the provisions he’d been allotted. He’d retrieved his possessions from the carriage, and the women’s trunks had been transferred into a wagon. They had dry clothes, and furs to sleep on.
But Hod didn’t rest. He washed and ate and crawled into his tent. His face throbbed and his muscles ached, and he could hear Ghisla’s troubled heart as she drifted off and woke again, restlessly dreaming, hardly sleeping. When she said his name, knowing full well he would hear, he rose and went to her.
The sentry outside their tent had fallen asleep an hour after he arrived, and Hod shook him awake. It would be hours before the next watch came.
“I’m awake. I’ll take this shift,” he reassured the man, who stumbled off toward his tent, mumbling a grateful good night.
When he entered her tent, Ghisla was awake, and when he crouched down beside her, she sat up, silently greeting him. Her heart quickened, but it did not race, and her scent prickled his skin. She was warm and close, and he felt her eyes on his face.
“Alba sleeps deeply,” she murmured, “but you must listen and leave if she begins to stir.”
He nodded, his throat aching, his hands on his thighs. This was not what he wanted, this hushed conversation after all these years, but he would take it.
“You are hurt,” she whispered.
“I am fine.”
She raised her hands slowly, communicating her intentions, but when she rested her palms against his cheeks, he had to grit his teeth. It was not pain that made him harsh when she touched him. It was impatience. He had wanted to be near her for so long that he didn’t trust himself to be still. To be sane. To maintain the separation.
“Do not pull away. Please. I can help you.” She misinterpreted his discomfort.
“I will not pull away,” he ground out. It was the last thing he wanted to do.
She began to sing, the words so soft she barely said them, and his eyes began to stream.
Cry, cry, dear one, cry,
Let the pain out through your eyes.
Tears will wash it all away,
Cry until the bruises fade.
He groaned in relief, embarrassed by his tears, but she continued, her hands cool, her song tender, and he thought she might be crying too. He raised his hands and found her face, mirroring her position.
She was crying too, but she kept singing, softly coaxing his pain away.
Her face was small between his palms, the line of her jaw, the point of her chin, the tips of her brows, the lobes of her ears, all within his grasp. His thumbs rested at the corners of her mouth, feeling her words until her song ended. She did not move her hands. He did not move his.
“My rune is gone, Hod,” she whispered.
He nodded, a sob in his throat.
“Banruud burned his amulet into my hand.”
He nodded again.
“I tried to re-create the rune, but I could not. I sang and I sang . . . but you weren’t there.”
May the gods smite him now. He could not bear it.
“You thought I didn’t want you,” she moaned, and he knew she’d plucked the thoughts from his head as she’d leached the pain from his face.
He pulled away from her and dropped his hands, forcing her to drop hers.
He felt too much. He felt too much.
He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t smell. He couldn’t sense anything but her.
He rose and staggered from her tent, pulling air into his lungs and order to his thoughts as he walked deeper into the trees until he found a little clearing. For several long minutes he stood with his back to a big oak until his senses returned.
The camp was quiet, the night peaceful, the creatures stirring. He sensed no danger, no listening ears, no lurking strangers, but Ghisla had followed him.
“Hody,” Ghisla mourned, so softly. So sweetly. “Please don’t leave.”
He moved back toward her, wanting his staff, needing his shield, and knowing neither would help him now. He stopped several feet away, close enough to speak softly, far enough to not lose his mind.
“I thought you had . . . given up hope. That you had . . . given up . . . on me,” he whispered, trying not to scald her with the truth. “Arwin told me you would be queen of Saylok. He said you wore the king’s mark. Now I know what he meant. But I spent the last six years believing you were Banruud’s queen.”
“They call me Banruud’s harlot. His guards. They know