Page 231 of Sword & Shadow
“Of course, I did.” She felt her own smile falter. “I’m sorry that it’s gone.”
“As am I.”
The fondness in his gaze caused her hands to twitch. Subconsciously, she slipped to the edge of the couch, her feet all but begging her to go to his side.
Instead, she returned to her story. “Ilain and I grew close as well, and she told me about her family and their lifelong connection to the Alliance. And I’ve discovered she’s one of the better people I’ve ever met.”
Deckard nodded as though he’d already determined that for himself.
“But,” Evylin sighed, “Thom and Ethenn began to fight over her. I thought it was because they both had feelings for her when it turned out...”
“We don’t have to talk about that,” Deckard said, a flat edge to his tone.
Evylin met his gaze. “I think we do.”
The openness in his expression shuttered itself, his shoulders becoming rigid, but he didn’t stop her.
“Jonn,” she whispered, “I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” She leaned forward, her fingers gripping the cushions. “You have to know, I never would have befriended him, I never would have confided in him, had I known.”
“Evylin,” he replied, a severity coming into his stare that she wasn’t used to. “This isn’t about what you did or didn’t do. It’s about what Thom did, howhebehaved.”
“But do you believe him?” she asked, daring to hold that hard glare. “His apology tonight, what he said to us before they took him away. Do you believe he means it?”
Deckard was silent. He rubbed his palms together, his thoughts so deep she could see the tension in his hunched form. Whatever arguments raged within, they drove him from his seat. He began to pace across the room, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he muttered at last. “Of all men, I understand why he—why any man could love you—shouldlove you. But my brother... It’s hard to believe that anyone could dupe themselves into having feelings simply out of competition.”
“Perhaps,” Evylin offered, “his feelings were genuine but misinterpreted, as he suggested tonight.”
Deckard continued to pace. “You believe he loves you but is notinlove with you?”
“Exactly.” She wanted to rise, to take his hand and make him look at her. But she wasn’t ready yet to say the things she needed to, to make her confession. “I think the only reason he pursued those feelings, incorrectly attributing more to them than he truly felt, was because he saw it as a chance to compete with you. He wanted to prove that he could beat you. But I don’t believe he ever thought he actually could, and that’s why he waited so long, why he even fought me tooth and nail before he ever tried to take me from you.”
His pacing faltered as he stepped behind the far settee. He gave a forlorn-sounding chuckle. “I suppose he didn’t realize it wouldn’t matter. You weren’t mine anyway.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered, her heart breaking at the thought. After two weeks separating them, after the cold and lonely nights, after only finding sleep by dreaming of his presence again... After her conversation with Hewitt’s ghost, Evylin had come to realize that somehow Jonn Deckard had become the person upon whom she relied. He was her heart, and she never wished to be parted from him again.
Deckard met her stare, silent.
Something in his hesitation, his stoic resignation, emboldened her. He needed to know. If they were going to die tomorrow, she wanted to tell him. She held his gaze firmly as she spoke.
“I could never be anyone but yours.”
Deckard’s breath caught. Then his eyes fell away. “Evylin, you need to know something.”
His unexpected reply caused her to straighten in her seat.
“If we make it out of this alive,” he began, “I’m not...free. I promised Auden that when our mission with them is through, I will join the Alliance in whatever capacity they ask of me.”
Evylin blanched. “When did you make this promise?”
He tapped the back of the settee guiltily. “A little over three weeks ago.”
Doing a quick recounting of the time, Evylin realized that it would roughly coincide with the discovery of the writ. Her lips parted in shock. “Was this the price of my joining him in Dunneshead?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
