For five slow heartbeats, the mask of the realm’s invincible champion cracked down to the raw quick of the bone.
Cael’s pale eyes lost their hard, predatory squint. The rigid line of his jaw softened, his lips parting in an intake of air that was ragged and unsteady. Across his face swept a wave of profound, disbelieving relief—the look of a man who has wandered alone through a dark, frozen wilderness for twenty years, believing himself to be the last living creature in creation, only to suddenly hear another human voice speaking his true name.
“You remember,” Cael murmured again, his voice trembling on a knife-edge of wonder. “You were there. In the taproom... when the arrow broke through my shoulder. You poured the cider. You brought the salt pork.”
He took a step forward, his gauntlets loosening, his fingers reaching out toward Jon as though he might touch the wool of the innkeeper’s sleeve to verify that the flesh was solid.
“I have carried this alone,” the knight whispered, the words tumbling out in a breathless rush that stripped away every shred of his courtly dignity. “Since the capital fell five years ago. Since the King gave me the Nail at the third siege. Every morning waking up to the same cold bell, the same rotten fog, the same dead faces smiling at me in the street, having no idea that they died screaming the night before. I thought... God help me, Hale, I thought I was the only…
