The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(8)

But I do love Mael.

And I’d had the chance to tell him—to be with him—in the vale that morning. I loved Maelgwyn Ironhand, and Aeddan knew it. He’d known it all along, even before I did. I saw it in his gray eyes, and I saw that he hated his brother because of it. Because of me.

“Count yourself lucky that your father has a care for your heart, Fallon,” Aeddan said, working the stopper from the wine jug. “As do I. You should be glad.”

“Forgive me if I don’t rejoice,” I spat.

Aeddan stood, and the amphora slipped from his fingers and smashed on the floor. Wine leaked out of the broken vessel like blood from a wound.

“There has always been something between us, Fallon,” he said urgently. “Hasn’t there? If I hadn’t gone away—if it had been Maelgwyn and not me who had been forced to flee to Rome . . .”

In two paces he was across the room, gripping me hard by the shoulders. A flush crawled up Aeddan’s sharp features, and a vein pulsed at the side of his neck.

“I never forgot about you,” he said. “I always knew that one day I’d come back for you. I can take you places, Fallon. I will take you places. It’s all set in motion already. And you’ll be happy—I promise you! Rome is a place of wonder. They build palaces of gleaming stone, and the air is like perfume. But there’s more, Fallon. They’re fierce. They have fighters, warriors like you’ve never known.”

“Like the Roman legions your father sold our people out to?” I snapped.

Aeddan barely flinched at my outrage. “I’ll show you things you could never have imagined, Fallon. Not even in your dreams. And we’ll finally be together.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I had never—not once in my life—thought of Aeddan that way. The very idea that he had woven some kind of fantasy in his mind and wrapped me up in it was beyond me. He leaned in to kiss me again, but this time instinct took over as Aeddan’s fingers dug into my flesh. I dropped back into a defensive stance, knees bent and head down. I went again for my knife—which, of course, wasn’t there—and instead gritted my teeth and jammed my knee into his groin, shoving him away as he gasped in pain and staggered back.

From behind a sweep of dark hair, Aeddan’s eyes glinted dangerously in the darkness. His fists knotted at his sides. “That wasn’t nice, wife.” The breath rasped in his throat. “A Roman woman would know how to better control herself. But there’ll be plenty of time for me to teach you—”

“Aeddan.” Mael’s voice cut through the air like a knife.

“Hello, brother.” Aeddan straightened up and turned around slowly. “Come to share in my soon-to-be-wedded joy?”

Two swords flashed in the darkness, and Aeddan suddenly found himself collared by Mael’s twin blades, crossed in front of his throat. They bit into the flesh just above the king’s torc he wore. Mael pressed his brother back toward the door, relentless.

“Get out,” he said. “Before I stain my swords with your worthless blood.”

“And here I thought that you’d be happy for me, little brother.” Aeddan lifted his chin and glared at Mael above the blades, but he backed up a step nonetheless. “For her, at least. I bring Fallon a chance to escape. I will take her to a place where she’ll live like the warrior queen she’s meant to be. You? You’d just wind up getting her killed in a tribal raid one day.”

“I said get out!” Mael roared and drew back his blades to strike.

But Aeddan was already gone, slipping out and disappearing into the black rain. Mael stood there for a long time, his back to me, shoulders heaving. Then he sheathed his swords and turned, anguish twisting his face.

“Where were you tonight?” I asked.

“Aeddan,” he spat. “His chieftains kept me from you.”

His gray eyes were full of anger and hurt. There was blood at the corner of his mouth and the shadow of a new bruise blooming along his jaw. I remembered the uproar near the beer vats in the hall.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” he demanded. “Is that why you refused me this morning? To be with Aeddan?”

“What?” I stared at him, incredulous. “How could you even think such a thing? I meant what I said, Mael. You alone have my heart.”

Mael’s anger vanished almost instantly, but the hurt remained deep and dark in his eyes. “Fallon, I’m sorry. I just . . .” He swallowed thickly. “You are all that has been in my heart since the day we met. When I sleep, I see your face. When I wake, I long to. You are as fierce and as beautiful and as deadly to me as your sword is. And so I promised to wait, but then . . .”

“Then what?”

“Then Aeddan was there.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “And he was kissing you.”

“I wasn’t kissing him.”

“I know!” He angrily clawed back the wet hair from his face. “I know that now. I’ll go to him. Virico. I’ll tell him that we’ve already laid claim to each other’s hearts.”

“You can’t. It’s too late.”

I knew my father. Had Mael fought his way through to me in the hall . . . if he had stood before Aeddan and challenged him there and then, Virico might have considered such a claim. But it was a lifetime too late for that now. My father would not go back on a pledge—one made in front of the whole of the Four Tribes—and he would not change his mind. He would not suffer his chiefs to call him weak. Or cowardly. He had suffered enough of that in the days after the Romans had returned him from capture. How, his freemen had asked, had the king not taken his own life rather than suffer the shame of Roman captivity? How had he come back to Durovernum alive when his own daughter had died in battle?