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"I won't use my voice or our bond to force you to stay out of Nottingham. If I did, I'd be taking away the very freedom you've spent years fighting for."

"Guy."

"You were fighting Fitzwalter long before I knew who you were. You have every right to decide what happens next."

I squeezed her hand.

"But I'm asking you to think about what surrendering would actually accomplish."

She looked down.

"And if I decide to go?"

"Then I'll come with you."

Her head lifted.

"You can't be serious."

"I am."

"You'll be executed."

"Most likely."

"Guy!"

"And I'll complain about your terrible judgment the entire way to the scaffold."

She laughed. It was a small laugh, and it ended almost immediately. Then her face crumpled.

"I'm frightened," she admitted.

I stepped closer. "Of Fitzwalter?"

"No. Of being responsible." Her voice shook. "My father stood against those men because he believed it was the right thing to do, and they killed him for it."

She looked toward the road.

"Six years later, his fields are ruined, our home belongs to someone else, and an old woman who gave me shelter is sitting in a cell."

I waited.

"Every person who's helped me has risked something. Some of them have already paid for it."

She swallowed.

"I can't keep being the reason people suffer, Guy."

I pulled her against my uninjured side and held her.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Then I rested my cheek against her hair.

"I'm frightened too."

She looked up.