Page 128 of The Duke and the Disciple

Tears spilled from her eyes. She reached a shaking hand up to wipe them, but there’d be more. Rahn had awakened that in her, like so many other things, and she’d never be able to put her heart back in a box. It would never be safe again. “If you’re going to lie to me, then look at me when you do it. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.”

“You’re the one forcing my hand here?—”

“Look at me, Adrahn, and tell me you feel nothing for me!”

His hands clenched into fists before they slid away. He seemed to fortify himself before sitting up, but she could see, before he ever opened his mouth, that no matter how he felt, he would hold fast to his meaningless convictions. They were all he had.

His face and eyes were red, but he locked both on her, just as she’d asked, and said, “I do love you, Aesylt, but not like that. I’m deeply sorry if I inadvertently contributed to your belief otherwise.”

Aesylt nodded, at first slowly but then faster, her movements gaining speed and courage as she took one last look at the room where she’d returned to life. She could hardly breathe for all the effort it took, her thoughts a scattered tempest of where she’d been before and where she needed to go next.

She’d already packed a small bag, though she almost hadn’t. A part of her had believed Rahn would, faced with the finality of it all, finally break down the walls keeping them apart. But it was not to be, and there was nothing left to the wreckage but more groveling... more pain.

“Well, uh... Thank you, I suppose, for your honesty,” she said, blinking the spots from her eyes as she reached for her knapsack. “I won’t trouble you about it again.”

“Where are you going with that?” Rahn pointed at the bag.

“Do you care?” She swung it over her shoulder and took another look around the room to be sure she had missed nothing critical. But she didn’t need much where she was going. Her gowns would be sent home with her trunks. “My brother’s here now. Whatever promise you made to him has been fulfilled.”

“I care.” His voice broke, but she knew without looking that it meant nothing, beyond how tired he was. Of her. Of their research. Of all of it. “You don’t have to go on my account.”

“I’m going to sleep in the keep tonight, and I’ll stay there until either Drazhan lets me go home or my new husband decides I belong somewhere else. With our research concluded, there’s no reason we ever have to see each other again.”

“Aesylt.” He sighed. “I don’t want to leave things like this.”

“You were quite clear where you want to leave things.” She paused at the door. Beautiful, painful memories flashed through her mind. Their first time. The way he’d taken to sleeping in her bed when he could see she felt unsafe. How he watched her at supper when he didn’t think she was aware. The little ways he looked out for her. Maybe he was right, and she was the fool after all. The whole point had been to prove to herself she could separate emotion from her work, and she was the one who’d fallen in love anyway. “I should apologize for not respecting the rules, for falling for you against all my better judgment, but I find the words impossible to say.” She closed her eyes and rolled her hand with the doorknob. “Pieter was right. You’re a coward, Adrahn.”

“Wait—”

Whatever else he said was lost with the slam of the door. She heard a crash in the room, but she was already running down the steps, shoving her memories of Rahn Tindahl into the past where they belonged.

Lord Dereham didn’t questionher request to sleep in the keep that night. There was already a room made up, and they were more than happy to offer it to her. She saw relief in his eyes when she asked, the lord probably thinking about how it would look to others to have his future daughter-in-law shacking up with her scholar.

She had no intention of sleeping, however.

Not in Wulfsgate Keep.

Maybe not at all, depending on how the night went.

It was past midnight before she slipped out of the room, armed with the lies she would tell to slip from one place to another.

Another half tick of the moon passed before she made it to the stables, dressed in Rahn’s clothing, hooded in his cloak. It was easier than it should have been to join a caravan leaving through the gates headed north. No one even looked twice at the smallish “man” huddled in the back of one of the wagons, holding tight to the stupid wooden squirrel she should have left in Wulfsgate.

Two hours later, she rode into the tiny village of Voyager’s Rest, on the back of a horse she’d stolen from the caravan when they’d stopped to fill their waterskins.

It was a town for travelers, a row of inns lining the main road. She’d been there once before, when her father and Hraz had been alive. They’d taken her and Val along for a trip to Wulfsgate, but a storm had waylaid their arrival, so they’d been forced to take a room for the night.

Val would remember. He had to.

She paid double for the room and asked where she might find a ravener. The pubkeep directed her to a tower at the end of the road, and she made her way down there, her hood drawn and her dangerous letter in hand.

Sending a raven to Witchwood Cross came with significant risk, but even if her words fell into the wrong hands, no one would be able to read them—no one except Nik and Val, who had learned the language of Old Ilynglass same as she had, from Rahn. The rest of the cohort hadn’t been interested in such a daunting endeavor, but Nik and Val had relished the idea of knowing something no one else in the village did.

If she sent the message straight to Val, it would be burned before he even knew of it. But it might reach him if it made it safely to Niklaus first.

Aesylt pulled Nik’s handkerchief from her satchel and handed it to the ravener. “This has his scent on it. But here are the coordinates that will get your bird close. Is that enough?”

“It’s enough,” the ravener replied and accepted her coin.

---