Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Her eyes snapped open, her pulse giving a small, sharp jump against her throat before she realized where she was.
She woke just before the light, the change that happened behind the eyelids before the room showed it. She lay frozen for a heartbeat, her muscles coiled with a reflex she couldn't quite dampen.
She lay still for a moment and listened. The silence of the keep was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic pop of the hearth.
The fire had burned low, the embers orange in the grate.
The candles had been replaced in the night, by Ivar.
The room was amber and warm and outside the window, Mull was the grey that came just before color returned to things.
She felt the warmth of the blankets, a stark contrast to the phantom chill of her memories.
Then she turned her head and looked at him.
He was asleep in the chair. The sight of him there, a silent sentinel in the shadows, made her breath catch.
Upright.
His head back against the chair, arms loose on the armrests. His breathing was slow. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, her own breathing beginning to sync with his.
The sword was on the floor beside the chair. Not leaned against the wall. Not set aside. On the floor, within reach of his right hand, exactly where it should be if he needed it in the dark before he'd fully woken. She stared at the steel, the cold glint of it a reminder of the world they lived in.
She looked at that for a moment. Her fingers curled into the edge of the furs.
Then she looked at him.
He'd pulled his tunic back on at some point in the night. She wasn't sure when. She hadn't heard him move, which meant she'd slept deeper than she normally would, which was its own information. The realization made a small, uneasy knot form in her stomach.
The tunic had ridden up slightly on one side, and she could see the scar.
Long, old, following the line of his ribs from somewhere below his arm to somewhere below his waist. White against his skin in the low light.
Her eyes traced the jagged path of the wound, and she resisted a strange, magnetic pull in her fingertips, an irrational urge to reach across the gap and trace that jagged line, to feel the heat of him beneath her hand.
Whoever had put it there had meant it. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
She looked at his shoulders. Even slack with sleep, they held a readiness that hadn't fully let go. He looked like a coiled spring, even in repose.
She looked at his face.
Without his dark eyes open and doing their thing, he looked younger. The harsh lines of his face were less severe in the amber glow.
Not soft. Just quieter. The stillness of his features was almost unsettling.
The line of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows that hadn't smoothed even in sleep, the mouth that spent most of its time holding back whatever he'd decided not to say. She wondered what words he was guarding even now.
She was still looking when he woke.
No gradual surfacing. No slow blink. His eyes opened and found her immediately. Direct and already focused. The air in the room vanished. His gaze didn't just see her; it weighed her, heavy and unblinking, and the heat that rushed to her cheeks felt like a brand.
"Mornin'," he said. His voice was rough and deeper, sleep still in it. The low vibration of it seemed to hum through the very floorboards.
"Good mornin’," she said, to the ceiling. She jerked her gaze upward, her hands smoothing the furs with unnecessary intensity.
A pause. The silence stretched, thick and expectant.
She heard him stretch. The shift of the chair, the crack of his back, the slow exhale after it. The sound of his movement was deliberate and heavy.
He shifted, leaning forward until his forearms rested on his knees. He was close enough now that she could smell the woodsmoke on his skin and the faint, warm scent of a man who had spent the night guarding a door.
"How long have ye been awake?" he said. She felt the slight rasp of amusement in his tone like a morning caress.
"Nae long." She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, wishing her face would cool.
"How long have ye been starin’ at me?"
"I wasnae staring." She bit her lip, the taste of her own heartbeat in her mouth.
"Aye." Another stretch, slower this time, his muscles rippling under the dark wool of his tunic. "Ye were very much staring, Matilda. The weight of it stirred me from sleep."
She kept her eyes on the ceiling. The amber plaster. The shadows where the candles didn't quite reach. She focused on a small crack in the ceiling, her fingers knotting together.
"I was looking at the scar," she said, which was true and also easier than the rest of it. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, heavy and unblinking.
Silence.
"Ye can ask," he said. The invitation was quiet, almost a whisper that felt like a physical touch against her skin.
"I'm nae askin’."
"Matilda."
"It's yer scar. It's yer business." She turned her head away, her jaw set.
She heard him move, the creak of the chair as he leaned forward again. The sound was close, too close, and her skin prickled with awareness.
"It's nae as dramatic as it looks," he said. "Old. From before I was laird."
