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"You would be very good at it," he said simply. "You are amazing at everything you do. I'm just sorry I took so long to tell you that."

She did not argue, but her face felt hot.

They spoke of children, too—carefully, like stepping on thin ice.

"I was not ready," she said one night, staring into the small brazier between them. "I don't know if I will ever be ready."

"I know…and I am to blame. But if that day ever comes," he continued quietly, looking at her as if she were the brightest star in the sky. "It will be when you want it. You own me in ways you will never know."

Her eyes met his.

"I will wait, Fae," he said. "However long it takes."

And she believed he meant it.

***

One afternoon she handed him a small wooden box.

At first glance, it was simple. Smooth-grained chestnut wood, fitted with a sliding lid. But when he turned it in his hands, he saw the detail.

Inside, carved along the inner rim, were two wolves running side by side.

His throat felt tight with hope.

"I made it," she said, almost defensively. "For whatever you choose to keep."

He closed the lid carefully. "I know what I want to keep in it."

In return, he sought out the village blacksmith. The man had been recommended by Haruko-san, who had watched the slow unfolding of all this with thinly veiled amusement.

"You are late," Haruko-san had told him dryly. "But perhaps not too late."

The blacksmith crafted a set of tools suited exactly for Fae's hands—lighter, perfectly balanced, the grips shaped to her palm. When he presented them, he seemed almost shy.

"They won't strain your wrist," he said.

She tested them. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly at how right they felt. "Thank you," she murmured.

"Did you like it?" he asked, and his face brightened when she nodded.

Haruko-san, watching from the doorway, hid a smile behind his sleeve.

None of it erased the past, but piece by piece, gesture by gesture, Blaidd had showed her something new.

He showed her that he was no longer the coward who had run; he was just a man trying to earn his way back to her.

Things were going well until a grim visitor from the north waited at the gate.

Chapter 40

The enforcer waited tensely at the gate, not crossing the border. He had the broad-shouldered, thick-muscled build of the northern tribes, carved more from granite than flesh. Tribal etchings darkened his arms and shoulders—inked spirals and jagged lines that marked hunts survived, winters endured, blood oaths kept. His hair was shaved close to the skull, practical and severe, unlike Sulien's longer dark hair tied back at the nape.

The moment Fae saw him, her stomach turned. Something was very wrong.

He bowed first to Blaidd, fist over heart. He took his time, as if delaying the inevitable.

Blaidd's spine was ramrod straight with tension.