The words I know you’re not like them rose to the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t speak. I was barely holding it together.
“I can promise you that the vast majority of those I’ve killed, who’ve ended in tombs or on walls, deserved it. I don’t lose a single moment of rest thinking of them. But the ones who were innocent?” Casteel spoke again, his voice low and as sharp as the chisels that awaited fingers shaking with grief. “The ones caught in the middle or who died by those who support me? I lose sleep over them—over the Lorens and the Dafinas of the world. The Vikters—”
“Stop,” I rasped, unable to move for what felt like a small eternity.
Casteel quieted, and I didn’t know if it was because he’d said all that he needed to or if it was a small gift that he was bestowing upon me.
My lips trembled when I was finally able to move again. I walked on, discovering fresher flowers, newer dates, and more common names—and far too many too-short date ranges, and ones left open-ended.
I don’t know how long we stayed in there, but I felt like I needed to walk every foot of the chamber, see every name that I could read, commit as many to memory as possible, and bear witness just as others had to the horrific and painful loss of life.
Casteel had been right when he said that this was something no one wanted to see. I didn’t, but I needed to see this. No one could fake this. They just couldn’t.
Slowly, I turned around.
He stood by the entrance. “You ready?”
Feeling as if I’d just battled a legion of Craven, I nodded.
“Good.” He waited until I joined him before he climbed the stairs. Neither of us spoke until we emerged to discover that day had long since given way to night.
I watched him close the door and move the limb over it. “Why did you remove the bodies from the hall?” I asked.
He remained kneeling. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Lifting his head, he stared out over the moonlight-drenched snow. “I didn’t lie when I told you that I had helped those cursed by a Craven die with dignity. I did. Because I believe there should be dignity in death, even for those I loathe. I’d forgotten that in my anger and in my—” He cut himself off and then looked up at me. “You reminded me that as Hawke, I believed in that.”
As Hawke.
“Thank you,” I said hoarsely. I wasn’t sure if I was thanking him for remembering or for showing me what I never wanted to see but needed to.
His head tilted as he stared up at me, and then he rose. “Come,” he said quietly. “We have a lot to discuss before it gets too late.”
His proposal that wasn’t a proposal.
Our future that really wasn’t one.
I said nothing though as we walked back toward the keep, nor did I resist when he took hold of my hand once more. I had no idea why he did it. I doubted he feared I’d run. Maybe he simply liked holding my hand.
I liked my hand being held.
The last to do it so often was Ian, and that had only been when no one was around. But that felt nothing like this.
Maybe I liked it so much because my mind was still in that chamber—no, that crypt with no bodies, among all those people who would never hold hands again. Perhaps it was because my mind was still in the moment where Casteel remembered a part of him that was Hawke.
We didn’t speak the entire walk back to the keep or up to the room. Once inside, he led me over to the hearth. I stood by it, letting the fire warm my chilled skin.
“Will we leave tomorrow?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“The storm is weakening, but it will have to clear a little from the roads.” Flakes of snow melted and disappeared in the dark strands of his hair as he looked to the rattling window. “The wind should help with that…and possibly blow down this keep if it keeps up like this for another night.”
I laughed out loud, thinking of the tale Ian had once told me he’d heard. Casteel turned to stare. “Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking about this story Ian once heard. About a wolf blowing down the homes of pigs. For some reason, I thought of a wolven doing that.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he said. “You’re beautiful when you’re quiet and somber, but when you laugh? You rival the sunrise over the Skotos Mountains.”
He sounded so genuine, as if he truly meant that, and I couldn’t understand it. “Why do you say things like that?”
His gaze searched mine. “Because it’s the truth.”