Chapter 14 #2
She felt Gareth’s presence behind her before he touched her shoulder. When she turned, his face was pale with fury—and beneath the fury, something that looked like fear.
You should not have spoken to him, he signed rapidly. He is dangerous.
I’m not a damsel in distress, she signed back. I won’t stand silent while someone threatens you.
His jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he might argue. Then something shifted in his expression—anger giving way to something more complicated.
He noticed you, he signed. Before, you were a curiosity. A piece of gossip. Now he sees you as leverage.
Against you?
Against everything. His hands stilled for a moment before continuing. Alaric does not simply want Greywatch. He wants me destroyed. And now he knows the best way to destroy me is through you.
The words hit her like a physical blow. She’d understood abstractly that getting involved in Gareth’s conflict might put her at risk. But she hadn’t fully grasped how thoroughly she’d become part of this—how completely her fate had become entangled with his.
“What do we do?” she asked aloud.
Gareth’s answer was a long time coming. When it came, his signs were slow, deliberate.
We prepare. We watch. And when he moves against us— His hands shaped the final word with brutal precision. We end this.
Three days after Alaric’s departure, one of Miles’ scouts returned with troubling news.
The man was dusty, exhausted, his horse lathered from hard riding. But his eyes were sharp as he delivered his report in the great hall, where Gareth had assembled his inner circle.
“He’s not going back to Dunharrow directly, my lord.” The scout glanced between Gareth and Bertram, uncertain whom to address. “He’s visiting Lord Ashworth. Lord Pemberton. Even stopped at the priory at Whitstone.”
“Building alliances,” Bertram said grimly. “Against whom?”
“Against you, my lord. Against anyone who might support you.” The scout hesitated, twisting his cap in his hands.
“There’s more. He’s been asking questions.
About the faerie woman. Where she came from.
Whether anyone’s seen her walk beyond the castle walls.
What path she takes when she leaves the keep. ”
Elodie’s blood ran cold. She felt the weight of every gaze in the room turn toward her.
Gareth’s expression went flat as a stone. Only someone who knew him well would see the tension in his jaw, the whitening of his knuckles where he gripped the arm of his chair.
He’s hunting, Gareth signed. Looking for weakness.
“He found one,” Elodie said quietly. “Me.”
The silence that followed was heavy with implications. Miles shifted his weight, one hand moving unconsciously to his sword hilt. Bertram’s face had gone pale beneath his white beard.
“We could send Lady Elodie away,” the steward suggested carefully. “To one of the southern manors, perhaps, until—”
No. Gareth’s sign was sharp, definitive. She stays where I can protect her.
“With respect, my lord,” Miles rumbled, “keeping her here makes her easier to find. If Alaric’s scouts are already watching the castle—”
Then they will see a fortress preparing for a siege. Gareth rose from his chair, and something in his bearing shifted—the lord giving way to the warrior. Double the patrols. No one enters or leaves without my knowledge. And find out which of our neighbors are listening to Alaric’s whispers.
He turned to Elodie, and his expression softened almost imperceptibly.
You wanted to walk the walls with Miles, he signed. Now it is not a lesson. It is a necessity.
She nodded, her throat tight. “I understand.”
There is something else. His hands moved slowly, as if the words cost him. Alaric is patient. He will not strike until he is certain of victory. That means he needs something he does not yet have.
“What?”
Someone inside our walls. His gaze swept the hall—the servants trying not to listen, the guards at the doors, the cook peering from the kitchen passage. He came here to scout. To judge our defenses. But he also came to make contact with whoever is feeding him information.
The thought made her skin crawl. Someone in this castle—someone who’d learned to sign, who’d shared meals with them, who’d watched Gareth begin to heal—was reporting everything to the man who wanted him dead.
“How do we find them?”
We watch and we wait. Something cold settled into Gareth’s expression. And when they reveal themselves, we make them wish they had chosen differently.
That night, Elodie stood with him on the battlements, watching the distant lights of Dunharrow flickering against the darkening sky. The wind cut sharp and cold, carrying the smell of rain.
“He’s going to move soon,” she said quietly.
Gareth nodded once, his eyes never leaving the distant torches.
The border raids, he signed. They will increase. He means to weaken us before the killing blow.
“Then we need allies. Other lords, someone who can—”
There is no one. His jaw tightened. Alaric has spent fifteen years building alliances. I have spent three years building walls.
Elodie’s mind raced through the possibilities. “What about your defenses? Are there weaknesses he might exploit? Postern gates, old tunnels, anything?”
There are always weaknesses. He turned to face her, and something in his expression had shifted—he was looking at her the way he looked at tactical problems, with focused intensity.
Tomorrow, you will walk the walls with Miles.
Learn every entrance, every blind spot. If trouble comes, you will know every way out.
“I’m not planning to run.”
Aye, I know. The ghost of something that might have been a smile crossed his face. That is why I need you to know. So when you choose to stay, you do it with full knowledge.
She wanted to argue, but the logic was sound. And beneath the tactical planning, she could see what he wasn’t saying, that he was trying to protect her, the only way he knew how.
“Fine,” she said. “Tomorrow, the walls. What else?”
The household. Someone told Alaric about the sign language. Someone watched us closely enough to report details. His hands moved sharply. We have a spy.
The word dropped between them like a stone into still water. Elodie thought of Marian’s eager face, of Bertram’s worried eyes, of all the servants who had slowly begun to treat her as one of their own.
“You think someone in the castle is working for him.”
I think Alaric does nothing without planning. He knew about you before today. He knew about the signs. Someone is feeding him information. Gareth’s expression darkened. Find them.
“Me?”
You see things I miss. People trust you. Talk to you. He reached out, brushed a strand of hair from her face with unexpected gentleness. Watch. Listen. Be the archaeologist you claim to be. Dig up what is buried.
The weight of the task settled onto her shoulders. She was no spy-catcher—she was an academic who’d fallen through time, still half-convinced that one morning she’d wake up in her London flat with a reasonable explanation for all of this.
But she nodded. This was her home now, these were her people, and Gareth was asking for her help.
“I’ll find them,” she said.
His hand lingered on her cheek for a moment longer. Then he stepped back, already turning toward the stairs.
Tomorrow, he signed. The walls with Miles. Then we talk about refugees.
“Refugees?”
A group will arrive by week’s end. Alaric’s raids have driven them from their homes. His expression was grim. More mouths to feed. More people to protect. And more opportunities for Alaric to slip someone inside our gates.
He disappeared down the stairwell, his footsteps fading into silence.
Elodie remained on the battlements, her mind already cataloguing the household, searching for anyone who seemed out of place, anyone who asked too many questions, anyone whose loyalty might be less certain than it appeared.
Somewhere out there in the darkness, Alaric was planning his next move. And somewhere in the castle behind her, someone was helping him do it.
She had to find them first.