myself by marrying a fairy royal, as Queen Etheline had initially demanded in return for peace.
But whatever I felt towards fairies, and how they might still end up damning me to a fate worse than death, it wasn’t Robin’s fault that his mother was one. Just like it wasn’t my fault Zomoroda Shamash was mine.
“Let’s hear you say it, Briar.”
I shook my head again. “I’m so wound up and stressed, I almost took my anger at fairies out on you, and it’s not fair—especially when I came here to thank you for saving Agnë’s life, at the risk of your own—so, thank you.”
Robin bowed his head, seeming to accept my apology or thanks, or both.
And I blurted out, “Why did you do that?”
He blinked at me. “Do what?”
“Throw yourself into the ghouls’ midst?”
He seemed even more perplexed. “Because if I hadn’t, your friend would be being digested in a dozen separate stomachs as we speak.”
“Why put yourself at risk of the same fate, then?”
“Briar, I fought on the frontlines, then spent years courting the ire of powerful men by disrupting their corruption. I’m used to being in danger. And I came to this place to rescue a girl taken by beasts. It would be contrary to everything I stand for if I didn’t try to rescue anyone in similar danger.”
“You’re quite honorable for an outlaw.”
“Dealing with dishonor is what made me an outlaw. I see injustice that everyone turns a blind eye to, and I deal with it myself, even if I get a price on my head for it.”
I bit my lip, trying to imagine what it must have been like for him. “That’s a miserable, thankless existence to choose.”
He smiled, and winced again, licking his own lip. “It’s not, if I’m lessening the misery around me. And it would be thankless if I had no impact. The good results are thanks enough.”
He’d said something to the same effect before. Words worthy of chivalric oaths, of men worth following into battle, and being immortalized in song. Ideals I hadn’t expected Robin Hood of all people to spout.
I hadn’t believed them when he’d first said them. But now, after I’d seen the evidence of his chivalry with my own eyes?
“You would have made a great knight,” I murmured.
He exhaled. “That was the dream before it all fell apart. My father was a knight in his youth.”
“You can still achieve it, once this is all over and done with.” If I returned to Arbore whole, I would see to it that my father absolved whatever charges my uncle made against Robin, and knighted him. “Saving Agnë alone would be worth acknowledgement from the king.”
He sagged back. “I didn’t do it expecting acknowledgement. And I would have done it even if I was certain I would die.”
“But why?”
He let out a weary chuckle. “Because I can’t help myself. Ever since the first time I helped someone, I haven’t been able to stop.”
“You’re compelled to help? Is that some sort of curse?”
That busted a harsh laugh out of him, before he stopped as abruptly, touching his bandaged side with a hiss. “Don’t make me laugh. The healers said to let their magic set till tomorrow.” He shook his head as he relaxed back. “You sound like Will. He likes to help in general, but thinks I have a problem. But my only problem is that I don’t pick and choose what’s worth my intervention. Whenever I see someone who can’t help themselves, I have to do something.”
“Even if it kills you?”
“It hasn’t yet.”
“But it so easily can! If not for the fairy healers, it might have this time!”
“Briar, if I don’t do it, no one else will. And I can’t live with knowing that something preventable had come to pass, just because I didn’t stop it.”
He’d also said something similar before, and I’d waved it off as a criminal justifying his wrongdoing, or trying to convince himself he was good. But seeing his face now, he was genuine. He felt an inordinate amount of responsibility towards the common man, something not even my father felt that passionately, and he was the nominal Father of the Realm.
“So that’s why you took me with you? Not for any gift of gratitude from my influential father, or pardon I can negotiate for you?”
“I don’t need a pardon,” he dismissed. “I did nothing wrong.”
“The law says you did.”
“Being against the law is not synonymous with being evil,” he said, a fervent note entering his melodic voice. “Lots