Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
“You told me. She was looking for her horse.”
So she had been, but what Sarya had told him today put a new spin on her horse being missing. Bannin had assumed Foggy was stolen and she’d gone searching for him—and that it had been pure luck that Bannin had been able to help her find the stallion. But he would think more on that later.
“I mean, did she ever say why she settled here. Or why she didn’t go home.”
How she’d settled was easy enough to know. Plenty of people had fled Galoth during the curse and never returned, abandoning their homes. Bannin had told Sarya about the empty cottage in the glade himself. When she’d moved in, he hadn’t given much thought to why she had. He’d simply been glad that she’d stayed.
But hadn’t she any kin to return to? Most families weren’t like his and Helana’s.
She shrugged and began walking again. “I figured it had something to do with the stone sickness, since it was not long after—and because she was at the tavern so much.”
After the curse was broken. Those had been the best of days for Helana. And the worst of days for Sarya.
“She was betrothed to marry,” he told her. “While she was stone, he married someone else.”
Helana grimaced. “A lucky escape.”
A humorless laugh escaped him. Bannin had said exactly the same…and he’d seen the hurt in Sarya’s eyes when he did. “Has she ever talked about where she came from? Mentioned any parents, brothers, sisters?”
“Well, of course she…” Helana trailed off, frowning a bit. Her mouth opened a few times as if she remembered something, then closed as she reconsidered. Finally she shook her head. “Never. She mentions what she’s doing on the farm or who she’s helping in the village. But she’s never said anything about where she’s from or what she did before. Mostly I’m the one who’s talking.”
“I am, too.” Always blathering on. “I’ve told her more stories than I have Ouin.”
Helana gave him a questioning look.
He shrugged. “She makes me nervous.”
Her laugh rang out. “You are in so deep, brother.”
Bannin had known that since the first moment he’d looked into Sarya’s honey-brown eyes.
His sister bumped his shoulder again and continued, “But there’s plenty we know about her. I told you how she helps Widow Elphin—”
“She told me that today. You didn’t.”
“Well, you know it now. But I did tell you about the fight in the tavern, that time the cooper’s boys began brawling and slammed into Alia. Sarya had all three of them laid out and crying for their mother before I even got Alia up off the floor. And that was after her third ale. But she moved like she was sober, then sat down for another drink.”
That fit what he’d seen today, too. Sarya had gone after the demon without any hesitation once she’d seen his axe and knew someone was at her back…and Bannin sensed that if she’d had her own axe, she wouldn’t have waited for help. That she wouldn’t have needed to wait. There was a strength to her—though it wasn’t lumbering like his, all fists and bulk. Hers was graceful. Swift and lithe. Like a dancer.
Or a master swordsman.
Helana’s gaze was on his face. “It worries you, doesn’t it?”
Many things worried him at the moment. Foremost was knowing that Sarya was in the middle of a forest where a demon was stalking human prey.
Yet that wasn’t likely what Helana was asking. “What worries me?”
“Whether she still loves the coward who abandoned her. You couldn’t ever accept being second in a woman’s heart. Not after all those years spent watching our mother and father coddle the First.”
“I might accept it,” he said, though an ache twisted through his chest. “For her.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
His sister knew him too blasted well. “I wouldn’t,” Bannin said.
Her brow arched. “Will you give up, then? Abandon your courtship?”
Bannin laughed, because his sister knew him better than that, too. “Not a chance.”
He’d fight his way into first place. Or kiss his way there. Whatever it took to win Sarya’s heart, Bannin would do. Because he’d spoken true earlier.
For her, he’d wait forever.
Chapter 3
Sarya the Restless
With a frustrated huff, Sarya flopped over in bed. Again. Sleep had not found her yet this night. All because of that blasted Bannin. She knew he was more than capable of facing a demon—in his stories, he’d faced many before—but in those tales he’d also been accompanied by Warrick the Cursebreaker.
Yet she’d sent him out alone, in a fit of anger that she wholly regretted now. She ought to have gone with him.
Sarya had battled monsters before. Sometimes alone, but most often with other warriors. And she missed that part of her former life. Protecting all of Galoth, with someone she trusted fighting at her side.
But Bannin was wrong about her reason for being here. The past three years, she hadn’t been hiding. She truly hadn’t been. She’d simply been holed up in a safe place and licking her wounds.