Page 45 of Fragile Oath

Even if I could have forced myself to ask, I hadn’t spoken to him all day. Our breaks were short and seldom, the pace grueling under the watch of Lochlann’s former Captain-of-the-Guard-turned-King. I was exhausted and sore by the time we finally made it to the inn, and no closer to any answers.

After a short conference with Davin in which there appeared to be some sort of disagreement, Gallagher escorted me upstairs to my room. Someone must have sent word ahead, because there was a steaming bath waiting for me.

Then I was alone, taking my first pain-free bath in over a week.

Last night, between the steady, soothing noises of the camp and the fatigue from Gallagher healing the rest of my bruises, I had passed out almost immediately. There hadn’t been time to think. To feel. To do anything but sleep before Gallagher woke me for coffee, followed by a long day on the road.

It should have felt freeing, the silence. All my life, I had relished the opportunity to be alone to think, to process, but my thoughts were too loud, and the solitude, even more so.

Even the swish of the water and pad of my bare feet on the wooden floor sounded obtrusive in the empty space. I could still feel Alexei’s gaze on my bare skin, the odd way he regarded me with protectiveness and resentment and disdain and the slightest bit of curiosity. His death had put an end to his questions, but certainly not to mine.

Had his uncle forced him to come? If I had been a better fiancée to begin with, one who wasn’t already in love with another man, if he hadn’t sensed that distance from me, would our lives have gone differently?

It shouldn’t have mattered after everything he did, but the thoughts haunted me all the same.

Was this the way Davin had felt when he had sentenced the traitors to death? Like you were judging the difference in a stolen life weighed against your own soul, however justified?

Over and over again, I could see the flicker of acceptance when Alexei knew he was going to die, the fleeting moment of gratitude when I granted him a strange form of mercy in the form of death.

It contrasted with the memory of his fingers digging into my skin, the endearment I despised nearly as much as the sharp, clipped way he would utter my name in three distinct syllables of disappointment. The pieces of him were jagged and mismatched like a broken blacksmith’s puzzle, each one bearing down on my soul with a suffocating weight.

I didn’t regret my decision, and I didn’t regret being the one to make it. That didn’t stop me from picturing his dead eyes staring from a burnt corpse as I slipped my nightgown over my head, from wondering if his family would mourn him or only regret the loss of the future of their clan.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears, so loudly that it took me a moment to realize the rhythmic thud wasn’t only coming from me. Instead, there were two solid raps against the solid wood door.

It was too insistent for Gallagher, but altogether different from Davin’s impatient tapping. I crossed the floor, easing the door open. When I caught sight of who was on the other side, my eyes widened in shock.

“Davin,” I breathed. “Your knock was wrong.”

He only blinked at that, uncharacteristically quiet. There was no banter, no emotion at all coming from his perfect façade. He, too, had bathed, and shaved, apparently. The shadow on his defined jaw was gone. His hair was still disheveled, but it was more intentional now.

He looked pointedly behind me, and I stepped aside, scarcely daring to breathe.

"Ewan and Hamish are exhausted,” he said once the door was shut.

“All right.” My tone lilted at the end with the barest indication of a question.

He took a deep breath like he was frustrated I wasn’t putting something together. Was he looking for an apology? A solution?

“There are other guards, of course,” he explained slowly. “But given the situation with the rebels and…recent events, I don’t plan to leave you at the mercy of strangers.”

Oh.He was here to stay.

Why did that fill me with a mix of relief and terror, an overwhelming cocktail of safety and grief I couldn’t quite choke down?

“I—” I stopped, not sure what to say from there, and he ran a hand through his hair, tousling the damp locks even more.

“There’s no need for us to talk, certainly not tonight.” His tone was carefully detached. “Just get some rest, Galina.”

Relief and terror. Safety and grief.

I would have argued if I had been capable, or if I hadn’t sensed that he was saying the words as much for his own benefit as for mine. Instead, I only nodded, mutely watching Davin fall onto the small sofa before I climbed into my bed with all the pretense of going to sleep.

But sleep never came for me.

ChapterTwenty-Two

DAVIN

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