Page 86 of Marin’s Promise

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Bran was helpless as he watched the emotions playing over Marin's face. Her wide-eyed surprise at seeing him, the softening of her features that left him thinking she might possibly run to him, and then the pucker of pained confusion on her brow.

“Marin,” he opened his arms to her.

She looked at him like someone she wanted to trust, but someone she was suddenly frightened of. “Reivers killed him. Just like it was reivers who attacked our castle and hurt my mother. And still more reivers are waiting outside the curtain wall to kill us all. How could you live such a life, Bran?”

The question punched into his chest like a knife, especially when said with such bewildered hurt.

“Let us go to our chamber to discuss this.” He did not step toward her despite the ache in his soul begging him to do so. In part, he wanted to allow her the space she so obviously needed, but also because a fat, lazy cat had taken advantage of the opportunity and lay sprawled across his feet.

Marin nodded and cast a sad look down at Bixby before making her way to their chamber.

Bran shifted his foot slightly. Bixby didn't move. He squinted one eye open to convey his irritation before resuming his nap. “Ach, off with ye.” He bent and gently slid the bulk of the wee beast from holding him captive and followed Marin to their chamber.

He found her leaning against the bed with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, her gaze fixed unseeing on the floor. His chest ached at the depth of her agony. While it wasn’t his reivers who had killed her father, they had been men who led similar lives as his own.

He stood there helplessly grasping at what to say and remaining foolishly mute. While she waited, her eyes were glossy with tears and her throat flexed violently at the force of keeping her sobs contained.

Bran cast aside any attempt at discussion and went to her, his arms outstretched to the woman who had been so strong. Not only for her sisters, but for her people. The woman who sometimes needed someone to need and had never had it until now.

This time, she did not fight him. She collapsed into his arms, clenched her fists into his clothing where she clung to him, and cried.

Her back jerked and shuddered against his hands with the force of her weeping and the steady flow of her tears left his chest sodden with her sorrow. He held her tightly to him, being the strength he knew she needed. His hand moved over her in the same soothing circles he'd seen her do with her sisters and he pressed kisses to the top of her head.

He would do anything in his power to draw away the hurt of her loss. For he knew how poignant it could be. It had shattered his heart irrevocably. It made all of him ache to think it might do the same to her, especially when she had so much love and goodness in her.

After some time, her sobs tapered off to deep, sucking gasps and her hands pressed feebly to his chest.

Bran released her with great hesitation. She had asked him a question before he found her like this, and he would answer it. “I dinna like what I've done, Marin. I dinna like the life I’ve had to lead, and I force myself to no’ think of the consequences.”

She shook her head. “You do not have to do this.”

“Aye, I do.” He smoothed a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “I’ll no’ have ye locking these questions inside and letting them fester without answer. Ye need to understand what happened after my mother and Gregor were slain.”

Marin bowed her head and took his hand in her cold one.

“We wandered for a bit of time, but we were beggars in a world filled with too little food.” He ran his thumb over her knuckle. “By the time the first winter came, Ena was healed well enough, but we were near starving. No nobles took us in, no priests offered shelter for more than one night, no villagers filled our bellies with the good-smelling food roasting in their pots. No one was there for us. But the reivers, they took us in. They showed us mercy when the rest of the world put their backs to us.”

A tear fell from Marin’s eye and spattered on the back of her hand.

“I became a reiver because I dinna have a choice.” He lifted her tear-stained face with the forefinger of his free hand. “I thought I hated nobility until I met ye.”

“Because they made you a pawn,” she whispered.

“Because they dinna understand.” He cradled her lovely face in his palm. “They always had coin enough for food. Their homes were safe with feather beds and clean clothes. I had only what I could steal, and many times went days without eating. Reiving was survival. No’ just for me, but for Ena.”

Marin nodded then, a slow resigned acknowledgment to what he’d said, and he knew then that she truly did understand.

* * *

Marin had never fully appreciatedhow fortunate she'd been to have the life she'd led. In fact, she'd oftentimes found herself overwhelmed, snared within the triviality of her sisters and their squabbles, or letting an incorrect order for their larder ruin her day. She had become lost in the ignorance of her own naivety.

Never had she experienced what Bran had described–the starvation and lack of security. What type of person might she have been had she endured such daily uncertainty?

To think he'd done it all in the beginning merely to have what she'd taken for granted through her whole entire life. The ache in the back of her mind became a dull thrum, its beat echoing in her temples.

“I imagine I might have made the same decision you did,” she said at last.