Chapter 20
Elodie lay in her narrow bed, listening to the sounds of a castle settling into an uneasy rest—the distant murmur of refugees in the bailey, the measured footsteps of guards on the walls, the creak and groan of ancient stones.
Her body ached with exhaustion, but her mind spun like a wheel, turning over the day’s events again and again.
The burned villages, terrified refugees, and the systematic pattern of destruction that Gareth’s men had confirmed. Someone wasn’t just raiding—they were strangling Greywatch, cutting off its supply lines, terrorizing its people, isolating it from its neighbors.
It had to be Alaric, but why now?
She threw off her blankets with a frustrated huff. Clearly, sleep wasn’t happening. She might as well make herself useful.
The castle corridors were quiet at this hour, lit only by guttering torches that cast dancing shadows across the stone walls. Her feet knew the way without conscious thought—down the narrow stairs, through the servants’ passage, and into the great hall.
She expected to find it empty. Instead, she found Gareth. He sat at the high table, maps spread before him in overlapping layers, a single candle casting golden light across his bent head. His dark hair fell forward, obscuring his face, so absorbed in his study that he didn’t hear her approach.
Elodie paused suddenly uncertain. He looked exhausted—shoulders bowed, jaw tight, one hand pressed against his temple as if trying to push back a headache.
The weight of responsibility hung visibly on him, and a sharp pang of something between sympathy and protectiveness went through her. She cleared her throat softly.
His head came up instantly, hand moving toward his sword before recognition registered. When he saw her, the tension in his shoulders eased.
You should be sleeping, he signed.
“So should you.” She crossed the hall to join him, her bare feet silent on the rushes. Up close, she could see the shadows under his eyes, the tight lines around his mouth. “May I?”
He nodded and shifted to make room on the bench. She settled beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and turned her attention to the maps.
They were rough by modern standards—hand-drawn, the proportions slightly off, distances measured in days’ travel rather than miles. But the pattern they revealed was unmistakable.
“Oh,” she breathed, tracing her finger across the parchment. “It’s a circle.”
Gareth’s eyes sharpened. He signed. Explain.
“Look.” She pointed to the sites of the attacks, each one marked with a small X in dark ink.
“Thornwick here. Harthollow here. The shepherd’s huts, the farmsteads—they form a ring around Greywatch.
” She traced the invisible line connecting them.
“He’s isolating you. These raids—they’re not about the villages.
They’re about cutting you off from potential allies. Anyone who might ride to your aid.”
Gareth stared at the map, then at her, his expression shifting from surprise to grim satisfaction.
You see it too. His signs were rapid, energized. I noticed the pattern, but I thought—
“You thought you might be paranoid?” She offered a wry smile.
“You’re not. This is deliberate. Strategic.
” She paused, considering. “In my time, we called this asymmetric warfare. But there’s a better example.
” She traced the circle on the map again.
“About a hundred years from now, give or take, there’ll be a Scottish king named Robert Bruce.
He’ll face an enemy with a much larger army—better equipped, better funded, everything.
He should lose. Everyone expects him to lose. ”
Gareth leaned forward, his attention sharpening.
“But he doesn’t fight the way they expect.
Instead of meeting them in open battle, he burns crops, poisons wells, drives off livestock.
He makes the land itself hostile. The enemy army marches in expecting conquest and finds.
.. nothing. No food or shelter. No one to fight.
Just empty hills and slow starvation.” She tapped the map.
“That’s what Alaric is doing. He’s not trying to storm your walls.
He’s trying to starve you out. Isolate you.
Make Greywatch wither until there’s nothing left to defend. ”
Gareth stared at her for a long moment. Then his hands moved, slow and wondering. You truly know the future.
“Some of it. The parts that got written down.” She offered a wry smile. “Bruce wins, by the way. Eventually. The larger army goes home with nothing.”
Good. Something fierce flickered in his expression. Then we follow his example. We do not wither.
Something warm unfurled in her chest. She ducked her head, suddenly shy, and focused on the maps again. “It’s Alaric.”
The warmth vanished from Gareth’s expression. He nodded once, his hand going to his throat, to the brutal scar that ran from beneath his ear to his collarbone. His fingers traced the ridge of damaged tissue with something that looked like grim remembrance.
Who else would want this? he signed. Who else hates me enough to spend months building to this moment?
“But why now? You said it’s been three years. Why wait so long? Why strike now?”
Gareth was quiet for a long moment. The candle flickered, sending shadows dancing across his scarred features. When he finally signed, his hands moved slowly, as if the words cost him something.
