Chapter XLVII - Confrontation

Hey Everyone!

Shocking, I know: two chapters in less than a week? I had to work hard at editing this next chapter, but it's ready now. It is not the last chapter, but it is the second to the last. I think. :-) I have to really think about the next chapter and what I want to put in it. So it may be a while before it's up. Orrr, inspiration might hit, you never know, and it might be up here for your perusal in a few days. With me, you just never know, haha.

Usually I'd reply to all of you who so kindly commented on my last chapter, but I have to work today and so I'd best not! I'm interested in your comments on this chapter. I rather think it's the one you've all been pestering me for for the last year (lol!), but I suppose I will find that out through the comments you leave. :-)

Until next time, then!
Emily

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zoe traveled north. The nights were cold and one morning she had to break a thin layer of crystal ice on the surface of a little creek for Brac to be able to drink. She filled her water jerkin and slung it over the horn of Brac’s saddle before mounting and beginning their journey anew.

Two long silent days passed in a similar manner. By the evening of the second one, Zoe couldn’t deny it anymore. She was lonely.

“It will fade,” she muttered under her breath as she worked on starting a fire to keep her warm. “It will fade. It will.”

Brac snorted and Zoe looked fiercely up at him. “You can be quiet,” she ordered. “It has to go away eventually.”

Her horse just stared at her evenly before dropping his head to crop a little patch of grass that looked to recently have been badly frostbitten. Brac would have to start searching harder for nourishment, especially if they continued trekking toward the Cirthian Mountains, as she had been doing thus far.

“You’re a lot of help,” Zoe continued muttering at Brac, disgruntled. “You just glare incriminatingly at me and then calmly go back to eating your dinner. Some companion you are.”

A twig snapped behind her and instantly Zoe snapped out of the rather juvenile tirade she had begun. Brac’s head shot up and his ears were pricked attentively. A couple brown, wilted grass stalks dangled from the corners of his mouth. Slowly Zoe turned her head to scan the terrain behind her. Was she truly as alone as she had assumed?

Thick bushes surrounded three of the four sides where she had elected to make her bivouac. Dusk was thickening with every passing moment, making it difficult to see much. The breeze rustled the leaves of the bushes. The last golden rays of the sun darkened to orange, then crimson, and finally followed the sun as it slipped away behind the curve of the world. Still Zoe remained in place, her muscles tight and ears attuned for anything that would alert her to the presence of an intruder. Brac was still tense as well, telling Zoe all was not well.

Slowly she moved her left hand to reach for her sword, which lay on the ground a short distance away. “Who’s out there?” she called into the growing gloom. “Show yourself.”

Silence followed, broken only by the stirring wind.

Zoe’s hand found the hilt of her sword and she pulled it closer.

Another little noise sounded—perhaps a stealthy footstep in the brush before her?—and Zoe’s head whipped around to the front. Switching her sword to her right hand, her eyes darted back and forth; scanning the bushes for signs of the intruder. Brac stamped his hooves. His ears twitched back and forth frenetically as he tried to pick up sounds around them.

Zoe rose to her feet. “Show yourself!” she called in as confident a voice as she could muster.

A low chuckle sounded behind Zoe and she whirled, unsheathing her sword in a second and brandishing the silver blade at the figure of a tall man. “What do you want?” she demanded, her gaze narrowed.

The man smiled at her, his teeth gleaming in the firelight. From what she could discern of him he was a couple inches taller than her and possessed a head full of blonde hair.

He was also armed, and his sword was out. She swiftly noted the easy way he held his long broadsword and guessed he was well used to combat. Careful, Zoe.

“Why, we saw your campfire, my lady,” he said in a smooth tone Zoe didn’t much care for. “And we thought we’d see if we could stay at another traveler’s fire for the night.”

“We?” she questioned bluntly.

“Aye.” The man motioned with his right hand and six other men stepped out of the bushes at various points around the small clearing. Brac whuffed loudly, stamping his front hooves uneasily. “Just a small group of us. The name’s Orin, little lady.”

