Page 44 of Cadell the Dragon

He had.

To her relief, she saw the tall, familiar figure standing by the tower, in the place she had come to see as their special place. Though she had no idea what she could tell him, she went to join him. He didn’t move when he heard her approach, instead keeping his back to her.

“Cadell, I’m sorry,” she started. “I didn’t mean⁠—”

“I know.” A long silence. “Forgive me, it’s been a shock. I need to be alone.”

This was exactly what she had told Rhun. Dear God, what a mess the three of them had gotten themselves embroiled in.

“I understand. I will leave you,” she said, already making her way back to the ladder.

“Wait, no, Johanna. Stay here. This is your home. I should be the one going.”

Oh. Everything within her collapsed. He meant that he wanted to leave the castle, not just that he needed a moment to himself. This was a hundred times worse than she’d feared.

“I—”

She stopped. What was she supposed to say? This was all so brutal. She was not ready to see him go, might never be ready. They belonged to one another even if they were no longer allowed to show it to the world.

“I don’t mean to leave for good, don’t worry.” As usual, he had read her mind. “I will come talk to you later, I swear, just…not now.”

With those words, he finally turned to face her. His eyes were glowing like a dying fire’s embers. It burned a path all the way to her soul. Such pain in those eyes, such excruciating, inescapable pain.

“Go,” she said before she could beg him to whisk her away from Bryn Glas and all the problems that had surfaced. They should be in the chapel at Castell y Ddraig right now, getting married. Instead they were standing at Bryn Glas, saying goodbye to one another, possibly forever. It was unbearable.

Cadell took a step forward, then realized that he had to walk past her to access the ladder. For a heartbeat that lasted an eternity, they found themselves a hair’s breadth apart in the narrow passage. Johanna’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that she feared it would burst out.

“I will be back,” Cadell told her, placing his forehead against hers. “I swear.”

A moment later, he was at the bottom of the ladder.

Johanna didn’t watch him go to his horse. She couldn’t move, refused to go back to the bailey alone. If she saw anyone she would have to answer questions. The people of Bryn Glas would have seen Cadell arrive earlier, they would see him leave now, on his own, and they would have noticed that she was not getting ready to leave for Castell y Ddraig. They would have concluded that the two of them were not getting married and would be wondering why. The answer to that question was simple, and soul crushing.

Because she was already married.

Her husband, whom everyone thought dead, was in the solar even now, waiting for her.

A bitter laugh escaped her throat. Now she understood why Rhun’s body had never been found, why there was nowhere for her to go pay her respects. Because he had never died. She had never really been a widow, free to fall in love with another man.

But fall in love she had, and it had taken this tragedy for her to see it.

Johanna hid her face in her hands.

The sun had already started its descent when Cadell reached the gate at Bryn Glas.

On the battlements by the north tower was a lonely, feminine figure he would have recognized anywhere. Damnation, had Johanna not moved from that spot all day? He climbed the ladder faster than he had ever climbed anything and was at her side before he’d taken a full breath.

She turned to face him. Her lovely eyes were not alive with their usual spark. They were like two bottomless wells of sorrow.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, before berating himself. Was that really the best question he could ask her?

“No,” she said, her voice dull, as if it did not matter. But it mattered. It mattered to him that she had not eaten or drunk anything while she waited for his return. Was that how it had been while she waited for her husband?

“I went back home,” he explained, though she had not asked anything. “There was something I needed to get.”

As soon as he had ridden out of the gate that morning he had known he would make the long ride, and why. He reached to the leather pouch at his belt and extracted the ring he’d gone to retrieve.

“Please. Give me your hand. Your left hand.”