his gravelly voice reciting the words to her, before she was old enough to articulate them herself. She hadn't said anything to Michael about it, but wondered if it was the same prayer.
After a time, a hand on her shoulder pulled her from her solitude. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, but when she looked up, she saw the landscape was dark, the candles having long blown out, the shore deserted. She hadn't heard Koen approach either, but he had come to her side while she prayed.
Garren leaned down and said, 'The night grows much colder, and I don't want to leave you out here alone.'
He reached out and helped her to her feet, then wrapped his cloak around her.
'It is chilly,' she whispered, pulling it closer to her.
'You sing beautifully.'
She looked at him and smiled, the darkness hiding the depth of her expression. 'Thank you for the compliment, though I wish it were a different occasion.'
Garren nodded. 'As do I.'
They stopped as they reached a gate that opened to a steep stairwell, edging its way up the mountain. She looked to the castle, and then to Garren. 'I'm not quite ready to end this night. Walk with me?'
He reached out, taking her hand in his. 'What are you thinking?'
She kept her head down as they walked back down to the shore of the lake, Koen following beside them. 'I was thinking about my father.'
Garren's hand felt solid against hers, as she shivered, both from her remaining grief and the cold. He placed his other hand on top of hers and brought it to his mouth, absentmindedly warming it with his breath, as if it were something he had done before.
Suddenly he paused, realizing his actions. 'I never truly breathed, nor opened my eyes before I came upon you in the woods. I don't understand it, but I am hushed in its presence.'
'I saw it in your eyes,' she said. 'And I saw the same fear and confusion in your eyes as I stood before you at the gate in Eidolon.'
'The dream,' he whispered, 'I thought you'd cursed me, yet was terrified for you all the same.'
She started to reach up to touch his face, but withdrew her hand, remembering his response when she had done so in the cell.
He grabbed her hand before it reached her side, and pulled it to his cheek. 'I wanted nothing more than for you to be by my side. Had I been executed, I would have spent my last hours wishing, quite pathetically, for one last kiss, for one final glimpse of your face.' He grinned. 'And you, my lady, damn well know it.'
Ariana ran her fingers over his skin, tracing every line until she came to the scar her brother had left on his face. He cringed and started to open his mouth to apologize again for the past when she interrupted him.
'Hush,' she whispered. 'Perhaps you should stop fretting over the life you've left behind and pay a little more attention to the one ahead you.'
'You say that with an invitation in your eyes, yet wasn't it you who told me I'd have to do something akin to saving your life if I were ever to be granted permission to kiss you again?'
She shook her head in mild protest. 'That wasn't what I meant by what's before you.'
He closed the distance between them. 'Isn't it?' he whispered.
Ariana cleared her throat and tried to appear disinterested, despite the heat in her cheeks. Why did he have to make this so awkward? This apparently amused Garren more than a little bit because when he laughed, it brought tears to his eyes.
'Your bark is so much worse than your bite. You can kill trained warriors, walk fearlessly into a room full of high-ranking Ereubinian elite, sass an Adorian sovereign who most wouldn't consider even inconveniencing, tell the High Lord of Eidolon to his face that you could care less who he is, then go to him, alone and unarmed, pretending to be a ghost come to torment him and yet,' he lifted her chin with his knuckle, 'you don't know what to do with yourself now, when things aren't on your terms.'
'Perhaps you're stretching to say that things aren't on my — '
He framed her face with both hands and before she could say a word, he pressed his mouth against hers with enough passion to silence even her soul from thinking about anything but the warmth of his kiss.
Garren moved one arm to her waist to press her body closer to his, wrapping the other around her shoulders to caress the back of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat as she moaned against him, against the feel of his tongue teasing hers with gentle strokes.
He held onto her for a brief moment after she pulled away, lifting his head to kiss her brow. His once-steady hands trembled as he enclosed her hands once again in his. 'I know not where our souls have met, but I have never loved another. I am more certain of it than I am of anything in this life.'
Ariana closed her eyes, breathing in his scent. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak, finding that she'd lost the words.
Garren lifted her face to his. 'It was not chance that led me to follow you into the woods, nor could it be an accident that you were hidden away in Palingard.'
He reached up, brushing a strand of her hair aside that had fallen loose from the hood of the cloak. 'You really didn't have any idea that you were Adorian?'
She shook her head. 'I thought they didn't exist, that it was man's way of inventing something to have faith in, that the darkness had grown so great that even false light would illuminate it.'
Thoughts of her father, words he'd said on the subject, came back to mind. 'My father, who abhorred any mention of Adoria, left Palingard ten years ago and didn't return. I set out in the path that I watched him take when he last departed, not knowing where it led. I can still remember running barefoot in the night, following him as far as I could go. He never knew I was there. We'd argued and I wanted to apologize. He left sooner than he had expected to, and didn't say goodbye. Michael disagrees, but I think he chose to leave early because he was angry with me.'
Garren shook his head. 'Michael is wise, believe him. He treats you as if he has never been separated from you, so I doubt that he would outright lie to you, even to spare your feelings.'
She leaned her head back against the warmth of his chest, her body shaking from the cold.
He leaned down and whispered, 'It is too cold out here for you, let's go inside.'
'I'm alright,' she murmured. He was right, it was freezing, but her desire to be alone with him and away from the earshot of others kept her from agreeing.
'Shall we walk farther?'
She nodded, keeping her hand held in his, and they started back down the shore. 'I saw a bandage on Sara's hand. I assume Aiden didn't put it there.'
'I did. I hadn't seen Sara since… it had been quite a few days. I came across her when I entered Aiden's chambers. She wasn't supposed to be there.' Garren's eyes went unfocused as he recalled it. 'She faced the floor as she sat curled up along the far wall, near the window. When I lifted her face, I saw the bruises. She had a cut on her hand as well, and I tended to it with what I could find in his room. He came in before I was finished.'
Garren exhaled sharply. 'I want to — I have, but I can't rightly call him cruel, because of my own transgressions.'
She squeezed his hand. 'There are moments in your life prior to now that contain traces of the man who stands before me.' She stopped him again.
He didn't immediately respond. 'Maybe when I was a child. When I was still an Innocent, but none after that. Ariana, you have such a gentle spirit. I pray you never fully understand the weight of the blood that I have spilled.'
'I watched my mother die before my eyes, and not a kind death. Michael told me earlier this afternoon that it was your mentor who took her from us. Do you not think that being raised by such a vile being would affect you?' Garren did not respond. 'The human who was chosen for you to marry — were you unkind to her?'
He shook his head. 'No. But I can't promise you that I would have been kind had I married her prior to Palingard's fall.'
'I don't believe you would have treated anyone like Aiden has treated Sara. Your response to this girl is proof enough.'
Garren brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it. 'No, but some wounds go deeper than the surface.' He glanced at the now motionless waters of the lake.