“You’re not welcome here. I camp alone.”

The man’s smile broadened, but the result was an unpleasant expression that resembled a twisted grimace more than a smile. He stepped closer, backing Zoe up toward the fire. The heat of the flames washed over the back of her legs, but she did not flinch. Her mind was running at a frantic pace even as she kept a carefully schooled expression of disdain on her face. I could turn, grab my pack and swing unto Brac’s back if I had five seconds, she thought.

Five seconds. It was all she needed but she doubted she’d get it.

“Alone, my lady?” asked Orin with a little chuckle. “These are dangerous times to be without a protector.”

“I’m not holding this sword just to look pretty,” she retorted. “I can and certainly will use it on you and your men if you don’t leave immediately.”

One of the men behind her laughed but Zoe ignored him. “Surely you would not question one who has fought at the side of the Hunter,” she added, emphasizing Tancred’s well-known title.

Scorn flickered through Orin’s eyes. “You’ve been with the Hunter, have you little lady? Since when did that legendary benefactor start recruiting maidens to fight his battles?”

“Since never,” she shot back, refusing to let Tancred appear like a coward. “I volunteered.”

He cocked a brow. “Idealist, are you?”

“I prefer defender of justice.”

“I’m intrigued,” Orin said, stepping closer yet again. Zoe’s grip tightened on her sword hilt and she raised it a notch higher. He seemed to ignore the move and added, “Though I doubt your assets were used by the Hunter on the battlefield.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” gritted Zoe. If only she could get to Brac. This conversation had moved far past uncomfortable, having long since entered the realm of dangerous.

“If what I’ve heard of the Hunter is true, he’s a wise fellow, if a trifle too heroic for my taste.” Orin glanced over at one of his companions and chuckled unpleasantly. “You’re a comely girl and I’m sure he enjoyed you while you were his.”

The color in Zoe’s cheeks drained away, leaving her face white with anger as the stranger’s insinuations became suddenly crystal clear to her. Her thoughts tumbled over each other in rapid succession, none of them making much sense. He was implying Tancred had—no, that Zoe’s honor and reputation were—that she was nothing more than a thing, an object of pleasure for the Hunter? As if she was! As if Tancred would...!

Sharp, cold anger surged through her, catching her up in a wave of emotion and impulse. Her sword swung up and connected with Orin’s before he had a chance to react. Pushing with all her strength, she managed to knock him off balance. Whipping around, she grabbed her pack from the ground and ran for Brac.

Before she could vault unto her stallion’s back, she was intercepted by one of Orin’s minions. “Not so fast,” he grunted as she tried to jerk away from him.

“Let…me…go!” she hissed. She brought her knee up hard into his groin and the man’s grip loosened immediately. A second later he fell to one knee with a moan. Zoe slammed the flat of her sword into the side of his head and he dropped the rest of the way to the ground without another sound.

A second later her blade was engaged with two others as a couple of the other men jumped in to fight her. Zoe parried and slashed as quickly as she could while searching for Brac. At some point in the confrontation with the man she just knocked out she had lost track of her horse. “Brac! Here boy!” she yelled into the air.

One of the men smirked at her. “That’s not going to work,” he taunted.

Zoe grunted as she swung at him. He jumped back out of her range but she pursued him, her sword blows coming faster and faster. Her training over the last year and a half had served her very well...and she was fueled by anger and adrenaline, so she was fighting even harder and faster than usual.

Just when she had the perfect blow lined up to take him out, another sword intercepted hers and distracted her from her target. Zoe wrenched around and found herself face to face with her original attacker, Orin.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to travel alone?” he sneered as he expertly parried each of her furious attacks.

She did not reply as she concentrated on defeating him.

“You might not hold the sword just to look pretty, but you are,” he continued in the same oily tone that originally had put her on guard with him. “Pretty, I mean. The Hunter has good taste in his women.”

