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Máel clapped him on the shoulder as they went.
“Do you even know how to joust?” Odin asked.
“I’ll learn.”
Odin’s face pinched. “That’ll be a painful lesson, sir. She worth it?”
He closed his eyes and pictured Cassia. Pictured her eating strawberries. Drinking his whisky. Running through the woods in her rose and purple gown. Splashing him with river water. Stepping out in the firelight wearing his tunic. Learning to whittle and shoot an arrow. Cassia riding him, her head dropped back, singing his name…trusting him, above all others.
“She is worth everything.”
* * *
Cassia had just turned away when she heard a disturbance break out behind her in the jousting ring.
A low voice spoke, then Sir Bennett said, “This is an outrage!” and her father said, “This is a private joust, man. Begone.”
She paused and half-turned back to the field. It was a blare of sun. It seemed cruel to have such brightness, blinding her to her future.
She lifted her hand, shielding her eyes, and squinted into the light.
The rider’s boots hit the earth, raising a puff of dust as he leapt off his horse. He took off his helm and the sun fell on his face.
Her heart fell and lifted in a single, fluid, dizzying arc.
Máel. It was Máel.
He had come for her. He was going to fight for her.
He was going to die.
Chapter 33
A rumble of astonishment rippled through the small group of combatants and onlookers engaged in the little drama that would decide Cassia’s fate. The combatants exchanged glances; the spectators lining the ring leaned in farther to listen.
D’Argent looked stunned. “I did not think even an Irishman would be such a fool.”
“That makes it sound as though you think I will lose,” he replied.
D’Argent smiled. “This one will cost you.”
Máel unslung Moralltach and threw it on the ground at d’Argent’s feet.
It hurt, to be sure, but he’d decided that if an oath required you to ruin innocence, it wasn’t much of an oath at all.
Further, he decided love may not, in fact, be a lie. Cassia had risked all for him, with nothing to gain but a future she did not want. He had a deep suspicion love was the reason why, and it seemed most chivalrous indeed.
But if it was a lie, he would live this lie for the rest of his life.
D’Argent stared at it in shock, then fixed Máel in his glare. “She means this much to you?”
“I will not speak of Cassia to you.”
The baron glanced at the blond-haired knight who’d protested his outrage so loudly when Máel first rode up, then looked back and lowered his voice.
“You have no leverage here, Irish. I burned the missive. There is no proof. But even if you had it yet, you would do nothing, for if you reveal me, you destroy her too.”
Máel did not reply.
