For a moment, neither spoke. Then Tomas said quietly, “They chose a husband because they cannot imagine the land resting safely in a woman’s hands. Not truly. No matter what you have done.”
Aingeal let out a slow breath. “No. They cannot.”
He reached for her hand, hesitated only briefly, then laid his over it. “You do not have to disappear into this.”
She looked down at their joined hands. The anger inside her did not lessen. It changed, cooling and hardening, becoming something with an edge she could use. “I will marry,” she said. “I will smile in the hall. I will sign what must be signed. I will do what peace requires.” She lifted her gaze to his. “But this land will not be handed to any man as though it were his by right. I will not be set aside in my own castle.”
Tomas nodded once. “I know.”
She drew her hand gently from beneath his and gave him the smallest of smiles, stubborn as iron. “Next time, you tell me.”
His answering breath shook a little. “Always.” He left her then.
Aingeal remained at the window a while longer, looking out over the yard, the walls, the land beyond them fading into the gray of evening. Somewhere south rode the man they had chosen for her, a stranger already being fitted to her life like a clasp to a cloak.
Let him come, she thought. I will meet him standing.
Chapter three
The next morning, Aingeal rode through the lands as though speed alone might leave unease behind. She did not know exactly what she meant to outrun. Only that stillness had begun to feel dangerous. It pressed inward, tightening beneath her ribs until even breathing felt like labor. Motion thinned it. Motion made it bearable.
Bríd surged beneath her, strong and eager, muscle rolling under her sleek chestnut coat. Her hooves beat a steady rhythm into the damp winter earth, and Aingeal let that rhythm pull her breathing into order. Wind tore at her braid and struck cold against her cheeks. She welcomed it.
Riding had always been her remedy. When the world grew too loud, too close, she rode.
Fast.
The fields opened before her in long familiar sweeps, green broken by low gray stone walls and hedgerows gone brittle with winter. The land rose and dipped in gentle swells she could have crossed blindfolded. Every hollow, every turn, every narrowtrack worn by hoof and cartwheel belonged as much to her memory as to the earth itself.
She leaned lower over Bríd’s neck and urged the mare on.
Marriage. Alliance. Necessary. The words struck through her thoughts in the same weary pattern they had for days. Necessary. For peace. For stability. For the people.
Aingeal tightened her grip on the reins until the leather bit her palms. She would do what must be done. She would stand in the hall and smile when expected. She would sign the charters. She would bind her people’s safety to another name if that was the price required of her.
But she would not become ornamental.
Her father had not raised her to be set upon a shelf like some polished thing to be admired and ignored. He had taught her to hold land the way a warrior held a blade, with steadiness, strength, and the knowledge that surrender must never come easily.
At the crest of a rise, she eased Bríd down to a canter. The mare tossed her head, breathing hard, steam lifting from her in pale bursts. Aingeal drew in the scent of winter grass and distant chimney smoke. For a few precious heartbeats, the tightness inside her loosened.
She let herself simply ride. Let herself be foolish enough to enjoy the wind.
Then Bríd snorted sharply and pinned back her ears.
Aingeal looked down.
A man stood in the field below.
He wore a dark cloak that shifted in the breeze, and something in the set of him caught her at once: the squared shoulders, the stillness, the watchful balance of a man who did not waste movement. A horse grazed a short distance away, reins loose over its neck. The stranger stood half-turned, his attention fixed on something at his feet.
Aingeal scowled.
The countryside was not a place for wandering men to plant themselves wherever they pleased. She hauled back on the reins. Bríd skidded beneath her, tearing soft clods from the earth.
The man turned.
For one taut instant, the world narrowed to the space between them.
