Page 46 of Fragile Oath

Though I would sooner diethan admit it to her face, I wished Gwyn had stayed.

Now that we were out of the safety of the forest, she could have been in here with Galina without rousing the suspicion of the entire squadron, and she loved me enough to keep Galina safe no matter her personal feelings on the matter. Besides, Gwyn stirred at the first sign of intrusion. She had proven that more than once.

Maybe then I could have gotten some sleep.

Or maybe it would have always been a lost cause when I could hear Galina’s ragged breaths from the bed, when I homed in on every noise outside the door, wondering if yet another person had come to try to hurt her, to take her against her will.

Which then led me to wondering if Lochlann had been just another place she existed against her will, no more than the lesser of two evils. All of that was to say nothing of the dread for what awaited me back home.

So instead of resting, I chased shadows across the ceiling and watched as the flames in the hearth dwindled to ash.

By the time morning came, I was more than anxious to get back on the road. I left while Galina was still feigning sleep. Of course, it was a short-lived reprieve since her horse was next to mine.

She didn’t try to speak, though. Not then. Not on our short breaks throughout the day. Not during another endless night in her room.

Though Hamish and Ewan were back to taking shifts standing guard outside of her room each night, I still slept on her sofa for reasons I refused to put into words. She didn’t question it, either, opening the door each night and padding soundlessly to her bed.

Instead of getting closer to speaking, we seemed to be drifting further from it, the air between us taut with lies and secrets and broken promises and burnt corpses.

Five days passed that way, in icy mutual stoicism and unspoken questions. The night before we made it to Lithlinglau started out like the others. I reluctantly knocked, and she answered with her expression perfectly guarded, though her narrow shoulders were more rigid than usual.

The faint scent of lavender wafted off of her and I tried not to think or breathe or remember the way that scent tasted on my lips in the early hours of the morning. I walked around her, more desperate than I should have been to reach the relative safety of the room’s sofa.

Except that there was no sofa. Which explained her tension.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I said shortly.

“That isn’t necessary,” she responded in the same brisk tone.

“It is, actually.” Another beat of silence fell, this one even weightier than the last.

Then I pulled the additional blanket I had ordered from the bedside table and threw it on the floor between the door and the bed. She sucked in a breath like she might argue again, but I grabbed the extra pillow and laid down before she could get the words out.

Slowly, she exhaled, the sound somehow both gentle and disruptive. The silence between us stretched on, filled only by the soft shuffle of Galina settling into the bed and the occasional distant footsteps from beyond the room.

Though every night had been tense and sleepless, this one felt different. Perhaps it was the way she seemed poised just on the edge of speaking, of broaching the impossible divide between us, and I couldn’t decide if I was ready to hear what she had to say – if I would be able to believe it, anyway.

Or perhaps it was just that somewhere on this very hard floor, it was getting more difficult to ignore just how far we had come from rooftops and murmured affirmations in the dark, and I still didn’t understand where the hell everything had gone wrong.

The questions assaulted me like a barrage of hailstones, unyielding and unforgiving, leaving me battered and bruised before I finally forced myself to voice aloud the one that plagued me the most.

“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

I hadn’t realized I could hear her breathing until she stopped. One heartbeat passed, then another.

“No.” One word, delivered without an ounce of uncertainty.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. For her to lie? Again? Was it better that she had told me the truth?

Some part of me believed she would take it back or elaborate, but the minutes stretched on in another unending silence. I let out a slow breath, something finally clicking into place inside of me.

However I felt about Galina, I couldn’t keep holding out for whatever scraps of truth or affection she chose to dole out. Besides, if everything my uncle warned me about was true, I had more than enough to concern myself with right now.

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

ChapterTwenty-Three

GALINA

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