She kissed his weathered cheek.
He bore it with the stoicism of a man who had long since accepted that resisting Étaín was futile and faintly ridiculous.
The whole yard seemed to lean toward her. People straightened when she looked at them. Faces softened. Voices warmed. Étaín had that rare gift: she made people feel more alive simply by treating them as though they mattered.
Aingeal had loved her for that since childhood. For that, and for a hundred other things. For slipping into her chamber after her father died and refusing to leave until she slept. For laughing at the exact right moment. For never mistaking gentleness for weakness.
“You look tired,” Étaín said, still holding Aingeal’s wrists.
“And you look impossible.”
“That is because I rode for days and still outshine everyone in this yard.”
“Modesty was never among your virtues.”
“No,” Étaín said cheerfully. “But being correct often is.”
Aingeal was still standing in that warmth when she felt another presence draw near.
Donal.
He had crossed from the training space by the armory, the bandage hidden beneath his sleeve. He stopped a few paces away, waiting with that contained courtesy of his.
Aingeal’s heart gave one abrupt, treacherous leap. The joy in her did not lessen.
Étaín followed her gaze and turned.
Donal bowed. “Lady Étaín.” His voice was grave and even.
Étaín looked at him with the bright, open interest most men found impossible to resist.
And why should they? Étaín looked at people as if she expected them to be interesting, as if she meant to discover the best of them if given time. The world adored her for it.
Aingeal had never begrudged that before.
“This,” Étaín said, “must be Sir Donal O’Raida.”
“I am at your service.”
“Such a solemn answer. You may do better later, when the road has not shaken all the charm out of me.”
Brennach made a low sound that might have been a strangled laugh.
Donal did not quite smile.
Aingeal saw the smallest shift at the corner of his mouth. Not amusement exactly. Awareness of Étaín and of the eyes on them.
“A long road does not usually improve a man’s wit,” he said. “I would not trust its effect on charm.”
Étaín laughed.
Aingeal stood very still. It was nothing. A harmless exchange. Courtesy meeting courtesy, wit answered with measured wit. Yet the sight of them together, Étaín all warmth and motion, Donal all reserve and shadowed stillness, struck some hidden place inside her.
Étaín asked where he had ridden from. He answered with careful economy, enough and no more. She asked whether the roads south of the marsh swallowed horses whole as songs claimed, whether the south was as damp as the north. He answered each time with quiet distance, neither encouraging nor cold.
It should have soothed Aingeal, but it did not.
She did not tell Étaín that Donal was meant to leave before vows. She did not tell her that the pact had shifted, that none of it was simple, that she had kissed him the night before, or that all morning she had been trying not to think stay as if the word might draw itself into being.
