The silence that followed had weight in it. He looked at the mortar, then at her, then at the window where the rain was still moving in grey sheets across the glass.
"Then daenae leave," he said, "before they learn otherwise."
The words were rough, snagging in his throat as if they'd been forced out before he could catch them. He seemed to realize what he'd said at the same moment she did. His jaw shifted, his gaze dropping to her mouth and staying there.
Then his hand moved.
It was a slow, agonizingly cautious movement.
His fingers reached out and brushed a stray, damp lock of hair from her cheek, his touch so light it was barely there. He tucked the strand behind her ear, his hand lingering near her temple. He didn't pull away.
Catriona sat frozen.
The distance between them had been eroding for weeks, worn down by small touches and shared silences. Now, the gap was gone. She could see the faint lines of exhaustion etched at the corners of his eyes and the way his pulse thrummed in the hollow of his throat.
He leaned forward, bringing his forehead down to rest against hers. It was a slow, heavy descent.
She let him.
She closed her eyes, the world narrowing down to the scent of him, peat smoke, rain, and the metallic tang of the whetstone.
They stayed like that for a long time.
The rain lashed the window. The brazier ticked as the coals settled. His breath was uneven against her skin, a ragged sound that lacked his usual iron control. Her hands were flat on the table, clutching the wood so hard her fingers ached, while the room felt as though it was tilting slowly on its axis.
His thumb moved.
It traced the line of her jaw, the pad of it barely grazing her skin, as if he were memorizing the bone beneath.
She felt the exact moment he decided to break the spell.
It started with a slight tensing of his shoulders, a drawing-back that began deep in his chest. She felt the shift in the air before he moved, the way a bird feels the turn of the tide.
He pulled back abruptly, standing from the stool with a clatter. The cold of the stone walls rushed back between them like something physical.
"This is a mistake," he said.
His voice was a harsh, strangled sound.
He wasn't looking at her like a man who had made an error. He was looking at her with a raw, bleeding hunger, the look of a man staring at the one thing he had forbidden himself from ever touching.
"Ye keep saying that," she said, her voice a mere whisper.
His jaw tightened.
He held her gaze for one beat that ran too long, and then he left. She listened to his footsteps move away down the corridor, heavy and rhythmic, until there was nothing but the rain and the brazier. Fox lifted his head from the corner, his amber eyes tracking the empty doorway.
"Daenae," she told him.
Fox put his head back down.
She sat at the table and put her hands flat on the wood and waited for the warmth along her jaw to mean something less than it did. It took longer than she would have liked.
Two hours later, the rain had not eased, but the silence of the keep was broken. Mairi appeared in the doorway of the herb room, her face pale, a supper cloth forgotten over her arm.
"There are riders in the outer courtyard," Mairi said, her voice thin.
Catriona looked up, her pulse jumping. "How many?"