“I don’t care to hear your opinion on my physical appearance!” she gritted out, absolutely livid. “And I...” she grunted, as their swords swung off each other. “And I am not, and never was, the Hunter’s woman!”

She whirled under his swinging blade, escaping being wounded by a small margin. Though, something deep within warned her that this man was not looking to wound her. Rather he was looking to disarm her.

“Quite the independent one, aren’t you? You camp alone, fight alone, won’t accept honestly given compliments—”

“Not from you I don’t!” she responded in an explosive tone. Still, she noted with a trace of very real fear that her muscles were weakening as she continued her full fledged fighting. And even if I killed or disabled him, there would be five more to go through, she thought despairingly. She glimpsed the other men standing around her and Orin, their swords at the ready but stances casual. They weren’t concerned enough to help their leader fight her. Obviously they had already decided who would be the victor of this confrontation, and it was not Zoe. Two of them were busy restraining Brac, and therefore were distracted, but still Zoe was well aware she couldn’t take all of them on at once.

Deus? Help?!

“Ready to give up yet?” her attacker goaded.

Again Zoe didn’t reply, keeping her eyes trained on the flashing blade that snaked in and out of her own sword, threatening to disarm her any second. She held out for fifteen seconds more, but then the moment came. With a deft twist and sickening shriek of steel on steel, Zoe’s sword flew out of her hands to land two paces to her right. Panting hard, she just stood there for a moment, staring at Orin, who was smirking.

His sword lowered and he chuckled, though he was breathing hard as well. “You put up a good fight, better than I expected, little fire-maid—”

Thud.

The dagger whipped through the air so swiftly and silently that for a moment all Zoe could do was stare at the handle that protruded from the blonde man’s neck. Who had thrown it? Orin’s eyes had gone wide with shock. His broadsword clattered to the ground and his hands rose halfway up to his neck as if he would pull out the weapon. A moment later he had collapsed forward to land face first in the dust.

A shadowy figure exploded out of the bushes to Zoe’s right, where the dagger had flown from. Moving with swift, catlike grace, the dagger-thrower yanked his weapon out of Orin’s neck and threw it without warning into another man’s chest. Without pausing to look at Zoe or explain his actions, the dark-clad figure drew a huge broadsword and advanced toward the first of the remaining men.

A surge of powerful, impossible hope overtook Zoe’s senses for a moment. Could it…had it been…?

“Are you going to stand there and watch or help me?” Tancred’s familiar voice rang out in the glade. He turned his head for a split second to glance over at her, his steel blue eyes connecting with her wide green ones; then he twisted back to focus on the man he fought.

Zoe needed no more encouragement. Bursting forward and to the left, she hit the ground in a roll and grabbed her sword again. She thrust herself to her feet and raised her sword into a ready position, facing the four men who yet remained. Tancred dispatched the one he engaged with a swift shove of his blade between the man’s ribs. Zoe sprang on the two men who were beside agitated Brac. Both of their swords were drawn but they had definitely been caught unaware; their expressions were a mixture of alarm and bewilderment at their swiftly changed circumstances.

She crossed blades with the first man, who swung his up to block her attack at the last second. The second man got involved very soon after; seeming to snap out of his apathetic state of shock fairly quickly once the action reached him. They were both skilled fighters, just like all the rest of the men. Who are they, anyway? wondered Zoe. Had Orin been a rogue Aerilyan, one who did not care for his country or its people? He and his small band of followers certainly had all the markings of being lawless brigands who preyed on lone travelers.

Zoe faltered for a second under the crushing blow of the dark-haired, well-muscled man she faced. Her arms trembled as she twisted out from beneath his blade and jumped to the side. The man’s sword slammed a few inches down into the dirt. He cursed as he wrenched his sword back up just in time to meet Zoe’s swiftly following attack.

“I swear…” he spat out as he parried her blows, “I’ll see you dead before I myself fall under your companion’s blade!”

