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She sighed. “But you cannot.”

“Nay,” he said. “Even now your father is likely coming to find you.”

“He is not,” she said, seeming certain. “I am no longer the innocent girl kept from the world at Anbarth. She is gone forever,” Reina said. “Whether I wish it or not.”

Her resigned tone cut to Galien’s very core. “Wallace wishes for me to come with him. To train men waiting for him in the Ettrick Forest.” He’d blurted it, knew it had to be said, but suddenly Galien felt as if he were a coward for doing it in total darkness. Standing and reaching for the door, he opened it.

Just a crack.

But it was enough.

“You will go with him?”

He could not tell her aye or nay. Galien was as conflicted now as he’d been throughout their journey. Knowing how he felt for her, but also the vow that he’d made. . .

“Your father sacrificed much to protect you. And despite what it cost him, he’s kept his vow to you. I would do the same, Reina.”

“You made no vow to me, Galien,” she said.

He wished she would be angry. Shove him away from her. Push him toward the door. Instead, she reached up her hand, placing it on his cheek, as he’d once done to her. “But you did make one to Wallace.”

His chest constricted. “I love you, Reina.” Galien’s hand covered hers.

The sweetness of her gesture, the pain in Reina’s eyes. It was too much. When a tear began to form in the corner of his eye, he let it. And when it fell onto their hands, Galien did not wipe it away or try to hide his pain.

Being chained to a wall? ’Twas nothing compared to having his heart ripped from his chest as it was at this very moment.

“I know you do, Galien,” she said, wiping away both of his tears then. “And I love you too.”

The others had all left. Wallace declined his offer to remain in the keep, knowing it would be difficult for him to remain mostly hidden. Galien had offered alternative lodgings for him and his companions, but he shrugged those off as well.

“We’ve been sleeping among the trees for years, as you know. I’d do so tonight, at peace for having delivered a supporter such as Anbarth to your gates to reunite with his daughter.”

“I would thank you,” Galien said, “for doing so.”

“No thanks are necessary. We need all of the support we can muster, especially across the border. Anbarth is a welcome ally.”

Galien was glad for it, but not for the unanswered question lingering in the room. Wallace was leaving, and he would have to make a decision. Soon.

“I will bring supplies in the morning,” he said. “There is a clearing by the river, one we use for training. I will advise the guards ’tis a guest who inhabits the area this eve, if you wish it.”

“Will you be coming with us?” Wallace asked bluntly.

Galien opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off before he could give an answer.

“My apologies, Kerr, for Lady Reina. I did not realize your claim to her until your abrupt departure from the hall.”

“I have no claim to her.” The words did not come easily for him.

“Perhaps not. But you wish to.”

That, he could not deny.

William, in the same way he had the day they’d met, reached for Galien’s forearm. He clasped it, his grip firm. His gaze, even firmer. “When you joined this fight, I rejoiced for having such a man by my side. I was right to do so. You saved me just as Lady Reina saved you. You’ve no debt to me, Galien. But you do have one to the cause you’ve pledged yourself to. We all do if Scotland will ever be free from tyranny’s grasp.” William let his arm go. “How you pay that debt is for you, and you alone, to reconcile.”

He’d not have expected the man to give him answers. William Wallace never coerced, he spoke truth. And in that truth, those who fought for him decided for themselves. The men and women, relatives, friends, who had died at the hands of a ruthless king. The suffering that none could see an end to, especially north, in the Highlands, where King Edward’s long shanks never quite reached, his haranguing of the borders keeping the monarch content, for now. Every borderer had their own truth to face, and his was the lifeless eyes of a ten year old, the same age as he’d been at the time, being carried into Brockburg’s courtyard. The result of yet another raid sanctioned by a man Galien had thought, at that age, to be above such tactics. Galien had learned that day rank made men not less fallible, but more so.

He’d hated the English king that day, even more so as the wails of the boy’s mother reached his ears. Galien’s own mother had come to them, led he and his sister away. Murmuring words of comfort that stable master’s son would never hear again. So few days did Galien close his eyes for sleep that he didn’t see the light brown eyes of that boy staring back at him.