Shacklemores? The Shacklemores have been after me ever since the day I left, and every day I’ve been trying to make my way back to you.’
It was an outrageous lie, but Frey had a talent for lying. When he lied even he believed it. Just for that moment, just for the duration of his protest, he was convinced that he really had done right by her. The details were unimportant.
Besides, he knew for sure that Gallian Thade really did still want him dead. Thade had framed him. In such a light, it was rather heroic that he’d come back at all.
But Amalicia wasn’t so easily swayed. ‘Spit and blood, Darian, don’t give me that! I sent you a letter telling you where I was! I sat here in this horrible place waiting for—’
‘I never got any letter!’
‘Yes, you did! The letter I sent you with the co-ordinates of this place.’
‘I never got any co-ordinates! In your last letter you called me a coward and a liar, among other things. In fact, the last letter I got from you left me in very little doubt that you never wanted to see me again.’
Amalicia’s hand went to her mouth. Suddenly, all the anger had gone out of her and she looked horrified.
‘You didn’t get it? The letter I sent after that one?’
Frey looked blank.
Amalicia turned away, an anxious hand flying to her forehead, pacing around the room. ‘Oh, by the Allsoul! That silly cow of a handmaiden. She must have written the wrong address, or not paid the right postage, or—’
‘Maybe it got lost in the post?’ Frey suggested generously. ‘Or someone at one of my pick-up points mislaid it. I had to stay on the move, you know.’
‘You really didn’t receive my letter?’ Amalicia asked. Her voice had taken on a note of sympathy, and Frey knew he’d won. ‘The one where I took back all those foul things I said?’
Frey struggled to his feet with difficulty. His jaw was swelling, and he could barely stand on his dead leg. Amalicia rushed over to help him.
‘I really didn’t,’ he said.
‘And you still came? You still searched for me all these years, even when you thought I hated you?’
‘Well,’ he said, then paused for a moment to roll his jaw before he delivered his final blow. ‘I made a promise.’
Her eyes shimmered with tears in the moonlight. Wide, dark, trusting eyes. He’d always liked those eyes. They’d always seemed so innocent.
She flung herself at him, and hugged him close. He winced as his injuries twinged, then slid his arms around her slender back and buried his face in her hair. She smelled clean. Cleaner than he’d smelled for a long time, that was for certain. He found himself wondering how things might have been with her, if not for her father, if not for the unfortunate circumstances that drove them apart.
No. No regrets. If he opened that door he’d never be able to close it.
She pulled herself away a little, so she could look up at his face. She was desperately sorry now, ashamed for having tragically misjudged him. Grateful that he’d come for her in spite of everything.
‘You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, Darian,’ she breathed. ‘I haven’t seen another since my father sent me to this awful place.’
