He left then, turning his back smartly and walking away. Leaving his people with unanswered questions.
But truly, there was only one answer, was there not? They went to fight. Nothing more.
Liadan turned to Ardahl, her gaze clinging to his, both her hands clutching his forearms.
“It is dreadful news!”
It was, and the kind of bold move Fearghal made but rarely. “He must be very certain o’ the threat, to take such a step.”
“Aye, but—but—” Liadan shook herself. “I cannot like it. So many to go.”
“He wants to be certain we will prove victorious.”
She leaned close to him. “I have a terrible, bad feeling about it.”
“Do ye?” That made Ardahl’s spine tingle. There were feelings, and then there werefeelings, some merely the product of fear, and some indicating truth.
Persistently, her gaze clung to his. “What if ye do no’ come back again?”
It was a terrible thing to ask a man, a warrior on his way to fight. A curse, almost. Many among the clan believed it was doom to express such fears aloud.
Ardahl did not take it that way, not in this case.
It meant she cared. It meant she wanted him to come back to her.
And that fair stole his breath away.
“Liadan—”
“We cannot talk here. Come.”
They were surrounded by others questioning one another, protesting, exclaiming. She seized him by the hand and towed him away from the throng, not toward her mother’s hut but a stand of rowan trees that marked the edge of the wood.
There he tried to halt her. “Liadan. Liadan—”
But she hurried him on. Not until they were quite alone, save for the no doubt distant guards, did she pause and turned again to face him.
“Ardahl.” She spoke only his name. But a thousand words warred in her eyes. He stood and watched her fight her way through them till she fair trembled with emotion. “I thought ye a serpent,” she said at last. “A vilenathrach, I did, when I believed ye had killed our Conall.”
His heart clenched in his chest. He had to lick his lips before he could say, “Ye believe that no more?”
“I believe that no more.”
“Och, Liadan, lass—”
She threw herself into his arms. She did it so violently, his weapons rattled. He didn’t care. He gathered her in, close and then closer, arms folded across her slender back.
He’d seen the tears in her eyes a moment before she landed.
“Och, lass. Och, do no’ weep.”
Face half buried in his neck, she moaned, “What if I lose ye? What if I lose ye just like Conall?”
That made him tingle from head to toe. He mattered to her, in some way he could not fairly define. As a substitute for her brother?
As something more?
“I canna bear it.”
