Chapter 13 #2
For a heartbeat longer than necessary, he didn't move.
He held her there, suspended between the earth and his heart.
The air between them screamed with unsaid things.
Then, with agonizing slowness, he lowered her.
His hands lingered at her waist just a second too long, his thumbs brushing the curve of her ribs in a way that made her vision blur.
He finally stepped away. The air rushed back into her lungs, cold and lonely.
“Carry on,” he told the room, his voice regaining its iron edge as he turned toward the servants.
The hall exhaled. Work resumed, but Enya’s hands were useless now. Her heart racing with a confused, aching hope. He hadn't kept his distance. He had crossed the room specifically to touch her, to hold her.
She returned to her candles, telling herself not to look for him. But she did. And every time she glanced up, he was there—lifting heavy crates, adjusting banners, moving through the hall like a storm that refused to break.
He pushed me away. He rejected me, she reminded herself, her chest aching.
But as she watched him move, the butterflies in her stomach refused to die. She was a fool, a girl enchanted by a man who was a riddle she couldn't solve, and God help her, she didn't want him to leave.
By the time the candles were arranged and the hall began to take on the shape of celebration, Enya felt wrung out and strangely light all at once.
Harald crossed the hall once more, passing close enough that his sleeve brushed hers.
“Good work,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear.
Her chest tightened and she nodded, unable to trust her voice.
As he moved away, she let herself watch him go. Her eyes tracing the line of his shoulders until he disappeared into the crowd of servants.
A new kind of hope stirred in her gut—something sharp, dangerous, and terrifyingly bright. It threaded through the thick layer of doubt she had been carrying like a shroud all afternoon.
Maybe it wasnae me eyes.
The thought was a tiny flame in a cold room. Maybe he hadn't pulled away in the training yard because he found her undesirable or strange. Maybe she had been wrong to assume the worst, to immediately build a wall of shame the moment he stepped back.
It was the way he’d held her with a grip that possessed. It was a reckless thing to believe, a path that could lead to a far more painful rejection than the first. But she couldn't stop the warmth from blooming under her skin.
She tightened her grip on the candle she was holding until the wax bit faintly into her skin, forcing the thought back down before it could take root.
A shadow fell across her hands. “Ye’ll snap that if ye keep squeezing it.”
Amelia’s voice came low, pitched just beneath the noise of the hall.
Enya startled. Amelia held a folded cloth in one hand, her other already reaching for the candle.
“Here,” she murmured, easing it gently from Enya’s fingers. “Let me.”
Enya let her. Amelia set the candle down with the others, then lingered, her body angled just enough to shield Enya from the rest of the room. She simply looked at her, eyes searching.
“Ye look like ye’ve been struck,” Amelia said quietly.
Enya drew a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I’m fine.”
Amelia hummed, unconvinced. Her gaze flicked briefly toward the doorway Harald had used, then back to Enya’s face.
“Come, me lady,” Amelia said quietly, already turning. “Ye look like ye might tip over.”
Enya allowed herself to be guided, the two of them slipping away from the hall and into the quieter corridors beyond. The stone walls closed in around them, muting the sounds of celebration as they climbed the stairs together.
Enya’s room was cool and dim when Amelia shut the door behind them. The familiar space steadied her at once. Amelia turned, watching Enya with a stillness that made the hairs along Enya’s arms lift.
When she finally spoke, her mouth barely moved. “Ye’re in trouble.”
Enya’s lips parted as she huffed softly through her nose, eyes fixed on the floor as if it might offer refuge. One corner of her mouth twitched, brittle. “I dinnae ken what ye mean.”
Amelia pushed off the door at last. As she crossed the room, her expression softened. She stopped directly in front of Enya, arms folding loosely, head tipping just enough to look her full in the face.
“Aye,” she said, one brow lifting. “Ye dae.”
Enya leaned back a fraction, chin rising on instinct, spine straightening as though she’d been challenged. “I’m fine.”
Amelia’s mouth curved, her eyes flickering briefly to Enya’s hands, clenched too tight in her skirts, before returning to her face.
“I’ve kent ye since we were both small enough tae hide under tables,” she said quietly. Her gaze lingered, intent and unflinching. “I ken the difference between fine and pretendin’.”
Enya’s jaw tightened. A muscle jumped there, betraying her before she could stop it. She turned her face slightly away, staring at the wall, blinking once too fast.
Amelia lowered herself onto the bed beside Enya, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer, but her eyes sharpened. “I see the way ye watch him,” her lips pressed together briefly, as though choosing her words with care. “Like ye’re braced fer impact. Like ye’re daring him tae hurt ye first.”
Enya’s throat worked. She swallowed hard and finally turned back, eyes bright with something she refused to let fall.
“That daesnae mean I care,” she said, the words clipped, precise, her mouth set in a line she’d practiced for years.
Amelia searched her face for a long moment. Then she nodded once. “It means ye dae,” she said simply. “Even if ye’re afraid tae say it.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Enya exhaled. “It changes naething. I’m here wi’ a mission.”
Amelia’s expression softened further. “It could.”
Enya looked back up sharply, the word tearing from her throat before she could even weigh it. “Nay.”
“Ye dinnae have tae dae this,” Amelia said, her voice dropping into a register of soft, dangerous compassion. “Whatever it is ye think ye owe yer braither, whatever promise ye’re carrying... ye could stop. Right now. We could find another way.”
Enya stood abruptly, the chair scraping a harsh, mourning sound against the floor.
She crossed to the window, her fingers bracing against the stone sill so hard the grit bit into her skin.
She stared out into the fading light, watching the shadows swallow the courtyard, and for a terrifying second, she let herself imagine it.
Stop.
The word felt like a cool draft in a burning room. She could stay here. She could let the mission wither. She could sink into the warmth of the hall, into the confusing, electric pull of Harald’s presence, and forget the life of a shadow. She could be a wife instead of a weapon.
But then she saw Finley’s face in her mind—the desperate, hollow look of him the last time they’d spoken. The weight of his life hung around her neck like a millstone, cold and relentless.
“I cannae,” she whispered, the air in her lungs feeling thin and brittle.
“Why?”
Enya swallowed, her throat tight with a grief she hadn’t given herself permission to feel.
Because if I choose me own happiness, he will hate me.
“Because I willnae be the one who fails him,” she said, her voice cracking just enough to show the ruin beneath. “If I stop, if I choose a life fer meself... I’ll never be able tae look at me own reflection again. I’d be a ghost either way, Amelia.”
Amelia did not press further. She simply nodded once—a heavy, silent acceptance of a tragedy she couldn't avert.
“We’ll try the study again taenight.” The words left Enya with certainty she didn’t feel, something restless stirring beneath.
Amelia held her gaze, then gave a small, knowing nod.
Below them, the sounds of the hall drifted upward, the castle steadily reshaping itself for a wedding that was moving forward, whether Enya was ready or not.
Enya turned toward the window, watching the last of the light slide along the stone. Harald’s voice echoed faintly in her memory, too close, too warm, and her pulse answered it before she could stop it.
Taenight.