Diarmán was relieved to leave Uachi behind.

They'd found a room for the erstwhile captain—poorer accommodations than those Aerte had claimed, but after sleeping on the ground for weeks, suffering the rain and the cold as they came, Uachi should be comfortable enough.

"You should prepare yourself," said Aerte.

She was leading Diarmán down a corridor, carrying a tray laden with nursing necessities: clean cloths, a bowl of broth, a cup of dried herbs. It occurred to Diarmán that he should offer to carry the tray for her, but he did not feel particularly gentlemanly. Besides, he knew Aerte well enough to know that if he suggested she wasn't capable of carrying a tray herself, she'd pin him with a stare that could stop his heart.

He preferred to survive the day.

"Prepare myself? To be drowned again?" he asked.

And there it was. Gods below, the woman's glower could be a weapon of war.

"To see your grandfather," she said. When he only scoffed and looked away, she continued, "I'm serious. He's doing very poorly, Diarmán."

"So I've heard." After a moment or two of silence, he glanced back at her, finding that her expression had softened again. She was a striking woman with a clear, keen eyes and a confident bearing; he did not know if he'd ever seen her walk with her head down. She was the sort of woman who took up space in the world. Diarmán did not know a lot of woman well—did not know a lot of people well, in truth—but aside from his own mother, Aerte was the one he knew best, and she was different from Moigré in virtually every way.

So why on earth had she come back to this cobwebbed crypt?

"What are you doing here, Aerte?" he asked.

"I told you. I'm your grandfather's nurse."

"Aye, you told me that, but of all the things in the world you could find to do, why this? Why here?"

"Why not here?"

Diarmán wrinkled his brow, staring at her. "I just...I did not think you'd find it a pleasant place to return to."

Aerte paused in her step, raising her eyebrows. Diarmán moved back from her under an instinct of self-preservation, but she was not looking at him with that biting coldness, now. There was something softer in her face.

Something like concern.

"You must know that I do not blame you," she said.

Diarmán looked his ex-fiancée in the eye, his stomach twisting sharply. If only she had snapped at him. He could bear her anger; he could throw it back at her and be half-justified in doing so.

What he couldn't bear was kindness.

"Are we to do this now, then?" he asked. "You'd best give me the tray. I'll find a spot to set it down so that we can drag out our volumes of history and turn all the pages."

"Diarmán."

"What is it you do not blame me for? Dashing our childhood friendship to bits? Humiliating you? Breaking your heart?"

She pressed her lips together. For a moment, he thought she'd lash out, but, of course, Aerte had never done anything anyone wanted her to. She was her own woman completely.

It was terribly inconvenient.

With crisp enunciation, she replied, "I don't blame you for your nature." Her tone was an indication that he'd irritated her, at least, but when she began to walk again she gave him a smile. "And if I cannot blame you for that, it is difficult to blame you for any of the rest of it."

"I would have made you my wife."

"You wouldn't have. You didn't."

"I lied to you. For a very long time."

"Well, yes, but no more than you lied to everyone else." She turned a corner, leading Diarmán down a shadowed hall. She was moving slowly, no doubt an effort to give them enough time to have this conversation. "And besides, you told the truth. I won't deny you hurt me, but you told me the truth well before our wedding day. Imagine how much worse it might have been. I could have been left there in a new dress, shamed before the gods and my family and all of my friends."

It might have been like that. That was true. Diarmán pictured her dressed in some pale color—green, perhaps, which suited her well. She would have been standing under the sun, surrounded by flowers, only to be spurned by her bridegroom.

But no: he never could have done that. Not to her, nor any woman. Had they made it as far as that, ready to kneel in the grass and speak their vows, he would not have shamed her in front of all those people. He was a selfish bastard, he'd never deny that, but not so selfish as to humiliate a good woman, his friend.

He'd have married her. They'd be married still, and at least one of them would have been exquisitely unhappy. Perhaps doing it—marrying her to save her the shame of being left at the altar—would have been the truly selfish thing.

