, Galien explained. “My sword. It was that of my great-grandfather, a Lochlannaich.”

“Dene,” Rory said, realizing that was how Reina might know his ancestors from the north.

“I am sorry,” she said, understanding. “If only I could have gotten to it somehow, to have retrieved it. . .”

“Sorry?” It was so like her, to say such a thing. “You saved my life, Reina.”

They fell silent for a time. Rory watched him, watched him and Reina together, and Galien knew what he was thinking. But it was not to be. His family wished for nothing more than for him to stay in Brockburg, fight this war by forming alliances and participating in skirmishes without revealing themselves. Hide in the shadows, cowards to the king that would leave his people nothing but ash, like Reina’s Dennochbrook.

But he could not do that. Which meant there was no future for him and Reina. But as the night wore on, as happened every eve just before they would retire to bed, he longed to do so with her next to him. Just once, to know if she tasted as sweet as he imagined.

Thankfully, he would stay with Rory in the loft. Reina, locked away in her own room. For once he’d not fall asleep with the thought of her beside him. The sound of her steady breathing a torture, reminding him, as if he’d forget, that she was still there.

19

“I’d not leave her up there alone.”