Zoe’s eyes flashed but she didn’t say anything to him as she spun and blocked a blow from the second man that came from her left. The second man was not as good as his dark-haired companion and she disarmed him with a quick, instinctive move that her muscles remembered and performed without any extra effort on her part. The man’s sword flew across the glade, through the leaping flames of the fire, to land on the other side of the glowing coals. The man she’d just disarmed simply stared at her with wide eyes and mouth agape for a moment, and then fell to his knees to plead for his life.

Panting from the exertion, Zoe was about to knock him out so she could deal with him later when her peripheral vision warned her she was about to be attacked from the side. Whirling, she lifted her blade to deflect the attack of the fast-approaching dark-haired man.

It never came. Before she or her attacker could do anything, Tancred appeared, planting himself firmly between her and her target. Zoe pulled to a quick stop, surprised; and watched mutely, wondering what Tancred would do.

She didn’t have to wonder for very long. Tancred batted aside the man’s blade with one ringing blow. It hit the ground with a dull metallic clank and skidded a short distance. Flipping his own broadsword around, Tancred slammed it point-first into the soft, broken-up dirt, and had a knife at the man’s throat before Zoe could even blink. Silence fell over the glade, broken only by the raspy, panicked breathing of the man Tancred had at knifepoint. For all his bravado of a moment before, the man look completely terrified now that he was faced with an opponent somewhat more intimidating that Zoe.

“What was that you said?” Tancred asked in a low, deceptively cool voice.
“I…I don’t know…” the man started, but stopped abruptly as Tancred’s knife dug deeper and a trail of blood ran down his neck.

“Allow me to refresh your memory. You promised to see her dead before you fell by my hand, did you not?”

A moment of silence followed, in which the man’s eyes darted from Tancred to Zoe and back again, and Zoe kept careful watch on the other man she had disarmed but not knocked out.

“Am I correct?” Tancred’s tone was colder than ice.

“Y-yes,” the man managed in a pitiful whisper. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively, which only made the pressure on his throat worse. He gazed at Zoe again, this time for longer.

“Stop looking at her,” Tancred ordered harshly, jerking the man’s tunic so that his frightening gaze flew back to Tancred. Tancred’s knife ground even harder against the man’s unshaven throat, making the brigand convulse in fear. “If your pathetic mind assumed for one second you could kill her before I reached you, you were sorely mistaken.”

“Please…don’t kill me,” the man rasped out. “Please, for the love of all that’s right…”

Tancred shook the man, tension emanating from every line of his body. Zoe could see his bicep muscles bulging as he strained to keep from taking out all his frustration on the man in front of him.

“The love of all that is right?” mocked Tancred. “You’re telling me that you came to assault this woman tonight while thinking of ‘all that is right’? Why, you’re just one noble specimen of manhood, aren’t you.”

“Tancred…” Zoe said softly. Her voice was level, to her astonishment. She was still in shock that Tancred was there, much less defending her with such emotion and gusto. It was so good to see him again. Something deep within her cringed, though, for a reunion with him was but the foreshadowing of yet another painful separation.

After another long moment that fairly crackled with tension, Tancred shoved the man away from him. The dark-haired man stumbled back and fell to the ground, gasping with relief. “Get out of here,” Tancred ordered him in a tone that brooked no argument. “You too,” he added to the mute man Zoe had disarmed earlier.

Without another word to them, Tancred sheathed his knife and pulled his sword out of the ground. Sliding it into its sheath on his back, he turned and grabbed Zoe’s arm and Brac’s reins to lead them away. The four of them made their way through the bushes, stopping once to collect Tancred’s golden-bay, Chale, and the leather pack that was on the ground by the stallion’s hooves. A minute later, they emerged from the scrub trees and bushes into the clear moonlight, the silence between them still not broken. A roadway stretched out before them like a ribbon of silver. Tancred, having again gripped Zoe’s arm, led them down it with a quick, confident stride.

