Étaín leaned farther over the sill, the cold stone biting into her palms.
She had watched men train all her life. Boys who wanted to look fierce. Lords’ sons who fought for applause. Veterans who mistook noise for skill and swagger for command. Men so in love with the idea of their own strength that they wasted it in practice and had little left when it mattered.
The boy overbalanced on a turn. Donal caught his wrist before he could pitch forward, corrected the angle of his grip, said something too low for her to hear, then stepped back. The boy flushed, nodded, and grinned despite himself.
Étaín smiled faintly. It was not merely that Donal was handsome, though he was, in that dark, severe way that made foolish girls dream of chapels, soft kisses, and men speaking softly over their hands.
And it was not merely that Aingeal watched him as if trying very hard not to. It was the feeling of him.
Familiar.
The thought came sudden and sharp, like a door opening in a quiet room. She had seen him before. Or someone very like him.
She frowned and kept watching.
He turned slightly then, catching a practice sword from another squire with one hand, and the thin morning light struck the side of his face. A pale scar cut near the brow. His profile sharpened in the mist: strong nose, hard mouth, eyes hooded in concentration.
Étaín’s breath caught. An uneasy tug pulled inside her, the edge of a memory brushing past and refusing to settle. Where had she seen him?
At court, perhaps. She had gone south often enough with her father. At a feast? A tournament? Some Yuletide gathering crammed with loud men too pleased with themselves?
No. Nothing in him belonged to feasts and banners. He did not carry himself like a man bred to be admired. He carried himself like a man who had once needed very badly not to die.
He struck again, then lowered the practice blade when Seamus called an end.
The boys scattered at once, noisy, flushed, and relieved. Donal stood still for a moment, breathing hard but evenly, one hand braced at his hip.
Then he lifted his face and looked up.
At her window.
Étaín stepped back without thinking, pulse jumping once in foolish surprise. For one absurd heartbeat, she felt as if she had been caught doing something improper, though all she had done was watch a man train from her own chamber window. Then she laughed softly at herself, closed the shutter, and called for a maid to braid her hair.
Still, even as she dressed, the unease remained. His face was familiar. Or if not his face, then his presence. His voice. Something was etched into the corner of her mind that she could not quite reach. But she knew him.
She was almost certain now.
Étaín noticed that Aingeal did not eat enough. She noticed everything about the people she loved, especially when they pretended to be made of sterner stuff than flesh. Her cousin sat at the morning board in her solar with an untouched roll on her plate and her fingers wrapped around a cup that had gone cold long ago.
The room was bright with thin daylight. The shutters stood half open. A draft lifted the edge of the table linen. On the hearth, the fire had burned down to a patient red glow. Aingealsat very straight in her chair, as she always did when she wanted the world, and herself, to believe she was entirely in command of whatever weighed on her.
“That is the third time you have looked out the window without seeing anything,” Étaín said pleasantly, tearing her bread in half.
Aingeal glanced back at her, wary already. “Have you come north to count the number of times I look out the window?”
“I came north because I missed you, which is a far nobler mission. Your looking out the window is merely a secondary grievance.”
Aingeal exhaled through her nose.
That, in itself, was encouraging. It meant she was not yet fully lost to whatever severe weather had settled over her spirit. Étaín leaned back in her chair and studied her openly.
Aingeal looked tired. Beautiful, of course. She had always possessed that grave sort of beauty that caught men unprepared and made them speak more carefully than they intended. But there was strain at her mouth this morning. A hard line between her brows that had not been there when they were girls. Her eyes looked darker too, not from illness but from wakefulness carried too long.
Étaín’s amusement softened. “You are troubled,” she said.
“The border is troubled,” Aingeal corrected.
“And you have decided to carry the whole burden yourself, which remains one of your more exhausting traits.”
