Silent Knight (A Knights Through Time Romance #22)

Chapter 1

Something was wrong. Gareth de Clare felt it in his bones—that prickle at the back of his neck, the way the night birds had gone silent, the unnatural stillness that meant death was stalking someone through these woods.

Tonight, it was stalking him.

“Hold.” He raised a fist, his men bringing their horses to a halt. The road through Blackwood Forest was treacherous in daylight. At night, with only a sliver of moon to guide them, it was madness. But Lord Alaric’s message had been urgent.

Come at once. A matter of grave importance.

Gareth had ridden out without question. Twelve years he’d served Alaric de Montrevain—since he was a boy of seven, fostered at Dunharrow Keep.

Alaric had trained him, shaped him, made him into the warrior he was today.

When Alaric summoned, Gareth answered. Even when the summons came in the dead of night.

Even when it led through a forest that suddenly felt like a grave.

“My lord?” Sir Bran, his second, moved his horse alongside. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Gareth loosened his sword in its scabbard. The familiar weight of the blade was a comfort. “But I don’t like it.”

“Could be bandits.”

“Mayhap.” He didn’t believe it. Bandits avoided this road—Gareth had made sure of it. Three months of hunting them down had cleared the forest for honest travelers. The common folk had started calling him a hero for it. The king himself had taken notice.

The king.

Gareth’s jaw tightened. Six months ago, before going on crusade, Richard had granted him Greywatch Castle—along with title, lands, and enough gold to make a minor lord weep.

A reward for saving the king’s cousin during a skirmish with Scottish raiders.

Gareth had simply done his duty, but Richard was generous to those who served him well.

Alaric had smiled when he heard the news.

Had clasped Gareth’s hand and called him son.

Had said he was proud. But something in his eyes had flickered.

Something cold. Something that looked almost like hate.

Surely was a mere trick of the light, nothing more.

And so, Gareth pushed the thought away. Alaric was his lord.

His mentor. The closest thing to a father he’d ever known.

Whatever darkness Gareth imagined, it was just his own guilt.

His own fear of surpassing the man who’d made him.

“There.” Sir Bran pointed to a clearing ahead. “Torchlight.”

Too bright. Too exposed. Every instinct Gareth possessed screamed ’twas a trap.

“Wait here,” he said. “If I don’t return in—”

The arrow took Bran through the throat.

The night exploded. Men poured from the trees—a dozen, two dozen, more. They wore no colors, carried no banners. Just swords and murder in their eyes.

Gareth drew his blade and buried it in the first man’s chest before his horse stopped moving.

The second came from his left as he caught the blow on his shield and opened the man from hip to shoulder.

A third. A fourth. He moved without thinking, his body doing what it had been trained to do since childhood.

“To me!” he roared. “Rally to me!”

But his men were falling. Sir Bran lay still in the mud. Young Thomas—barely eighteen—screamed as a blade found his belly. One by one, the six men who’d followed Gareth without question died in the darkness of Blackwood Forest.

Gareth killed seven men. Then eight. Then nine. His arm burned. Blood ran down his face from a cut he didn’t remember taking. Still they came.

And then he heard it.

“Make it slow.” The voice drifted from the shadows beyond the torchlight. Cultured. Cold. Familiar. “I want him to know who sent him to hell.”

Gareth went rigid.

No.

Lord Alaric de Montrevain stepped into the clearing. He was dressed for riding, not battle—fine wool and supple leather, not a speck of mud on his boots. He looked at Gareth the way a man might look at a dog who’d bitten its master.

“Alaric.” The name came out broken. “Why?”

“Why?” Alaric laughed, but there was no warmth in it. “You have to ask? I spent fifteen years positioning myself to be awarded Greywatch. Fifteen years of marriages, bribes, patient, careful work. And then you—” He spat the word. “My own creature, my own creation, swept in and took it from me.”

“I didn’t—the king—”

“The king gave you what should have been mine.” Alaric’s voice went soft. Dangerous. “Everything you are, I made you. Your skill with a sword? I paid for your training. Your honor? I taught you what that word means. Your life?” He smiled, thin and cruel. “That belongs to me too.”

The remaining attackers pressed closer. Gareth counted seven still standing. He and his men had taken out many, but not enough. His sword arm shook with exhaustion. He could take three, maybe four more.

Not seven.

Not when he couldn’t tear his gaze from the man who’d raised him.

“You should have stayed beneath me, dog.” Alaric turned away, already bored. “Now your castle, your title, your gold—they’ll all revert to someone more deserving. Finish it.”

They came at him all at once.

Gareth killed two more before the blade found his throat.

It wasn’t a clean strike—the man wielding it was tired, sloppy. The sword bit deep but missed the great vein by a finger’s width. Gareth felt the burn of it, the hot rush of blood down his chest, the way his legs suddenly refused to hold him.

He fell.

Above him, the stars wheeled against an indifferent sky. He heard voices—Alaric giving orders, horses riding away, the groans of dying men. His men. Men who’d trusted him. Men who’d died because he’d been too blind to see the trap.

Get up, something whispered. Get up and fight.

He couldn’t. His body had finally failed him. The blood was a river now, soaking into the earth, stealing his warmth. His life.

Get up.

Gareth de Clare was not a man who surrendered. Not to enemies. Not to pain. Not to death itself.

He rolled onto his belly. Dragged himself forward. One arm, then the other. The forest floor was cold and wet and reeked of blood and churned earth. He didn’t know where he was going. Away. Anywhere.

The edge of the clearing. The shelter of the trees. A root to pull himself over, then another. His vision grayed. His fingers stopped obeying.

Still he crawled.

Alaric.

The name burned in his mind. Brighter than the pain. Hotter than the hatred. He tried to say it aloud—what came out was a sound like grinding stone, a wet rasp that barely qualified as human.

He’d been betrayed by the man who’d raised him, by the voice he’d trusted above all others.

Words were lies, weapons. Words were the pretty poison Alaric had poured in his ear for twelve years, and Gareth had drunk it down like wine.

Never again.

He crawled toward the treeline, toward the old drainage route his father had shown him as a boy—“Every castle has its secrets, son. Dunharrow’s run deeper than most.” He crawled until he couldn’t crawl anymore. Until the darkness took him, and he knew nothing at all.

He woke in a cottage that smelled of herbs and some kind of savory soup. An old woman bent over him, pressing something foul against his throat. He tried to speak—to ask where he was, what had happened, if any of his men had survived—

What came out was a ruin. Gravel scraping over broken glass. A sound that hurt to make and hurt to hear.

“Don’t try to talk,” the woman said. “Your voice is damaged. It may heal.” She paused. “It may not.”

Gareth closed his eyes.

Three months later, he rode through the gates of Greywatch Castle.

His sword arm had healed. His throat had scarred over—a brutal line from ear to collarbone that made strong men look away.

His voice had returned, after a fashion.

He could speak, a terrible sound, more like that of a beast, if he chose to.

He chose silence instead.

Alaric had used words to destroy him. Had whispered lies and called them friendship.

Had made promises and called them truth.

Words were a battlefield Gareth no longer wished to fight on.

So he let silence become his armor. Let his sword speak for him.

Let his reputation spread—The Silent Reaper, they called him, because death came without warning when he was involved.

The last word he spoke was his betrayer’s name.

Alaric.

A curse. A promise.

Three years passed. The silence held. And Gareth waited—for what, he couldn’t say. Revenge, perhaps. Justice. Or simply an end to the hollow ache where his trust used to live.

He was still waiting when the storm came.