Zoe said nothing as they walked together. Part of her was thrilled by Tancred’s firm but gentle touch at her elbow, guiding her beside him in a way that felt surprisingly natural. The other part of her wanted answers. Why was Tancred here? How had he known where she was? She was grateful for his assistance—he had saved her life, not to mention her honor—but she had to know why he was there.
She halted.

Tancred stopped too and turned to face her. Light from the twinkling stars accentuated his handsome features as he towered above her. His eyes, highlighted with moonsilver, shone down at her.

“What is it?”

She surveyed him for a long moment. “What are you doing here?” she whispered at last, her most pressing inquiry spilling out.

“I should think it’s obvious,” he replied, a faint but oh-so-familiar smirk appearing on his lips. “I’m rescuing you, of course.”

She shook her head, backing up a step. “Tancred, why are you here?” she repeated, her voice becoming tight with tension. “How did you know I was here? Your timing was better than impeccable but...why? How?”

He smiled softly, looking amused. “Zoe, you’re so quick to doubt. When you left, I told you I would be remembering and watching you. Did you forget?”

Zoe just stared at him for a full thirty seconds, her mind working. No, of course she had not forgotten his parting words. They were all she had dwelled on for the last two weeks. Just whenever she thought the pain of being apart from him was lessening, she would remember the look in his eyes when they parted, or the tone of his voice when he bade her farewell, and all the pain and hurt erupted anew.
“You’ve been following me?” she questioned incredulously.

He nodded once. “You couldn’t possibly think me the type of man to let you just walk away from me.”

Frustration and joy vied for top position. “You’ve been close by this whole time?” she demanded.

He merely gave her an amused smile.

Frustration won. “Why didn’t you ever show yourself?!”

“You never appeared to need my help.”

“You know how to judge when I need help,” she stated flatly, crossing her arms.

“Aye. And I’m always right too. You couldn’t have taken on all those men by yourself.”

“You’re always right?” she inserted in disbelief, finding it almost impossible to grasp Tancred’s unapologetic audacity—though she probably should have been used to it by then. “That’s just a little bit of an arrogant comment!”

“No worse than the arrogant life you’ve been living in front of me for the last year and a half,” he shot back coolly.

Shocked, she just stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Telling me you’re strong enough to handle everything on your own, refusing my help for anything since the day we met, leaving the Aerilyan palace to be on your own again because you’re terrified of your feelings—”

“I am not terrified of anything, Tancred Ralyn,” she cried hotly.

“You’re terrified right now.”

“I am not!”

He smiled gently and shook his head. “You forget your eyes tell me all I need to know, Zoe.”

She glared at him, wishing he wasn’t so infuriatingly correct. “I am not terrified,” she told him a moment later in a calmer voice.

“Oh really,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you are, then, Zoe.”

Taken aback, she stepped closer to Brac’s shoulder and tried to assimilate what he’d just asked her. “Fine,” she said at last, lifting her chin and rising to the challenge. “I’m…frustrated; angry; upset; annoyed. Not terrified.”

“That’s quite a volatile concoction of emotion,” he observed, not looking at all concerned. “Sure you listed them all?”

She nodded once, curtly.

“Ah, but it’s there you’re wrong.” Tancred uncrossed his arms and advanced one step closer, his voice lowering and expression losing all signs of humor. “You forgot a few.”

“And just which ones did I supposedly forget?” she replied, struggling to stand her ground without appearing cowed. It was hard, for he loomed several inches above her, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze.

“You forgot pigheaded. Stubborn beyond reason. Cursedly willful, even when faced with a reality that is obvious.”

Anger and pain converged on Zoe. How...how dare he! How dare he attack her like that, uncaring of how he was shamelessly hurting her? The heartless, arrogant, infuriating—!

With a cry of frustration, she reached up without thinking and wrenched her sword from its sheath. Tancred drew his in time to meet her furious first blow. Reason abandoned Zoe and blind emotion drove her on. Her sword flashed back and forth, up and down, in and out. Everywhere she thrust, he met her blade. Every time she thought she had slipped past his defenses, he deflected her sword and drove her back.

