Chapter 87: I know

Liona’s POV

The tavern was loud and warm and exactly what I needed.

Or at least that was what I had told myself on the walk over. Somewhere away from the pack house. Away from the quiet corridors and the rooms and the thoughts that kept finding me no matter which direction I turned. Just a drink and some noise and nobody I had to explain anything to.

I pushed the door open and the warmth hit me first. Smoke and ale and bodies and music all pressed together into something that was almost comfortable. I wove between the tables toward the bar, not looking at anyone in particular, just moving.

Then a laugh cut through the noise.

High and bright and deliberately loud. The kind of laugh that was not really about finding something funny.

My eyes moved toward it before I could stop them.

He was at a corner table near the back.

I saw him before I understood what I was seeing. Torin was easy and relaxed, the way he always was, leaning slightly forward in his chair. And beside him, close enough that there was no reasonable interpretation of the distance, was a woman in a dress that left very little to the imagination.

She was beautiful and she knew it. The kind of woman who worked this room the way some people worked a training ground, deliberately and with complete awareness of every move.

She was saying something in his ear.

He smiled.

She ran her fingers slowly down his chest, her eyes holding his the whole time, and then she took his hand. Stood. Pulled him gently toward the stairs at the back of the room.

He went.

Everyone in a place like this knew what was at the top of those stairs.

I looked away.

I reached the bar and sat down on the stool and the barmaid came over without being asked. I told her something. I do not even remember what. She brought a cup and set it down in front of me and the liquid inside was dark and still and caught the candlelight from above.

I stared at it.

My throat was too tight to swallow anything. My chest felt hollow in a specific way, not the sharp kind of hurt, just the empty kind, the kind that came from realizing something you had been quietly hoping for was not going to happen and had never been going to happen and you had just been too busy hoping to notice.

I was a fool.

I had always been a fool. And somehow I kept finding new ways to confirm it.

I pushed the cup back across the bar and stood up and walked out.

The drink sat there untouched.

****

The stone wall around the side of the tavern was low and cold and completely out of sight of the door. I found it and sat down and wrapped my arms around myself and stared at the ground.

Away from the windows. Away from the light. Somewhere he would not see me if he came back out.

The night was quiet here. Just the muffled music from inside, the wind moving through the trees at the edge of the road, and the distant sound of the town settling into itself. I sat in the middle of all that quiet and told myself I was fine. I was completely fine. I had always been fine and this was not any different from any other night.

But I was not fine.

I was sitting alone behind a tavern in the dark because I could not stay inside and watch, and could not go home and pretend, and had nowhere else that felt right.

I pressed my lips together, stared at the ground, and breathed.

The tavern door opened about half an hour later.

Voices spilling out briefly and then the door closing again. I did not look up. Did not want to see them walking off together into the night, her hand in his, his smile easy and unbothered. I kept my eyes on the ground and waited for the footsteps to go the other way.

They did not go the other way.

They came toward me.

I looked up.

Torin was walking in my direction. Alone. His shirt was slightly less neat than earlier, his hair a little less tidy. But alone. He spotted me and his expression shifted, something moving across his face that I could not read quickly enough before he was already crossing the last few feet between us.

"Liona?"

I arranged my face into something normal. It took more effort than it should have.

"Torin," I said.

He stopped a few feet away and looked at me properly. "What are you doing out here at this time?"

"Getting some air," I said.

"Alone. Behind the tavern. In the dark."

"It is a nice night."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he sat down beside me on the wall. Not too close. Just close enough. The breeze shifted and the smell of her perfume reached me, warm and sweet and sitting on his shirt like it had been there for hours.

I breathed through my mouth and looked at the ground.

The muffled music from inside drifted between us. Somewhere further down the road a dog barked twice and then stopped. I turned my hands over in my lap and said nothing.

"You should go back inside," I said. "Your girlfriend is waiting."

He looked at me. "Girlfriend? I do not have one of those."

"She looked like more than a friend from where I was standing," I said flatly.

Something shifted in his face as soon as it landed. Recognition. A flicker of something that looked almost like embarrassment moved behind his eyes before he could put anything over it.

He did not deny it. Did not explain it either. Just sat there.

