“Are you thinking of returning to Lyonesse?” I was suddenly worried by his lack of a response. I sat up enough to look at him. “You’re not from here. You don’t owe this place anything. If things are going to become worse now—”
“—Guin.”
He’d started calling me by my shortened name a week or so ago, and I had to admit I liked it. And I liked him. My feelings were in shambles in general, so I couldn’t say how deep that “like” registered, but it was there, all the same.
“I would understand if you wanted to leave,” I continued. “If I had a home I could still return to, I’d—”
“—I’m not leaving.” He took a breath. “Arthur released a mandate that said no one is to leave.”
“Oh,” I answered in a small voice.
“But even if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t leave anyway.”
I studied this man who had followed a poet’s road into a court that regarded him charming, decorative, and dangerous with his death magic. I looked at this man who’d sat beside me at dinner when no one else would, who’d come to me with wine and no agenda on the worst night I’d had in this castle since Galahad.
He was looking at me with an expression I recognized, because I’d seen it building in him for weeks the way weather builds on a horizon. And I felt the shift in the air between us, the way it changed when two people were close enough and honest enough with each other that the next thing becomes obvious.
He leaned toward me, just slightly, just enough.
And I leaned back.
Not far. Just enough to put an inch of distance between us that hadn’t been there before. His eyes found mine, and I held them because he deserved that much: to be looked at directly when I said what I needed to say.
“Tristan.” My voice came out quieter than I intended. “I care for you. I want you to know that, because it’s true and because I think you should hear it plainly.” I took a breath. “But I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I’ll be there for a long time.”
He didn’t say anything. He just watched me with those dark eyes and waited.
“My heart is still...” I stopped, because the honest version of the sentence was harder to say than I’d anticipated. “It still bleeds. For Lance. And for Corvin.” The names felt like stones in my mouth, heavy and specific. “I don’t have the strength left to give another man that part of me right now. Even one I trust. Even one who deserves it.” I shook my head. “I’d only be giving you the hollow version of me, and you’re worth more than that.”
Something moved across his face, but it wasn’t quite hurt. It was more like the quiet of a man who’d heard something he already suspected confirmed.
“I understand,” he said. And the thing about Tristan was that he meant it. It wasn’t the performed understanding of someone accepting a rejection gracefully. He actually meant it: he did understand.
“There’s something else,” I said, because I owed him the rest of it too. “Even if I were ready…” I looked at my hands for a moment. “I couldn’t let you do this. You’re already in a precarious position here. You’re foreign-born, your magic makes half the court uneasy, and Arthur already watches everyone in his orbit with more attention than is comfortable.” I looked back up at him. “If he thought you and I were—” I didn’t finish the sentence.
Tristan’s expression shifted. “Is that a genuine concern?” He asked the question carefully, like a man picking his way across uncertain ground. “Does Arthur...” He seemed to then search for the right word. “Does he have a claim on you? Beyond the political one?”
I was quiet for a moment.
“It’s complicated,” I finally said.
“Complicated,” he repeated.
“Yes.” I held his gaze. “But if you’re asking whether he harbors feelings for me… then yes. I believe he does. And I don’t know what to do with that, and I’m not asking you to make senseof it either. I just...” I exhaled. “I can’t be the reason something happens to you. I couldn’t bear that.”
Tristan was quiet for a long moment. He looked at the fire, then back at me, and something in his face had settled into something gentler and more resolved than it had been before.
“I’m not leaving because of Arthur,” he said. “And I’m not staying because of whatever this is between us.” He gestured slightly with one hand, indicating the space where the almost-kiss had just lived and died. “I’m staying because you’re my friend. And because you need one.”
I nodded. “Can that be enough for now?”
“Yes,” he said. “That can be enough.”
There was silence between us for the count of a few seconds, both of us just listening to other breathing. Then he stood. “I should probably go.”
I nodded, because he was right: that was the best thing for him to do at the moment. Especially with the way he’d been looking at me. “Thank you. For the wine. For staying.”
“You didn’t even drink the wine.”
