Chapter 14 Ivy Escapes With Aria

• Aria spent the evening moving quietly through the little house, gathering what a hard ride would need, bread and water skins and a warm cloak from the peg by the door, and by the time the household had settled into the deep, even breathing of sleep, her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped the saddle she was fastening in the dark of the stable.
• Charles found her there, lantern unlit so as not to wake anyone, and did not try to stop her, only stood in the doorway watching her work with an expression she could not quite read in the dim moonlight coming through the stable's high window.
• "You could stay," he said, low, and there was five years of unspoken feeling folded into the offer, feeling he had never once pressed on her, feeling she had always gently, kindly, never quite let herself see clearly even when she must have known it was there. "You and she both. I would never ask you to be anything you're not. I never have, not once in five years."