Chapter 24 #2
His stormy eyes bored into her before trailing down her body, at the dirt smeared on her knees, then glancing at her opened bag.
For a long moment, they said nothing.
“I’m glad you’re well,” Mary said, summoning stiff formality. “You gave the men a scare.”
He surveyed her face with pinched pain. “Why did you do it?” he asked.
Not this again. She couldn’t answer Bjorn any more than she could answer Henry. “I need to fill my waterskin,” she said casually.
“Read,” he said in a wrenching tone that stopped her at once. “Please. Stay.”
“I’ll be back soon,” she lied, not daring to look at him as she stuffed everything within reach into her bag.
Never mind the rest. She had to keep moving, keep walking.
She had to free him, and herself, and with every second this would only get harder.
“You should rest,” she said, pushing through the tent flap.
Tears formed the second Mary felt the air on her face.
Stars pricked the moonless sky like a thousand stab wounds, but her boots pressed on through throngs of crickets as she made for Merlin in the camp’s pasture.
She followed her feet, the only thing she could trust. They moved when every part of her begged her to stop, to turn back, to tell the truth.
She had never been allowed to risk the truth, and the cost tore into her heart.
Her feet shuffled mindlessly beneath her until she reached the pasture.
It took her minutes, too many precious minutes, to find Merlin in the dark among the other horses.
At last, she pressed her wet face to his forehead before tossing a saddlebag over his strong back.
She threw a leg over him, then rode toward the black curtain of forest, the boundary, the border of no return.
Not fifty feet away, she stopped. The saddlebag was unbalanced—a rushed job. As she dismounted to readjust, Mary swallowed a sob. She would disappear. Soundless. Nameless.
“Don’t go.”
Mary spun and reached for her sword, only to realize she hadn’t brought it. She didn’t need to see his face to know that voice—however weakened—that shattered frame that had limped to where he knew he could intercept her.
“What are you doing out of bed? Your wounds—your leg! You fool, you need—”
“Don’t go.”
If she’d only been quicker. If she’d only been able to find Merlin faster. “You don’t understand,” Mary said. “I have to.”
He leaned on his crutch and surveyed her, then took a labored step forward. Then another. “If I let you go, will you first answer me one question?”
Mary squeezed her eyes shut and berated herself for being defenseless. “That depends.”
“I can start,” Bjorn said, taking one step closer. He stood a head above her. “If I were to make a report of my companion, I might start with the quality of Read’s mind.”
Mary coughed out a laugh, then covered her mouth. What if someone heard them? Found them before her escape? More tears rose.
“—Read’s talent for learning, but even more so for listening. For watching. Read is very cautious. More cautious and considerate than anyone I’ve ever known. But braver for it, too. Beautiful.”
Every nerve in Mary turned aflame. This examination had to stop. But when she opened her lips, no words came out.
He took another step. He stood close enough now that she could feel the heat of him. It took all her power not to step backward, to retreat.
“—Read also has some curious habits, I’ll admit.” He took a deep breath. “Like dressing under blankets. Trailing into the woods to urinate.” He swallowed. “Hiding bloodstained rags before washing them in the river.”
No.
She turned to Merlin, but Bjorn’s hand grabbed hers.
“Please, Read. Please.” The urgency of his plea stopped her cold.
She whipped around, startled and furious. He knew. He couldn’t know! No one could know. “Let me go,” she ground out, but it sounded more like a wail. She pressed her fists against his chest and leaned into him, watchful of where she knew a wound meant for her had branded him instead.
He wrapped one strong arm around her, the other supported against the rough-hewn crutch.
“I will do anything you say once you answer my question,” he begged.
He raised a shaky finger as if to wipe away a tear on her cheek before checking himself and lowering it again.
“No matter what you say or do, I could never cause you harm.”
How long had he known? Mary rested her head against him, believing him, then nodded. “Only one.”
Then, she would be gone. And he would be safe.
“Why did you do it?” he asked, his voice caught in his throat. “Why did you save my life, after I’d convinced our superiors to tuck you and your troop away from the front?”
She stepped back with shock. Did his face mirror hers—fear and … vulnerability? It was not the question she expected, the more obvious one about her sex.
Her resolve began to snap, buckle by buckle.
“For the same reason you saved mine,” she said. A guess. A hope. A half answer.
The last tether to a life of hiding.
He lifted his finger again, tracing her ear and jawline, then the hollow at the base of her throat. She inhaled sharply, the sweet touch of him coursing down to her toes—a feeling new and wholly hers. Natural.
Too natural. It wasn’t too late to escape.
“And what reason is that, Read?” he asked, breathless.
She raised her chin, her gaze meeting his. She wondered what her own eyes said, if they already betrayed the biggest truth she’d ever known.
Then she pulled his lips to hers, and let her body say the rest.