Page 29 of The Guardian

She’d gone to the sale with her brother-in-law by her side, his easy haggling and sharp eye ensuring she got a fair price. For once, she hadn’t felt like someone being rescued, but like someone reclaiming her place in the world.

Now the donkey snorted as she approached, tail flicking lazily. Teller bounded around in excited circles, clearly believing the new addition was meant to be his personal playmate.

“Ye’ll scare the poor beast half to madness,” she said with a quiet laugh, pulling a carrot from her apron pocket.

The donkey took it with measured dignity, chewing slowly while giving Teller a side-eye of supreme disinterest.

“Told ye,” Ailith murmured as she laid a thick blanket over the donkey’s back. “Not everything wants to chase ye through the fields.”

Once the animal had drunk its fill and inspected every corner of the trough with great solemnity, she led it to the small shelter near the edge of her property. The same pen where her old donkey had once dozed through long winters. She latched the gate, watching the animal nudge the straw as it settled in.

Inside, the cottage was quiet, warm with the scent of dried herbs and the faint crackle of the fire. She gathered her embroidery from the table, a half-finished floral pattern she’d been commissioned to stitch into a set of handkerchiefs. Since her last visit to the village market, orders had tripled. If she kept up the pace, she’d have enough to see her comfortably through the winter and perhaps even spring.

It wasn’t wealth.

But it was hers.

A scratching at the door drew her gaze. She opened it and raised a brow. Teller sat there, tail wagging, ears perked with exaggerated innocence. “The donkey still wants nothing to do with ye.”

The dog gave her a long-suffering stare, the kind that somehow managed to look both accusing and expectant.

“Oh, very well,” she sighed, smiling. “A treat for yer trouble.”

She retrieved the meaty bone she’d saved on the windowsill to keep cool and handed it over to the now triumphant hound. Teller retreated to his favorite place in front of the hearth, tail wagging furiously as he gnawed contentedly.

Ailith returned to her chair, needle in hand, cloth stretched between her fingers, but her thoughts didn’t rest on thread or patterns. They drifted back to Hendry.

To his silence. To the hardness in his eyes. To the way he’d pronounced judgment like a man no longer tethered to the world. Her needle paused mid-stitch.

Could she reach him now? After all that had been said.

She didn’t know.

But the thought of doing nothing, of letting that distance calcify into something permanent, was unbearable.

Ailith glanced out the window to the sun, still shining stubbornly despite the cold.