Adalbrand grimaced. Maybe he was feeling that bite all over again.
“He might get you in such a deep hole that you never dig out again.”
I sighed. “All that is true and more, Sir Hefertus. Do you want me in your tent or don’t you?”
“I don’t,” Hefertus said, kicking at a stone. He pointed at Adalbrand. “But he does, and I suppose that will have to be enough. Just be sure to put your bedroll between us, Bran. I don’t much care to be killed in my sleep — from that without or that within.”
Hefertus leaned a shoulder against a chunk of rubble that had once been a low wall and watched his friend through slitted eyes, clearly weighing and measuring.
“I’ll have a moment with her, if you’ll allow it, Hefertus,” Adalbrand said.
I held back a tiny shiver. The intensity of his cinnamon eyes was enough to burn a parchment. When he leveled that look at me, I could hardly tell whether he was furious or simply intent.
“Poison yourself with her if you wish, my old friend,” Hefertus said, snorting. “But be wary. She acquitted herself well down below.”
He left us and Adalbrand drew near — not touching me, never touching me, but close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my chilled skin. He looked paler than he had before. Was that from drinking in the High Saint’s pain?
“I know not what was forged between us in the bones of the earth, Lady Paladin, but I feel it still. It goes beyond the vow we made. As if a line has been drawn between your fist and my heart.”
“It’s not of my making,” I said steadily. He was so … sure. His very certainty was shown in how he moved and how he spoke. Like he already knew the whole story of our lives and was reading it again simply for his own enjoyment.
The light in his eye — fierce though it was — made me want to melt for him.
Celibate, remember? There won’t be melting.
Yes. Good. Excellent reminder.
Realizing I’d been leaning toward him, I straightened and forced my face to a flinty expression.
“You’ve bound me just as handily, Sir Adalbrand. I can no more leave this place than I can fly. Even if it makes me shudder to think of going down below for a second day.”
“I won’t hold you to that,” he said, and now his fierceness had a hint of pain — a lion with a thorn in the paw. He ran a hand through his hair.
Lions are still lions, and this one will shred you like grass.
“I made vows to you,” I said simply. “We are bound together because of that.”
He bowed his head. The faint light of the moon shone off his armor despite its blackening.
“And we are also bound because we are friends — if you’ll allow it,” I said, softening my words, and when he looked up at me the softness in his gaze was too much. Like a burst of fire through the belly.
I took a step back.
Seriously, he should think about swearing to our ranks. Hell’s forces are always recruiting and this knight knows how to tempt.
“My friendship is the least of all I offer to you,” he said through a thick throat.
“I think it will do well enough.”
“I made vows to you, too.” I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me. I could feel him hinting at something deeper than his words but when I tried to grasp it, my hands came back with nothing. “I have the faith to honor them.”
I smiled slightly. “I wish I had your faith.”
His answer was so soft that I barely heard it. “You have more than faith. You have blessing.”
Which was how I found myself turning in early under the covering of a crane-painted silk tent. I was given a space on the far side of the tent from Hefertus and Brindle was kind enough to lie at my feet.
“If the dog moves, I stab him,” Hefertus groused from my left. Even with Adalbrand between us, he was still unhappy.
