She woke in his bed.
She had not meant to. She had meant to sit up in the chair by the fire until dawn, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of him, waiting for the bolts to slide back and for the man on the other side to explain himself. Instead she had fallen asleep with her cheek on his pillow, and the gray light was now creeping around the shutters, and the whole room breathed cedar and woodsmoke and him.
Ariana lay very still and let the guilt come.
It was not one thing. It was a pile. Eleven men lay dead in the stable yard, and she had spent the night kissing the man who had killed them. A traitor walked the halls, and she had lain awake wanting a man who could not tell her one true thing. She had lied to his face, and he had thanked her for it. And under all of that, shameful and wa