She turned her head and looked at him properly. His eyes were on the fire. The tunic was still ridden up on one side and the scar caught the firelight. She traced the white line again, her own heart slowing into a heavy thud.
"It looks dramatic," she said. Her voice was softer now, the edge of her fear beginning to dull.
"Aye well." The corner of his mouth moved. A ghost of a smile, fleeting and sharp. "I was younger. Less careful."
"Ye dinnae seem like a person who was ever less careful."
He looked at her sideways. "Everyone's less careful when they're young. Even ye." His eyes were dark, searching hers for a history she wasn't ready to share.
"I was always careful."
"Nay," he said. A shadow of something—understanding? pity?—crossed his features. "Ye werenae. Ye were just made tae be careful earlier than ye should've been."
She held his gaze and said nothing because he'd named something she'd spent eight years not naming, and she didn't know what to do with it, so she looked at the ceiling again. She felt raw, as if he’d reached out and touched a wound she thought was hidden.
"Ye'll sleep in here from now on," he said. The command was flat, final, leaving no room for argument.
She blinked. Her heart gave a strange, fluttering skip. "I am sleeping in here."
"Aye. Ye'll keep sleeping in here. In the bed." He stood, rolling his shoulder once, and moved toward the window. "Ye're me wife. This is our chamber." He stood with his back to her, a solid, immovable wall of a man.
She sat up. The covers pooled at her waist as she met his broad shoulders with a defiant look. "Ye could've asked."
"I could have." He looked out at the grey morning, his back to her, hands clasped behind him. "Ye're here now. It's settled." His posture was entirely composed, while she felt as though she were fraying at the edges.
She stared at the back of his head. The absolute composure of it. "Ye are the most…"
"Aye." He turned from the window and looked at her with those dark eyes and the ghost of something at the corner of his mouth. "Ye mentioned." He watched her, his expression unreadable but intense.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. She felt a surge of frustration—and something else she refused to name.
He was already moving around the room.
"There's water on the stand," he said. "Sigrid will bring food." He paused at the basin and looked back at her over his shoulder. "And Matilda."
"What?" She gripped the edge of the furs, her knuckles white.
"Ye looked fer longer than ye can count."
He crossed back toward the table and reached for his belt. She sat in the bed with the covers pulled up.
Longer than I could count.
As though he'd been keeping track. As though it mattered to him how long she'd looked.
She stared at the door and told herself very firmly that it did not matter to her whether it mattered to him.
She saw the slight tension in his shoulders.
She knew now that the heat in her chest was something much more dangerous.
She was still staring at the door when a servant tried to open the locked door
Matilda’s breath hitched, the old panic rising like a cold tide.
Matilda was off the bed before she knew she'd moved. Her movements were a blur of pure, survivalist instinct.
Her back hit the wall, and her hand went to her side where nothing was. No knife, nothing, and her heart was in her throat, and the air had gone thin. She stood gasping, her eyes wide and fixed on the door, her whole body trembling with the aftershock of the reflex.
"Me laird…" a voice came from outside.
"Nae now." Ivar's voice, from behind her. Not loud. Just final. The word was a razor, cutting through the servant’s stuttering.
The servant went.
The room was the same room. The fire was the same fire. Everything remained as it was.
Matilda stood with her back against the wall and her hand pressed flat to her sternum and breathed. Counted. One and two and three. She focused on the rise and fall of her hand, trying to ground herself in the rhythm.
He looked at her. Not with the careful softness she'd spent years dreading. Just waiting. He didn't move toward her, which she found she was grateful for.
"I'm fine," she said. Her voice was a ragged whisper.
"Aye." He held her gaze for one moment. "It willnae happen again." The promise was certain, and she believed him.
She nodded. Looked at the floor. She felt the tremor in her knees, the slow receding of the adrenaline.
The counting had worked, the way it usually worked. The edges of the room had come back, the walls were where they were supposed to be. The air felt thick again, breathable.
"Thank ye," she said. She looked up at him, her expression raw.
He nodded once and crossed to the table and picked up his cloak, and the morning resumed around them as though nothing had shifted. But the way he avoided looking at her spoke more than any words could.
Something had.
She knew it. She thought he did too. The silence between them was no longer empty; it was full of the ghost of her scream.