Chapter Six
Charlie woke her, as he sometimes did, with a small whimper. When she didn’t stir quickly enough, he nudged his nose against her arm and let out a soft chuff of impatience.
Avery surfaced slowly, but without her usual ease. There was none of the quiet settling that normally marked the start of her mornings. Instead, a faint unease tightened through her before her thoughts had fully formed, just as it had when she’d woken yesterday morning.
She was not alone and thus could not lie still and let the morning gather around her as she often did, giving herself a moment to consider the day ahead and the work that needed doing. Her eyes flashed open and fixed immediately on the man across the room.
He lay on his back still, one arm folded over his middle, the extra fur tucked beneath his head. His eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling.
For a moment, she simply stared at him, her hand idly scratching at the scruff around Charlie’s ear, hoping to stall the dog for a bit.
She thought this man looked like a movie star—one on a set in the midst of a shoot, not one on a red carpet dressed to the nines. He looked the sort who stepped out of smoke and rain with a sword in his hand and never once appeared uncertain of himself.
The morning light was thin and colorless, leaking in around the edges of the oil cloth and beneath the door, enough only to soften outlines.
It rendered him in shades of charcoal and steel.
Even so, the shape of him filled the small space as though the walls had been built around him rather than the other way round.
He was large, broad through the shoulders and chest, the kind of man who starred as gladiators and cowboys.
The fur beneath his head did little to disguise the weight of him; it flattened under his skull as if it had surrendered.
His face was strong and his nose straight, not delicate but cleanly cut.
His thick brows cast a natural shadow over his eyes, lending them a severity even when he was not speaking.
The scruff along his jaw had darkened since yesterday, roughening what might otherwise have been considered handsome into something more dangerous.
In the dimness she could not quite see the true color of his eyes, only the pale steadiness of them as they fixed on nothing above him, but she remembered the gray from the day before—cool and bright, like light on water before a storm.
His hair, longer than she’d first realized, lay loose against the fur in heavy waves, dark with hints of warmth that the gray light could not fully diminish.
There was nothing carefully arranged about him.
He looked as though he had been beaten, rained on, had ridden hard and slept where he fell, and yet there remained something composed in the way he held himself, even at rest, as if discipline had years ago seeped into his bones.
She’d seen actors play men like him. They practiced the scowl, the stillness, learned how to ‘occupy’ a scene, as she’d heard her father say years and years ago.
They rehearsed how to hold a sword, how to look as though they’d been born with it in their hands.
This man didn’t look as if he needed practice in any form. He simply was.
And in the small, quiet gray of her house, he appeared almost unreal, like someone misplaced from another world.
He turned at that moment and met her gaze, unerringly, as if, even in the pale light, he knew exactly where to find it, knew she was awake even though she’d not made a sound.
“I’ll be on my way today,” he said.
She supposed that was about as quiet as he could make his voice, though it sounded loud in the still house.
“Okay,” she said.
He held her gaze a moment longer, perhaps expecting something else, though what, she couldn’t know or imagine. After a pause, he shifted his arm and began the slow work of rising.
She sat up as well, drawing her knees in and reaching for her boots, her motions slow and silent. The leather was stiff in the chill; she worked one foot into it, then the other, her fingers moving blindly over something she did every day.
Across from her, he rolled to one side and planted his hand against the floor, pushing his upper body off the ground.
He didn’t groan or falter, but the muscles along his jaw tightened, and his breath shortened, caught and released carefully. He got to his feet in stages, pausing several times. For a heartbeat he remained bent forward, palms flat against his thigh, mastering something unseen before straightening.
Avery laced her boots and watched him through lowered eyes.
How far, she wondered, did he imagine he would go in that condition? To the edge of the trees? To the rise beyond the burn? Pride might carry him a little way. It wouldn’t carry him far.
After he’d refreshed the bandage yesterday, the one she’d first applied, he’d put on his breeches, undershirt, and shirt, and she’d been thankful to have the distraction of his bare chest removed, but admittedly, sorry as well.
He reached for his belt and sword and buckled it slowly.
When he turned toward the door, there was the faintest hesitation—not a stumble, not quite a sway—but enough that she noticed the shift of weight to his stronger side.
She rose then and collected the buckets. Charlie was already waiting near the door. She crossed the room, skirting around the man, and lifted the latch. The door opened with its familiar quiet scrape, and the morning entered, crisp and fresh.
Charlie slipped past her at once, bounding into the yard ahead of her.
She stepped out after him, leaving the door open. The sky over the trees was pale and washed thin, a band of light pressing up from the horizon. The ground was damp, the earth darkened.
Behind her, she heard the muted thud of his boot on the threshold, the slight drag that followed as he cleared it.
When she reached the thickening trees, Avery shifted the buckets in her hand and turned, feeling awkward, feeling as if something was left undone.
He’d only made it a few steps outside the house, and though he should have been watching his steps, she thought, he was watching her instead.
“Good luck,” she said, for lack of any idea of what else she might say.
He inclined his head once. “Aye. And to ye, Avery Mercer. I thank ye kindly for yer service.”
She studied him a second longer. The morning light was less forgiving than the gray inside. It showed the strain along his mouth and the faint pallor in his cheeks.
Giving her own nod, she turned and went on. The path to the stream was worn beneath her feet, and she followed it blindly, a thoughtful frown hovering while Charlie loped along ahead of her.
Moments later, she dipped the bucket into the deepest part of the burn, the water swallowing half of it with a hollow, glugging sound, ripples widening and breaking against the shore.
She steadied the handle and watched the surface settle again, her reflection shivering into shape and then rippling once more.
She wondered if she ought to have offered him something—his own things, at least. The remainder of the oats. His wool blanket. He would have asked, though, wouldn’t he have? If he had needed anything to make his way to... wherever he was bound. He didn’t seem the sort of man to go quietly, wanting.
She drew the bucket up, water spilling over the rim and soaking her boots.
Perhaps he wouldn’t make it very far before sense returned to him. Perhaps he would reach the ridge and no farther. Or perhaps he would vanish entirely, as abruptly as he had appeared, leaving behind only the fur he had flattened and the faint impression of his presence in the house.
Avery closed her eyes, trying to understand what emotion was attached to his leaving. True, she’d been surprised by his announcement, but she’d felt relief as well, as if he were a dinner guest who’d stayed too long into the night.
Standing with the half-full bucket, she decided that was all. A mild surprise and now relief that he would be gone.
***
He’d pushed himself harder and farther before—and on more than one occasion in worse condition than this. True, there had been an immediate threat on those other occasions, steel at his back and men depending upon him, which lent urgency to every step. This trek held no such fire.
Still, before he had gone a quarter mile, he knew the truth of it, that this was a fool’s errand, or, more precisely, a foolish indulgence.
He had no clear sense of where his men might be, nor whether they remained near at all.
They could just as easily have widened their search in the opposite direction, following a trail that was not his, or they might believe him dead and have adjusted their movements accordingly.
In truth, Morggán didn’t know how many had perished or survived, and that ignorance weighed heavily upon him.
To continue in his present state, with no direction and no certainty, seemed less an act of resolve than a stubborn display of pride.
The injury to his ribs protested steadily, each breath tightening beneath the band of bruised bones, and the deep wound in his thigh had settled into something persistent and aching.
Pride might carry a man some distance, but it would not restore his strength nor lead him unerringly to where he needed to be.