Chapter 30
The castle felt too small when Erica returned to her room. She let Leah strip her out of her dress and wash the cut on her throat. When the room emptied at last, the door opened again.
Her mother stepped inside, eyes swollen from a long evening, folded parchment in hand. “This came with the evening riders,” she said softly. “For ye.”
Erica took it. Her name sat on the seal in—
Wait.
She knew that hand.
She looked up at her mother, her eyes widening. “Is this from—”
“Yer braither. Aye.”
Erica looked back down at it, tears blurring her vision. She broke the seal with a thumb that still shook and read by the low fire.
Her brother was alive.
Her father, unfortunately, was discovered to be the traitor. The words struck her like water after thirst.
He lied to us, Erica.
Her brother added that he was coming.
When she lowered the page, her mother’s expression had shifted. Hope and fear mingled.
She found her voice. “We can leave. We can meet him, hear it from his mouth, and put this right.”
The latch clicked. Alex stood in the doorway. He had cleaned the blood from his face, but not from the cut on his arm. He looked at the letter, then at her.
“What is that?” he asked.
Erica stared at him and swallowed.
“Did something happen?” he pressed, as if he thought she hadn’t heard him the first time.
Erica straightened. “‘Tis me braither. He is alive.”
“And yer faither?”
Her throat closed up at the mention of her father. For the next few seconds, she couldn’t speak.
“It turns out he was a traitor, after all.” Her mother decided to fill the silence.
“I need to leave the castle. I need to go see Evander.”
Alex nodded without interrupting. Not even once. “Ye willnae leave without guards.”
“Ye daenae get to choose,” she answered, steady now. “Nae for this.”
His jaw worked. “It is me castle. I will keep ye safe.”
She folded the letter. “Safety isnae the only thing I need.”
They stared at one another across the small room. Her mother stepped past him and left them.
Erica turned and tucked the letter in a drawer, then closed the distance between them. “I will leave first thing in the morning.”
“Ye are still mine for the night, ye ken,” he said, voice rough.
He leaned in and pulled her into a kiss. She relaxed into him, forgetting all the pain she had gone through in the span of one night. She remembered what it felt like to sink into him, to feel his hands on her. To see firsthand what she was going to miss.
“If we do this,” she whispered, hands fisting in his shirt, “I will never leave.”
He stilled, and she felt the fight in him, felt it pass through him and settle. His hand dropped. He looked at her as if he could build another life by looking long enough.
She stepped back. “I choose pain now, nae ruin later.”
He closed his eyes, then nodded once, as if he were binding himself to a hard truth. He left without another word.
Much later, Grandmamma found her tying her nightrobe. The old woman’s eyes took in the packed satchel, the pale set of Erica’s mouth, the line at her throat.
“I had hoped ye would marry,” she said, tired and kind. “Ye were the best fake daughter-in-law I have ever had.”
“Thank ye,” Erica answered, a smile on her face.
Grandmamma patted her cheek. “Ye have a good heart. It will cost ye. I bless ye anyway.”
Erica laughed again, her voice clear.
Midnight came, and she still couldn’t sleep. She lay on her side, eyes open to the dark, breath caught between thoughts that would not settle. Sleep would not take her. She turned her pillow and stared at the ceiling again.
The knock hit hard and fast.
“Help,” a small voice cried. “Please. Me faither is trapped.”
Erica was on her feet before the second breath. She pulled a shawl around her shoulders and yanked the door wide. Bettie stood there with Katie at her side, both of them flushed and solemn, as if the night itself had ordered them to be brave.
“What is it?” she asked. “Where is he?”
“This way,” Bettie whispered.
They hurried down the passageway, the candle flame shivering in the draft. Erica’s heart thudded high and sharp.
The girls moved too assuredly. Their hands were too steady. She knew it, yet she followed them anyway.
Was this another joke?