Page 5 of A Kingdom's Heart
Our eyes met. Blue, clear even in the dark.
For an instant, the world narrowed to that single color. My breath caught. The memory came rushing back to the theatre, the torchlight on her hair, the way she had vanished into the rain.
It was her.
The sword slipped from my hand and struck the floor with a dull sound. I took a step back, half in disbelief, half in relief.
“You,” I breathed. Then, quickly, “Yes, of course. Come in.”
She hesitated with an uncertain look. Her eyes flickered past me toward the light within. Her hand gripped the edge of her cloak as if she might turn and flee.
“It is alright,” I said quietly. I made myself soften my tone. “You’ll catch your death if you stay out there. Please, come inside.”
For a moment longer she waited, then stepped across the threshold.
I closed the door behind her. The latch clicked, and the storm fell away to a muffled roar against the roof. The air inside seemed to shift, warmer, filled with the faint scent of rain and earth. For the first time in a long while, the house felt different. Alive somehow.
I turned to face her. “You are soaked through. Sit by the fire.”
She looked around the room as though uncertain whether she belonged here. Her eyes moved slowly over the shelves, the wooden table, the sword rack on the wall. When they came back to me, my chest tightened. My heart was beating too fast, and I wasn’t sure why.
I had imagined her face a hundred times on the ride home, and yet seeing her here, standing in my doorway, felt unreal. The same girl from the theatre. The same eyes that had caught mine before disappearing into the night.
I forced myself to look away. My hands moved automatically, gathering bits of kindling from beside the hearth. I knelt, struck the flint, and coaxed a flame from the dry twigs. The fire caught, spreading slow and steady until the room began to glow with a soft orange light.
“Sit,” I said quietly, glancing up at her. “Warm yourself.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. The cloak clung to her shoulders as she crossed the floor, her steps light but uncertain. She sat near the hearth, holding her hands toward the flame. Her fingers were pale, trembling slightly as the warmth reached them.
“Thank you,” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper.
I leaned against the wall, watching her. The firelight danced across her face, turning her hair to gold and casting long shadows behind her. She kept her eyes on the flames, silent, her cloak slowly drying against her shoulders.
I wondered how she had come to be here. How she had made it all the way from the village in this weather. The forest roads were rough even in daylight. At night, in a storm like this, they were dangerous.
Neither of us spoke for a while. The rain pressed softly against the roof, steady and low. The sound filled the space between us, unbroken but not uncomfortable.
At last I said, “Are you alright?”
She looked up at me, startled, then nodded quickly. “I’m fine.”
I studied her face for a moment, unsure if I believed it. “Even after the theatre today?”
Her eyes widened. For a heartbeat she looked as though she might deny it, then her shoulders dropped. “Oh,” she said softly. “You recognized me.”
“I did,” I said.
Color rose faintly in her cheeks. “Thank you,” she murmured. “For what you did. I didn’t get to say it earlier.”
I shook my head. “You owe me no thanks. Those men were drunk and cruel. Anyone would have stepped in.”
Her gaze dropped to the fire again. The light flickered over her hands, pale against the dark cloth. “Not everyone would have,” she said softly.
The words stilled me. For a heartbeat, I only watched her, uncertain how to answer. She said it like someone who had learned the truth of it too many times.
Something inside me shifted. The ease I had felt began to fade, replaced by the slow ache I could not name. I had thought of all the times I had turned away from another’s pain, or stood silent when I should have spoken. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps not everyone would have. So I was glad I did.
The rain whispered against the walls, filling the silence between us.