The king is away on crusade, the courts occupied with infighting. He paused. Because of you.
“What?”
Before you came, I was... He paused, searching for the right signs. Waiting. Patient. Alone. The Silent Reaper, haunting his own castle. Alaric could afford to wait. A dead man walking is no threat.
Elodie’s chest tightened. She remembered her first weeks at Greywatch—the servants who flinched, the halls that echoed with emptiness, the lord who ate alone in his chambers and spoke to no one. Gareth had been a ghost long before anyone thought to call him one.
But now. His hands moved faster, gaining conviction. Now I am building something. People trust me. The household thrives. I am becoming the lord he tried to kill. He cannot allow it.
“Because if you succeed—if Greywatch flourishes—then he won’t have a way to take it from you.” She understood now, with a cold clarity that made her shiver. “Your living well is worse than your living at all.”
Yes. His gaze met hers, steady and intense. And you are part of it. You changed everything. He sees you as my weakness.
“And the crown is too far away to help,” she said slowly, piecing it together. “Richard is in the Holy Land. His brother John—”
Schemes in his absence. Gareth’s signs were heavy. The regency council is weak. The north is lawless. No one is watching Alaric.
“No one except us.”
And we are exactly what he wants us to be. His jaw tightened. Alone.
The words should have frightened her. Instead, they sparked something defiant in her chest—a fierce, protective anger that she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling.
“Then he’s an idiot,” she said flatly.
Gareth blinked.
“He tried to have you killed.” Elodie’s voice was steadier than she expected, considering the trembling in her hands.
“He sent assassins to burn villages and terrorize innocent people. He’s been plotting this for months, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to destroy everything you’ve built.
And his grand strategy is to use me as bait? ”
Elodie was standing now, though she didn’t remember rising. The candle flame bent in the draft of her agitation.
“He thinks I’m your weakness because I’m a woman?
Because I talk too much and trip over my own feet and appeared here wearing a ridiculous faerie costume?
” She laughed, a sharp sound without humor.
“Good. Let him underestimate me. Let him think I’m nothing but a prize to be threatened.
” She leaned across the table, planting her hands on the maps, meeting Gareth’s startled gaze with fierce determination.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running. And I’m not going to let some murderous, arrogant waste of a nobleman use me to hurt you.”
Gareth stared at her.
For a long moment, he didn’t move at all. His face was unreadable, his body utterly still. Then something cracked behind his eyes, some wall she hadn’t even realized was there, and his expression turned into something raw and wondering and terribly, terribly vulnerable.
He reached across the table and took her hand.
Not to sign. Just to hold. His fingers intertwined with hers, calloused and warm, and he lifted her hand to his lips.
The kiss he pressed against her knuckles was barely more than a whisper of contact—gentle, reverent, like a knight pledging fealty. But it burned through her like wildfire.
You are remarkable, he signed with his free hand, still holding hers against his mouth. You know that?
“I’m stubborn,” she corrected, her voice coming out breathless. “There’s a difference.”
He almost smiled. Almost. Then he released her hand and turned back to the maps, his expression settling into the focused intensity of a commander planning a campaign.
If we’re going to fight, he signed, we need to know what we’re facing. Miles sent scouts north this afternoon. They should report by morning.
Elodie sank back onto the bench, her heart still racing from the kiss. Business. Right. They were discussing strategy. Serious matters of life and death and medieval warfare.
She absolutely was not still feeling the ghost of his lips against her skin.
“What do you need from me?”
Everything you noticed today. The refugees’ stories. Any details that might help us understand his plan. He paused, then added, Your mind is quick. You see patterns. I need that.
“You could just say you like my company,” she muttered.
His hand came up again—not to sign, but to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was becoming familiar, that small intimacy, and each time it sent her pulse skipping.
I like your company, he signed. But that is not why I ask you to stay.
They worked through the small hours of the night, piecing together information from the refugees’ accounts, marking attack sites on the maps, tracing supply routes and defensive positions.
The candle burned down to a stub and was replaced with another.
Cold drafts crept under the doors, and Gareth wordlessly draped his cloak around her shoulders when she shivered.
By the time gray dawn began to lighten the windows, they had a rough outline of Alaric’s strategy—and a beginning of a plan to counter it.
You should rest, Gareth signed, noting the shadows under her eyes.
“So should you,” she countered.
He inclined his head, acknowledging the point. Then he rose, offering his hand to help her up.
Thank you, he signed when she was standing. For staying, and for fighting. For— His hands faltered, and he simply gestured between them, a wordless acknowledgment of everything they hadn’t said.