"Was that why you came out here," he said. Quiet. Not accusing. Just asking.

"No," I said. "I just." I stopped. The sentence had somewhere to go but I could not find the end of it.

"You what?" he said.

"Nothing," I said.

He looked at me for a moment. Then he looked at the ground.

Something in my chest twisted in that low specific way it always did around him when I was not paying enough attention to stop it.

I stared at the ground between my feet and decided I was tired of carrying this around.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Anything," he replied.

"And you will be honest with me?"

A pause. Shorter than I expected.

"Yes," he said.

I kept my eyes on the ground. "You already know, don’t you?" It did not come out as a question. More like something I was confirming for both of us at the same time. "You know how I feel about you."

The silence stretched out.

"I know," he said.

I went completely still.

He did not look away. Did not fidget or search for somewhere else to be. Just looked at me directly with that honest version of his face, the one that only came out when everything easier had stepped aside and there was nothing left to hide behind.

"I am not stupid, Liona," he said. "I see the way you look at me."

My voice came out barely above a whisper. "Then why did you never say anything?"

"Because I did not know what to say." He was quiet for a second. "I did not want to hurt you. You are important to me. More than most people are."

"But?" I said.

He did not rush it. He let the word sit between us for a moment before he picked it up.

"But I do not feel it," he said. "Not the way you want me to." Another pause. "I wish I did. I genuinely wish I did, Liona. You deserve someone who looks at you the exact same way you look at me."

I sat with that.

The stone wall was cold under my hands. The music inside kept going, completely unbothered by anything happening out here.

Something moved through my chest that was almost funny if I tilted my head just right.

"You are rejecting me," I said slowly, "and somehow making it sound like a compliment." I shook my head. "That is genuinely annoying."

"I learned from the best," he said quietly.

I reached over and punched his arm. Not hard. Just enough to have somewhere to put it. He did not move away from it. Did not laugh or try to make it lighter than it was. Just sat there and let me have it completely.

The quiet after that settled differently from the one before. Not uncomfortable. Just real. The kind that came after something honest had finally been said out loud.

"We are still friends?" I said.

"Always," he replied.

I nodded once. Stood up. Smoothed my dress down with both hands.

"Good," I said. "Then I will be going, goodnight."

He nodded.

I walked away. Head up. Steps steady. One foot and then the other until I turned the corner.

Then I stopped.

I pressed my back against the wall and let out the breath I had been holding since I sat down on that stone wall and felt his or should I say his woman’s perfume on the wind.

I looked back. Just once. I could not help it.

He was still sitting there. Not watching me go. His elbows on his knees, his hands loose between them, staring at the ground in front of him. The smile was completely gone. Just him and the dark and whatever he was sitting with inside it.

I looked at him for one second.

Then I walked away for real.

The pack house corridors were quiet. I moved through them on instinct, not really thinking about where my feet were taking me until I was already there.

Azura’s door.

I pushed it open without knocking.

She was at the dressing table, the journal open in front of her, head tilted the way it got when something was not giving itself up easily. She looked up the moment I came in.

I closed the door. Walked to the bed. Sat on the edge.

I heard the journal close. Heard her chair push back. Heard her cross the room.

She sat beside me and said nothing. Just looked at my face.

"Liona," she said.

I shook my head. Pressed my lips together hard.

She did not push. Did not ask. Did not fill the silence with anything at all.

She just opened her arms.

And that was when everything I had been holding together since the tavern simply let go.

I leaned into her, and the tears came, and I did not try to stop a single one. She wrapped both arms around me and held on tight and said nothing. No it will be okay. No he does not deserve you. Nothing like that. Just her. Just this. The steady quiet of someone who already knew everything without needing a single word of explanation. ℴ

Always. The word sat in my chest while I cried. He said always. That is what I get to keep.

I cried until there was nothing left and then I just breathed. Slow and heavy against her shoulder, my eyes getting heavier with every breath, the deep pulling kind of heavy that did not care about anything unresolved.

I did not fight it.

My eyes closed.

The last thing I felt was Azura’s hand moving slowly through my hair. Steady and unhurried. Like she was not going anywhere at all.

She did not say a word.

She did not need to.