Their swords clashed and ground together, each of them fighting for the upper hand. Zoe strained with all that was within her, trying to overcome him. Simultaneously she instinctively knew that there was no way she could ever overpower him. While she was putting out all her energy and emotion, he was holding her off with a cool strength that did not wane or fail him.

Gasping with fury and on the verge of angry tears, Zoe locked her blade against his and just pushed as hard as she could. Her eyes, swimming with moisture that she fervently wished was not there, rose and met his where he gazed at her between the ‘V’ formed by their crossed swords.

What could she do? She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up, for all that remained by that was to be further humiliated by her weakness and inability. Why was he so much more in control than her? I hate it!

“This is stupid, Zoe,” Tancred said loudly, breathing hard. “Don’t do this.”
She heaved out a grunt and tried to wrench her sword free and swing at him again. He merely followed her a step back, keeping the pressure on their blades so she couldn’t yank away.

“Don’t pull away from me. You’ve done that for the last year and a half, Zoe and I’m sick of it.”

“Sick of me pulling away?” she exclaimed indignantly, trying again—unsuccessfully—to disengage their swords.

“Yes. Especially since you know the truth.”

“What truth?” she cried on the brink of desperation. “You’re not making sense!”

“You love me,” he replied in a simple, suddenly quiet voice.

Zoe froze.

Their swords still remained in place. She stared wide eyed between their slender steel lengths in Tancred’s face. His expression was firm and steady. Her arms, so strong a moment before, began to shake. They were small shudders at first, but then grew into increasingly harder tremors that caused her sword to sweep downward off his with a metallic whisper. Her arms fell loosely to her sides, and her grip on the sword hilt was so lax she was almost surprised it didn’t fall down to land on the roadside.

“What did you say?” she finally managed to ask in a tone several octaves lower than a whisper.

“You love me,” he said again. After another long moment in which she just stood there, he raised his sword and sheathed it slowly. “And, just as importantly,” he added softly, “I love you, Zoe.”

What? He loved her? He…loved her?

She closed her eyes, blocking him out. No. This wasn’t possible.

“Look at me, Zoe.” She did not obey at first, keeping her lashes tightly clenched together as if not looking at him would keep her from the truth.

“Look at me.”

She shuddered involuntarily. She was not afraid, merely overwhelmed. His voice was patient, thankfully. He was giving her time.

At last she raised her gaze again and met his eyes. They were the same as always: blue, cool, and marked with typical Tancred-like control. But deep within them there was something different. Beyond the coolness, the control…there was warmth. Honesty. And…love.

He felt all that for her?

How was that even feasible?

Strength, Zoe. You’ve faced a horde of Elangsian knights, been a slave twice over, and learned so much since Braedoch. If you could do all that, you can face this man and look in his eyes and hear the truth.

Clearing her throat, she asked hoarsely, “Wh-why, Tancred?” She cursed the break in her voice. Now was not the time to show any sign of insecurity! And yet it was impossible to hide it for she was nearly overcome by uncertainty. “I mean, why me?” she added a moment later, her voice a little stronger.

Tancred gazed down at her with a deep, immeasurable look in his eyes. One of his hands came up and took the sword from her loose fingers. He flipped it around, stepped closer, and slid it into the sheath strapped to her back. Zoe’s breath shortened at their close proximity but she did not move away.

Neither did Tancred.

His knuckles brushed her cheek. “Why you?” he responded huskily. “How could I not love you, Zoe?”

Her stomach flip-flopped. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly.

“It wasn’t part of the plan. Your fire, your loyalty, your dedication—all that captured my attention from the start, Zoe.”

“You mean back when you bought me?” she said in a weak stab at humor.

“Yeah, back when I bought you.” His mouth turned up at the corners and Zoe felt completely off kilter again. There was no doubt this man held large sway over her emotions and was able to read her like a book, but did that constitute love?

“The question now, Zoe,” Tancred said slowly, “is not whether or not you love me.”
It wasn’t? Then what was it?

