Page 67 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He left before he could say anything worse.
Training should have helped him the next morning. It had always helped before. Steel, motion, men who expected clear orders and gave them back in discipline. He had built himself inside such things for years. A sword in hand, a target before him, and the body usually remembered what to do.
Today, however, his body obeyed poorly.
Hector came at him fast from the left. Ciaran should have blocked the blow at once. He was late by half a beat and paid for it with a crack of wood against his forearm. Pain splintered up to his elbow. He cursed and turned too hard into the next pass.
Hector lowered his practice sword. “What in God’s name was that?”
“Again,” Ciaran grunted.
Hector gave him a long look, then lunged at him once more.
Ciaran met the first blow, missed the second opening, and overcommitted to the third badly enough that Hector had to step back to keep from taking the point in the ribs.
“Enough,” he said.
Ciaran’s jaw locked. “I said, again.”
“And I said, enough.” Hector drove his practice sword into the dirt and folded his arms. “Ye are fighting like a man who has left half of his wits in his bed this morning.”
That hit too near the truth to ignore.
Ciaran turned away, dragged a hand over his face, and tried to force the yard back into focus. It should have been simple, but nothing in it was.
Hector stepped closer. “What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Aye, and I am a priest.”
Ciaran said nothing.
Hector waited patiently. He had become very good at that. Too good.
The yard around them held nothing but the usual noise.
Eventually, Ciaran exhaled and looked across the set of mountains on the horizon. “I want out of this marriage.”
Hector blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Ciaran exhaled. “Ye heard me.”
Hector folded his arms across his chest. “Did ye hearye?”
Ciaran sighed. “This isnae a joke, Brother. I need to find a way to annul this marriage without starting a war with our oldest ally.”
Hector gaped at him. “What?”
Ciaran kept his eyes on the far mountains because looking at his brother while saying it made the whole thing sound even madder. “Again, Hector, ye heard me.”
“Why?”
Ciaran opened his mouth to say something about politics, timing, incompatibility, household order, any lie that sounded practical enough to stand upright. What came out instead was the truth.
“Because I wasnae supposed to like her, for God’s sake.”
The yard seemed to grow still around the words, though the men at the edges kept moving. Hector did not answer.
