Chapter 29
The tavern felt too small. Too loud. Too hot.
Reis had arrived. He took one look at the scene and declared Lettie's innocence. Nobody questioned it. Dane had taken the fight out of everyone.
Lettie sat in the chair with ice on her hand. The lifeless body remained on the floor, now covered by a linen tablecloth. She couldn't stop looking at it. Her stomach twisted violently.
She bolted from her chair. Someone behind her said her name. She didn't know who.
The tavern door burst open and a flurry of snow struck her face. She stumbled down the stairs, nearly slipping on the icy steps. She made it five steps from the bottom of the staircase before she bent over a stone fence and hurled.
A moment later, a hand was on her back. She knew who it was before looking.
Lettie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I killed him." The words were small and broken. Her hands were still shaking.
"Yes." Kellan pulled a lock of her hair behind her ear. "You saved someone too."
Lettie's gaze dropped to her shaking hands. She could still feel it—the crack under her hand when the pan landed. Her stomach lurched again and she leaned on the fence to support herself.
"I can hear it." Her voice was laced with frightened urgency, her eyes wide, searching the dark.
Kellan's expression tightened.
"The sound." Her voice broke in panic. "It made a sound."
"I know."
Lettie's eyes filled. "I didn't want to." Her words were small. Impossibly small. Almost childlike.
"I know."
Kellan's heart cracked as he watched her try to hold herself together for all of five seconds before she broke apart completely.
A sound escaped her, small and raw, the kind of sound that came from someplace fragile enough that it couldn't be hidden away without breaking.
Her shoulders began to shake.
Lettie pressed a hand over her mouth as if she could keep the sorrow in, but the tears came anyway. They spilled down her cheeks faster than she could wipe them away.
Kellan's chest felt tight. His vision blurred. Then something warm slipped down his own cheek.
Hells.
Another tear followed the first. He scrubbed furiously at his face.
None of this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be safe and whole and somehow he had broken her in every possible way.
He should have left her in Drumhaven, safe there with Kay. Safe from him. Reis had told him she was safer there, but he had been selfish. He wanted her with him. Every day she was, it felt like he had stolen something precious from the world.
A sniff escaped him.
Lettie looked up through her tears. Kellan couldn't meet her eyes.
"This is my fault." His voice was low and broken.
Lettie blinked.
His laugh sounded hollow. "I should've left you in Drumhaven."
"Kellan—"
His voice quieted. "I should've made you stay." He wiped a tear. "I knew what this road was." Tears kept slipping down his face despite his efforts. "I knew."
Lettie's expression crumpled. "Kellan—"
"I knew there'd be danger. I just kept pretending otherwise."
"Kellan—"
"Because I wanted you here." The confession hung between them, bare and ugly. He finally looked at her. "I still want you here," he said through a pained smile. "But look at you. I should've protected you better."
The words seemed to inhabit every corner of Lettie's heart. She hid her gaze before he could see her confusion. For a while they just watched the snow fall to the ground.
Lettie managed a faint smile. She scrubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. "I thought ye'd changed yer mind." Her voice cracked from crying.
Kellan frowned.
"What?" The words failed to make sense. They hung there, absurd against everything he'd just confessed.
Lettie looked away. "I thought ye'd changed yer mind."
He stared into the snow, the grief momentarily giving way to bewilderment. Then understanding crashed into him. Kellan met her expression so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash.
"You're joking." His voice was quiet mortification.
Lettie stared at the snow for a long second and shrugged. "You left."
Kellan's face collapsed.
"No."
Lettie didn't say anything.
"No, Lettie."
"I know I'm not exactly—"
"Stop." Kellan's voice was firm, apart from the sniff that followed it.
"Kellan—"
"No. Whatever comes after that is going to make me put my head through a tree."
Lettie rubbed her red nose and stared at the snow.
Kellan covered his frown with his hand as he remembered that night. The way she kissed him. The way she looked on that bed. Her face. Her trust.
When he spoke, his voice carried only naked admiration. "Gods, Lettie, you were perfect."
Lettie wiped a tear from her eye with her palm. Kellan laughed softly and shook his head. "You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." His voice carried a memory with it. A small smile tugged at the edges of his mouth as he looked over at her. "Still are."
"But you deserved better than that, than me in that dirty place." Kellan scowled at the snow before looking back at her. "I never stopped wanting you, Lettie. I just... I just wasn't sure I deserved you anymore."