He'd never felt grateful for breaking her heart before marrying her, but he nearly did, in that moment.

The decision could only be partly attributed to courage. After his grandfather had discovered him with his lover Corain, their stable boy, Diarmán had feared that Aerte would hear what had happened from Old Emón, and he had had no choice but to tell her himself. He had tried to be stoic about it, but had ended up weeping all over her hands, begging her forgiveness and making a fool of himself.

She'd been shocked. Hurt. Angry, yes, that too—of course she'd been angry.

But she hadn't been unkind. Not even that night. She had gone away, and he had not seen her since then, and even though they had not fought bitterly on their parting, Diarmán had thought of her often. He'd nursed the memory of their parting words like he'd worried at his skinned knees as a boy: scratching and picking at the scabs, sometimes pressing and squeezing to draw a cherry-bright droplet of blood.

He'd imagined her doing the same, imagined her remembering his betrayal, cursing his memory and his name, her heart poisoned against him. He had known it as well as he knew his own name: that if they met again, she'd sooner slap him than look at him. For Diarm'an had robbed Aerte of a future. Had she married him, she'd have become a lady, though only of this crumbling dump.

In crushing her dreams of being a wife and a mother, being safe and loved, he'd crushed her oldest friendship, too. He and Aerte had been dear friends nearly since his entry into the World of Men. They'd met within a week or two of his family's return, when she was the daughter of the castle blacksmith, and she had been the first sure and natural thing he'd encountered in a strange world. Talking to her, becoming her friend, had been easy.

Of course, since then, House Eldran had declined; they could barely afford now to keep a cook. Most of the rest of the household had dispersed, including Aerte and her father. They, along with many others, had moved back to one of the nearby villages so that they could afford to feed themselves.

Now, here she was, just as sensible and strong as she'd always been. There were no bitter tears or angry words, and he didn't know what to do with this.

This unexpected peace. This undeserved friendship.

"Give me the blasted tray, would you?" Diarmán said, his tone sharp. He stopped walking, and she did, too, opening her mouth to speak. Before she could, he reached across, sliding his hands over hers and curling his fingers into the handles of the tray. She sighed, slipping her fingers from beneath his so that he could take it from her.

"Gods below," he said. "Stubborn woman. Not a thing has changed."

"You might have offered before we left the kitchen, if you wanted to be so chivalrous."

"It has nothing to do with chivalry."

"Are you angry?" She frowned at him as they began to walk again. "You haven't any right to be angry with me."

"Of course I'm not angry. Well, I am about the bath you gave me earlier, but I suppose I'll get over that in a year or two."

"You deserved that. But you know what I mean, Diarmán. You act as if you hoped to find me bitter."

"Hoped? No. Expected, perhaps."

She laughed, shaking her head. "Well, I've had time. It has been...mm, nearly five years, I should think, since the last time we spoke."

"And you mean to tell me that you haven't spent all five years weeping over the loss of me?" Diarmán grinned at her.

"What loss?" she asked. "You're hardly a prize. You're just a pair of knobby knees wrapped in wit."

Diarmán's laughter echoed off of the walls. The cup and bowl rattled on the tray, a bit of soup sloshing onto the saucer. "And you say you aren't bitter. You've proven that a lie, sniping at my knees."

"You always were sensitive about them." Her voice was light with good humor. "Where are you going?"

Diarmán paused. Aerte had stopped outside of a door and was looking at him strangely now.

He retraced his steps. He had not even known which room was his grandfather's, it had been so long since he had visited him. Their private lives were so divided, they might as well have lived in completely different houses.

She didn't ask questions, though; she simply opened the door.

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(( AUTHOR'S NOTE ))

My writing friends and I are staying in a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I do not have great service or signal here, which is excellent for writing and not very good for posting. 

Thus far I have not been as productive as I wanted, but there's still plenty of time! Until my next post, let me know what you think of this new character in Diarmán and Uachi's lives! 

Thank you for reading!