The first time came when she saw her cousin cross the lower yard with a roll of accounts in one hand and authority in every line of her body. Aingeal slowed, very slightly, but enough for someone who loved her to notice, when Donal’s voice carried from near the stables.
Aingeal did not turn toward him. She only listened. Then she continued toward the hall as if nothing had happened.
The second time was outside the council chamber, when Donal stepped aside to let Aingeal pass. Neither of them touched. Neither of them spoke. Yet the silence between them felt so charged that Étaín nearly stopped breathing.
Twice she thought,I must tell her.Twice she kept silent. Because she still had suspicion more than proof. Because Aingeal had spent her life standing too straight beneath blows no one else understood, and Étaín could not bear to be the hand that delivered this one without knowing exactly where it would land.
So she watched.
By midday, the castle had warmed a little with bodies, cooking smoke, and motion, but nothing in Étaín had eased. She crossed the yard toward the hall and slowed at the sound of laughter near the old water trough.
Aingeal stood there with one of the village children before her, fastening the loose edge of his cloak more securely at the shoulder. The boy was talking earnestly about a dog he had left behind in the western holding and how he meant to retrieve it himself if grown men continued behaving like cowards.
Aingeal’s mouth had softened. Affection and patience moved through her face before she remembered to guard it.
Across the yard, just beyond the boy’s line of sight, Donal had stopped walking. He watched Aingeal with a stillness too intent to be casual.
Étaín saw it all at once.
Not only Aingeal’s attachment.
His.
It was there in the way he looked at her when he thought himself unobserved. Not hunger. Not admiration alone. Something quieter.
Aingeal looked up then and saw him. The softness vanished from her face and in its place came alertness, and beneath that something wounded and defensive both. She looked away first.
Donal went still, as though struck by something he had expected and deserved.
Étaín stood half-hidden by the corner of the hall and saw too much.
Aingeal was already caught. And he was too.
God help them all.
She spent the rest of the day listening for proof. Not rumor. Not instinct. Not the cold prickle that moved through her each time Canterbury was spoken near him.
Real proof.
She found Murchad near the kitchen stores, trimming wick ends from a basket of tallow candles and muttering to himself about careless maids, worse weather, and the general failure of youth to respect either fire or knees. Years ago, he had carried messages between the northern keep and the southern lands when the alliance was first being arranged.
“Murchad,” Étaín said, crouching beside him before he could struggle to his feet. “Do not insult me by pretending your knees are equal to courtesy.”
He grunted. “You sound like your father when you give orders.”
“A dreadful flaw in me.” She lowered her voice. “Tell me something. When Donal O’Raida was last expected north, how was he meant to travel?”
Murchad peered at her with old, cloudy eyes that still missed very little. “Why?”
“Because I asked.”
“Ah. Then it must be serious.” When she did not smile, the old man sobered. “He was meant to stop in Ardglas two days before the last road north,” Murchad said. “Change horses. Take fresh escort if the weather had turned. The southern road was always the risk.”
Étaín’s pulse tightened. “And was he seen there?”
Murchad blinked. “No.”
The single word moved through her like cold water. “No?”