Lettie pinched her face at the snow for a long moment. "You make it sound as though I'd have been forced."
"No." His answer came instantly. Kellan scrubbed his face with his sleeve, drying the last of his tears. "Never that." Kellan took a breath and looked down at her apologetically. "That's what frightened me. You trusted me and I was doing everything wrong."
Lettie's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Kellan barked a short, humorless laugh. "Oh, where should I begin?" he said with a scathing laugh. "You lost your home, I housed you. You were cold, I bought you clothes. You looked sad, I flirted with you."
"That last one wasn't helping."
"Exactly," he said with more force than he intended.
She scrubbed at her eyes.
"Kellan—"
Kellan shook his head and smiled cynically at the sky. "Then I almost took you there. In that room, on that cot, like some..." He cut himself off. "I am a deeply flawed man."
"Kellan—"
"I possess many weaknesses. I was trying to court you while simultaneously attempting to be honorable." Kellan buried his face in his hands, muffling his voice. "Do you have any idea how difficult that is?"
"Kellan—"
"Please stop helping."
Despite herself, a tiny smile appeared.
Kellan peeked at her through his fingers. "I am trying to explain my terrible life choices."
"Yer doin' a terrible job."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I'll take what I can get."
A pained smile crossed her face again. She couldn't stop her tears. They just kept coming, so she just let them fall into her skirt.
Kellan sat next to her on the fence, combing over his poor life choices.
"I killed someone," she repeated when the tears had all gone from her.
Kellan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Then a smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.
"You know, I thought I was taking an innocent country girl with me when I left that hamlet." He looked at her. "Turns out I acquired a terrifying warrior."
Lettie stared up at him. "I hit him with a pan."
"I'll never look at cookware the same way again."
She huffed despite herself.
Kellan pointed at her. "There, did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"The bloodlust."
"Kellan—"
"I should have known the first time I saw you near a kitchen." He shook his head theatrically.
Lettie laughed despite herself—a small and broken thing. Something in Kellan's chest eased at the sound.
"I'm telling you, in a few years I'll be telling stories about how you jumped off of rooftops, vanquishing enemies with twin kitchen knives."
She laughed more.
Kellan smiled sadly. "A terrifying warrior."
Around them, Brightwater quieted. The tavern emptied as all the breath and fire dimmed out of it.
Snow drifted quietly against the dark and the world went on, indifferent to grief and guilt.
Winter did not pause for either.
*
Reis decided to make camp an hour outside of town. After the events of the night, some distance was necessary for everyone's safety.
By the time they had built camp, it was the middle of the night. Both girls collapsed from exhaustion the moment the tent was built.
The camp gradually fell silent save for the crackle of the fire and Kellan's soft snoring.
Dane was sitting by the fire when Reis returned from scouting.
The night was still. Snow drifted lazily through the darkness beyond the firelight.
Reis paused for a moment before crossing camp. Then he lowered himself onto a nearby log and rested his forearms on his knees. He stared into the flames and waited.
Dane was staring into the fire, trapped somewhere far away.
His hands were shaking.
For a long while neither of them spoke.
"You're remembering."
Dane let out a shaky breath. "I thought they were going to burn her." His voice was a broken, frightened thing cracked beneath the weight of the memory. "I really thought they were going to burn her."
The fire shifted and spat sparks into the darkness.
Reis sat in perfect stillness for a while. Gradually, Dane's trembling eased, not gone, just less violent.
Finally Reis spoke. "I almost killed all of them."
Dane's gaze snapped to Reis.
Reis never looked away from the fire. "All the men."
Reis ran his hand down his mouth.
"When I saw you and your sister tied to those damned posts with all the other children." His expression darkened. "Crying and scared, I wanted to erase the whole place."
"Why didn't you?"
For the first time, Reis looked at him. "Because of you."
Silence.
"Because you asked me to save your sister even though you were freezing and terrified and bound." Something dangerous flickered behind his eyes. "And all you cared about was your sister." Reis looked at the snow falling from the sky. "I remembered there was still something worth saving."
Dane went silent. He would never forget the day the Blood King came to his village. The day the head of his father rolled through snow while he hugged his crying sister and tried to shield her eyes.
Dane looked at Reis. He saw the hard face lit by firelight, the eyes darkened by exhaustion.
For the first time he was beginning to understand. Reis was not just a king. He was a man fighting a war no one else could see. A man who carried enough darkness inside him to become the monster people whispered about.
And every day, he chose not to.