Briar couldn’t bring himself to speak, throat stoppered. The yearning to hear what Rowan came to say warred with the need to set foot on a ferry bound for another shore, a different future. Rowan’s jaw firmed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. It looked like he might say nothing at all, like the words were lead, too heavy to summon.
When he did speak, it stole all the sound, all the air from the pier.
“It was never casual for me.” The words knocked Briar in the chest, but Rowan continued. “I tried to pretend that it was, but it wasn’t. I’ve feelings for you. I’ve had them a while, but been too afraid to tell you in case you didn’t feel the same, or I scared you off, but I’m telling you now because if I don’t, then I’ll always wonder. And I know it’s a terrible time. I’m feckin’ terrified of what’s happening to you. To us both. So if it’s not the same for you, then I promise you I’ll not ever mention it again. I’ll go on being your friend and won’t ever bring it up because I don’t want you to feel this is all that matters to me, ’cause it’s not. You’ve been a good friend to me, and I’d not ruin that for anything, but I had to tell you the whole of it. That I’m mad about you. You’re bold and brave, and you’ve made me braver, too. Brave enough to say this. That I love you. I love you something fierce.”
He opened his clenched fist. In his open palm sat not the claddagh, but the engagement ring. He’d held it so tightly that it left indents in his skin.
It was never casual for me.
Never, in all the time he’d known Rowan, had Briar ever heard the man speak so much at once. The monumental effort it had taken to summon the words weighed heavy as unbroken storm clouds between them. Despite the cool weather, sweat beaded on Rowan’s brow, and he breathed hard, awaiting an answer.
Briar wet his lips and opened them, but no sound followed. Despair was a physical thing, and he choked on it. He couldn’t say the one thing he’d longed to ever since that kiss in the snow.
What he said instead was, “He has the cure.”
Rowan said, “Pardon?”
“Linden. He has the cure.”
Slack-jawed relief bloomed on Rowan’s face, followed slowly by confusion. “That’s good news, isn’t it? Wait, hasn’t he given it to you?”
“He said he needs his resources in Pentawynn to prepare it.” Briar swallowed the lump in his throat. “And that he wanted to give it to me as an engagement present.”
“Engagement—”
“We have one show, and he’ll propose and cure me. It’ll be fine,” Briar babbled, meaning none of it.
Rowan’s tone grew suspicious, angry. “And if you didn’t want to marry him? What then?”
Rowan’s guesses cut too close to the quick. Regret that he’d let the truth out was a sour sting as Briar bit his tongue and tasted the ever-present, lingering fume of his potions. “It isn’t—”
“How much would it cost?”
“Too much.”
“We’ll pool together, all of us. I’m sure the whole town would help, if we asked.”
That struck a well-worn chord in Briar. He couldn’t name the emotions bursting out of him, but the words that did were lies he’d told himself over and over. “I have to do this on my own.”
“Why?” Rowan said. “Why’s he charging you if he cares for you? Money or marriage, he won’t just cure you because he loves you? If he’s blackmailing you—I’ll get a ticket myself and come with you, convince him to do right by you. You deserve that choice!”
If Rowan had hit the chord before, he’d jammed a nail through it then.
“Stop!” Briar shouted. “Just stop…”
Rowan’s anger melted and came apart like a snowflake fallen on a bare palm. He spoke in broken syllables. “Do you love him?”
It was as much a question as a dare.
And what could Briar say in answer?
No, but I can’t see a way to save us that doesn’t involve tying myself to this man I thought I could love but who, now, in this moment, I loathe more than words can say.
No, I love you too, but there’s no future for us that doesn’t end in death.
The prophetic magic tied his tongue, but whatever he could say, the results would be the same. And perhaps the easiest thing, the kindest thing,would be to make Rowan hate him. So there was no room left to hope for the impossible. He blinked the sting from his eyes and summoned words he didn’t mean. The only ones he thought would make Rowan relent.
“I’m sorry. I love Linden. It was never like that for us. This is what I want. It’s…” He barely got the words out. “It’s all I wanted from the start.”
