“I don’t trust him.” Rowan tried to sit up, voice trembling with something long repressed. “He holds your hand like it’s the end of a fecking leash.”
“It’s not like that. He’s trying to help lift my curse, and he’s been under a lot of stress because of me and his parents and—”
“He hit you!” The shout rang loud in the quiet of the cottage. Rowan held his chest like the pain of his injury worsened with his raised voice. “You were sick and hurting, and he hurt youworse, all because he wasjealous. He’s used your talents to make himself a fortune, wears you like a badge of honor. And now he’s taking you off to Pentawynn, away from here.”
“Away fromyou, you mean?”
“You know that’s not how it is.”
“It’s not?” Briar’s head pounded. The tangle of emotion rising in him was too convoluted to parse; he felt trapped and it was somehow worse hearing Rowan say it out loud. So he retaliated in kind. “Fine, you don’t trust him, but what choice do I have? This is the only hope I’ve got. Thatwe’vegot. Linden’s got money and endless resources. And you’d have me pass up this chance because you don’t like that it’s Linden offering? So which of you is jealous and hurting me because of it?”
Rowan looked gutted by his words. “I won’t pretend I’m not jealous. I’m trying, I am, but you—you made me feel—” He took a moment to collect himself. “It doesn’t matter. Just hear me on this, because I’m no liar. If I believed for a moment that fecker would cure you, I’d see you off on the damn boat myself.”
The words stung because they were true. Rowan’s motives didn’t require deeper interrogation. He’d see his own heart broken before he saw Briar’s stop beating.
Briar could tell him Linden had the cure. He withheld it because saying so felt tantamount to admitting the cure was his only reason for pursuing a relationship with Linden in the first place. Once, Briar had believed loving Linden was inevitable, fate. Only now he realized the prophecy said nothing at all about him loving Linden back.
Weakly, Briar said, “We’re exhausted. We should sleep.”
Whatever energy Rowan had in reserve to argue fled him. Neither of them could even climb the ladder into the loft. Rowan tried to coax Briarinto taking the sofa, but since he was much larger, it made no sense. Briar insisted he was comfortable in the armchair and curled up there. Rowan relented and started softly snoring moments later.
Briar couldn’t sleep. He watched Rowan’s back rise and fall, haunted by the idea that tonight he could have stopped breathing altogether.
Tomorrow morning, he would take the ferry to Pentawynn. Linden would cure him of his curse, and then he would set all of his ardor into convincing Linden to cure Rowan, too. He would give Linden whatever he wanted. As he contemplated that, he found he didn’t really know what Linden wanted. He’d thought it had been all the same things Briar longed for. Love, success, recognition, a partner. Now, he wasn’t sure.
It chilled him. It was the only plan he had.
He drifted off for a handful of hours. When he woke, Rowan still slept. Briar got up, joints stiff but serviceable. He knelt and put a hand on Rowan’s chest to wake him, but he didn’t stir. His lashes were dark fans against his cheeks, gilded gold in sunlight. For a moment, Briar allowed himself the fantasy of leaning over and kissing him awake. Like he’d done countless times in those bright few weeks mostly spent here at the cottage. He imagined Rowan coming slowly awake to the warmth of Briar’s lips on his. He’d make that soft sound of relief again, cup the back of Briar’s head.
Briar gently shook him. When Rowan saw who woke him, he smiled so sweetly—like their entire argument the night before was forgotten—Briar nearly kissed him anyway.
“I have to go into town and get more potion. I wanted to see if you needed anything first.”
“I’ll come with you.” He started to get up but gasped at the pain of moving. Briar pushed to ease him down.
“You’re staying here to recover. You should take pain killers or an elixir. Do you have any?”
“In my bedside cabinet.”
Briar managed to climb the ladder. Rowan’s bedroom looked untouched, the quilted bed still made. Rowan hadn’t even slept in it before the forest’s call took him.
Briar opened the bedside cabinet and found a brown paper bag that looked like it contained medicine. At first, he thought it was empty, but then he saw something glint, and his heart fell into his stomach.
Rings. Two of them. One, a gold plaited band with a crowned heart at its center.
The second was simple and delicate, a diamond set with four smaller blue stones at the corners like a star. It was beautiful, custom made to fit with the claddagh, and was unmistakably an engagement ring.
He cast for the most far-fetched conclusions in order to avoid what he already knew. Rowan had relationships from before his curse, maybe he’d bought this for a past lover and then, when they’d left him, kept it for whomever came along and stole his heart. But he knew it wasn’t true.
A wave of emotion swept over him, so strong he felt sick.
He’d known in his heart the reason Rowan had come to speak to him that snowy night. But not the depth of feeling. Not the certainty.
Underneath the bag was a sachet of ibuprofen. He left the rings in the bedside cabinet. Pretended he hadn’t seen them. He made his careful way down the ladder and repeated his plan to himself. Tomorrow, he’d leave on a ferry for Pentawynn. He’d see the city. Linden would give him the cure. He’d come back with it for Rowan. And after that… ?
Why did he get the sense Linden’s engagement was not the sort he’d be able to call off?
He handed Rowan the ibuprofen, hoping nothing of the emotional war within showed on his face. He must have failed. Something dawned in the slackened expression on Rowan’s face.
