Page 73 of Hollow Court

Even in the silver lighting, he looked nearly as exhausted as I felt, his hair disheveled from running his hand through it.

He didn’t look surprised to see me, or maybe it was the familiarity of it all. Late nights under a starry sky with only each other for company.

Then again, he knew where my rooms were. As usual, I was the only one left in the dark.

“Your rooms are across from mine?” I surmised aloud.

Though he could have wandered up here from anywhere, the explanation seemed the most likely.

“Apparently,” he muttered, his words forming a small cloud in the cold night air.

I could have turned around and gone back downstairs—should have, perhaps—but the alternative to being on this roof with him was being alone in my room with my own relentless thoughts.

Besides, it was hard to muster up any real anger toward him these days.

Though, if I was being honest with myself, I hadn’t been strictlyangrywith him in some time.

I crossed over to the railing, resting my arms on the balustrade and taking in the endless sea of stars. The sky felt closer from the mountains back home, the world tucked away in safety. Out here, it was easy to feel exposed.

Vulnerable.

Or perhaps that was just the penetrating gaze of the rooftop’s other occupant. We stood for several stilted heartbeats before Davin’s low tone eventually cut through the silence.

“It probably says something about our lives that the days when I was a captive and you were half-betrothed to LordHardly-the-worst-I-could-do feel like simpler times, in hindsight.”

I couldn’t argue that. Now, I was a fugitive from my kingdom, and he had spent his midnight hours questioning traitors amongst his own men.

“Ah, and nowyou’reLord Hardly-the-worst-I-could-do. My, how things come full circle.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Technically, that’sLairdHardly-the-worst-I-could-do.”

“How silly of me,” I said, my expression mirroring his. “You know, I suppose it was painfully apparent, in hindsight, what with your penchant for expensive beverages.”

It was a risk, touching on things we rarely mentioned, but something about the hush of the night compelled me toward honesty.

He tilted his head like he was deliberating his next words.

“Is that how you put it together then?” he finally asked.

I sucked in a breath.

Somehow, he had realized that I found out long before the rest of my kingdom. He was wrong about how, though.

“What makes you think I did?” I asked anyway.

He turned his scrutinizing gaze on me, and I resisted the urge to look away.

Was he, too, thinking about the morning I left?

That was a day I would just as soon go my entire life without reliving, let alone while he was right in front of me, staring at me with the same discerning eyes that had made me set aside my better judgment to begin with.

Even now, I wasn’t sure what was worse—that he had used me for information I would have given him freely, or that while I had been dreaming of a life with him, he had withheld the information that might have made that possible.

Perhaps that last part was my fault, though, for being foolish enough to want something when he clearly hadn’t.

“So you didn’t, then?” he pushed.

I debated hedging, but there hardly seemed a point now.