sang. He guarded the king when he spoke with his advisors and trailed him when he walked the grounds. He was even asked to rove the corridors and walk along the temple wall to listen for approaching threats before he retired at night.
It was odd how so many feared him . . . and how Banruud feared him not at all. King Banruud did not think him a threat; Hod suspected he did not think him a man. It was as if he considered Hod a trained raptor, skilled and useful but without emotion or humanity. As if, having no eyes, he had no soul.
He was good at being useful and invisible at the same time. It was how he’d survived in Gudrun’s realm all those years. The temple mount was not the Northlands; it was simultaneously more civilized and more remote, more open and more oppressed. He did not dodge blades and evade blows at every turn, but the quiet desperation on the hill was much harder for him to endure. Mayhaps it was simply his proximity to Ghisla.
The temple itself teemed with worried hearts. He could hear Ghost and Dagmar and Master Ivo. He could hear the keepers and the daughters, and he could hear Ghisla. Even when he lay down to sleep in his strange bed in his strange new room he could hear her, and her nearness filled him with both elation and grief.
She had no freedom. He knew she could not seek him out. But twice she’d seen him in the corridor outside Banruud’s chamber, and twice she’d run from him. She was upset by his presence. He could hear it in her heartbeat and in her shallow breaths. But she had avoided him long enough.
When Banruud summoned her again, he was waiting when she exited the king’s rooms. The halls were quiet, the sentry sleeping, and Hod stood directly across from the door so she would not flee.
“I must go,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Banruud will hear.”
“He will not. But let us walk.” He held out his hand, inviting her to come with him, and she moaned, the sound barely audible, as if she stood on a precipice from which she desperately wanted to jump.
She did not take his proffered hand but turned and walked deeper into the corridor, away from the stairs and the heat of the sconces. She sought the shadows, and he followed her. When she stopped, he stopped too, keeping a safe distance between them. He did not want to push her. He just wanted to be near her.
“What do you want, Hod?” she asked quietly. The words wounded him, but he did not flinch.
“I have missed you,” he confessed. “I don’t want to miss you anymore.”
Again the faint moan.
“And why . . . are you here?”
“You know why I’m here, Ghisla.”
“You cannot call me that out loud. I am Liis of Leok.”
“We are alone. And you are Ghisla to me.”
“Why are you here?” she insisted again. He knew she didn’t mean the corridor or even the castle. She wanted to know his intentions.
“I knew no other way to be near you. Arwin is dead. Saylok is dying. I cannot be a keeper. I have no clan. I have no family. I have only you. You are the only thing that matters to me. So I am here.”
“It has been years,” she said, her words a hushed wail.
“I am here,” he said again.
“You are the North King’s man.”
“No. I am Hod. The same Hod you have known for a decade. The same Hod you once loved.”
“You are the king’s man!” she said, adamant, but Hod could hear the tears in her throat.
“I am Ghisla’s man. I have only ever been yours.”
Her heart was pushing, pulsing, pulling at him, and he could smell the want on her skin and feel the weight of her stare. He reached out toward her again, beseeching, but this time he turned his palm up, exposing to her gaze the rune that had connected them for so long. For a moment he thought she would reject him again, that she would flee.
The corridor was quiet. The king was in his chamber, his breaths steady and his sleep deep. Below them, in the kitchen, the hum of voices and the heat of bodies radiated up through the floor. Food was being prepared for people who would sleep for hours yet. But they were alone. Finally. Blessedly. Alone. And he heard the moment she raised her