Tancred’s smile had faded away and his expression grew serious as he continued gazing down directly into her eyes. A slight wind whispered between and around them, seeming wild and lonely. At last Tancred spoke in a deep timbre: “The real question is whether or not you trust me, Zoe.”

She swallowed hard. “What...what do you mean?” she asked in a whisper.

“You’re only twenty now but you’ve lived a life full of pain—more pain that most individuals have had to deal with over the course of their entire lives. You have been wounded by so many people…but naturally the worst was when Duard split up your family.”

Emotions swirling just beneath the surface sprang up within Zoe. Everything Tancred said was true. Excruciatingly so. How could he so effortlessly see through her? It wasn’t right, or fair.

Tancred continued in the same low, measured tone. “Because of all that pain, you’ve made a habit of blocking people out of your life. You don’t want them too near your affections because you’re afraid of what will happen if you get close enough to really care about them. Your heart was almost ripped out when you left your family. You can’t fathom that happening to you again.”

She sighed deeply. “I’m not even going to be surprised when you read me correctly anymore,” she said dully.

He tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear. “And so,” he continued, “in order to protect yourself, you have stopped trusting people. You do everything by yourself because you can do it the best way. You don’t want to depend on anybody else because you’re afraid of them failing you—or worse, you failing them.”

One single tear overflowed from her eyes. Tancred caught the tear with his thumb while it was on her way down her cheek. “The problem for you, therefore, is not that you do not, or cannot, love others. It’s that you refuse to trust them. And without trust, there is no basis for any meaningful relationship.

“So, Zoe Romany,” he murmured, cupping her cheeks in both his hands. “Do you trust me?”

Time itself seemed to stop.

Trust?

Not love—trust. It was vastly different. Trust spoke of commitment and the baring of one’s soul and undying loyalty.

Did she trust this man?

His touch was like fire on her face. Heat washed down her body and she resisted the urge to tremble. Tancred Ralyn. The man who had fought her, bought her, challenged her, helped her, saved her life, and waited patiently for her for the last year and a half. She’d cried with him; sweated, laughed, and clashed with him. He knew her as well, or better, than she knew herself.

She struggled to think of a time that he had failed her. Hard as she tried, she could not think of anything. Even back when they were on bad terms, he had made her a high priority. Despite their numerous combative conversations and various confrontations, he had always been chivalrous and never threatened her. The only times she had felt actually endangered by him was when she was getting closer to him and feared that her emotions were in jeopardy. Oh if only I had known….

Now, the gentle way he cradled her face was breaking down her barriers. The blunt honesty of his confession washed away her pain. She glanced up at him, forcing herself to meet his eyes without looking away.

Do I trust him? Do I believe that he is capable of taking care of me? That I can fight alongside him, knowing his sword will be there when I need its protection, that his arm will be around me when I’m ready to collapse under the trials of life, that his shoulder will be there to hold my tears?

There was really no choice to be made. At least, not anymore. She had already made her decision a long time ago. She simply had not realized it. She had already felt the effects of his protection, the strength of his arm, and his ability to help her with the deep-seated anguish that remained from past hurt. She had already subconsciously made the decision to trust him. The only thing left to do was speak it into existence.

She took a deep breath. “Of course I trust you,” she said in a subdued voice. “How could I do anything but trust you, seeing as you have proven yourself trustworthy time after time?”

His eyes flared with dark blue fire and he searched her face. A million thoughts raced through Zoe’s mind, accompanied by a deluge of different things to say at that moment. Nothing seemed right, however, and so she remained silent. Finally, she leaned forward a little and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her cheek rested against his chest and she exhaled slowly. It felt right. Finally.

Tancred’s hold on her tightened and he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Thank you,” he murmured.

She merely smiled softly and nodded her head once, feeling a sense of freedom that she had not felt for years. And the truth will set you free. She did not know what was ahead of her, but she knew she could count on this man staying beside her through it all.

And at last, Zoe knew joy.