SSS Awakening: I Become The Strongest Breeding Knight

Chapter 118: 118. She Waited Until I Was Empty, So It Couldn’t Be About Power

She stood in front of me with her hands clasped and her ears folded forward, and I waited.

The wind moved in the oak above our heads.

Somewhere back in the camp, the mouth organ had finally stopped. I felt a strange, light, nervous flutter in my chest, like a bird that had gotten in through a window.

”So...” Eveline said. ”I like you.”

”Okay.”

”In a... professional... wait! No.” She stopped. ”I like you in a not professional way...”

”In a very not professional way... I mean, I like you professionally too; you’re a good knight, and you’re very sensible about wagons, but that’s not what I... I’m not saying...” Her ears had gone completely flat. ”I’m saying it badly.”

”A little...”

”I rehearsed this.”

”I believe you.”

”I did it in front of Duchess.”

”What did she say?”

”She bit me.” Eveline closed her eyes, and I watched her draw a long breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth.

’Four, two, six.’ When she opened her eyes again, they were clear and steady and very bright, and she didn’t look away from me for a second.

”I’ll start over,” she said.

”Take your time.”

”I fell in love with you, Roland.”

Something inside my chest stopped.

”It isn’t because of the curse,” she went on.

Her voice was quiet and level and shook only a little. ”I know that’s what you’d worry about...”

”But for me... It isn’t that, and it isn’t because Sharon said it was all right, and it isn’t because Alicia and Laura are kind to me.”

”I’d have felt this if there were no curse in the world... I want you to know that.”

”I’d have felt it if you’d been a baker.”

”I’d have been a terrible baker.”

”I know... I’d have loved you anyway.” She stepped a little closer. ”I fell in love because you taught me how to fall...”

”Because nobody had ever taught me... Everyone just told me to stop doing it, and you said, ’Do it well...’ And then... I did.”

I couldn’t speak.

”I fell in love because you asked the curse to stop showing you my numbers... You hid it because you didn’t want to use me.”

”I don’t think you understand how big that is... I’ve spent my whole life being measured, Roland.”

”I’ve been measured by everyone who ever met me... And you looked at a thing that would’ve given you every answer, and you closed it, and you said you wanted to guess.”

”I only wanted...”

”I fell in love because of the grave,” she said very softly. ”You sat down in front of a stranger’s grave, and you didn’t say anything clever, and you didn’t make a speech.”

”You just stayed... And you were crying.”

”You didn’t make a sound, but you were crying for people you’d never met.”

I stared at her. ”I thought I’d hidden that.”

”I have rabbit ears.”

”Of course you do.”

”I could hear it in your breath.” A small, shaky smile crossed her face. ”And I fell in love because of today...”

”Because you shouted, ’Count who’s behind you... I was frozen... I couldn’t move.’”

”I’ve been frozen my whole life, and then a man with a sword and a bad plan and a leather cord tied around his wrist yelled across a cavern at the top of his lungs to count who’s behind me.”

”And I knew all the names, and I knew there were more than I could count, and I ran.”

She took one more breath.

”You could have used me,” Eveline said. ”I would have let you...”

”I’d have done anything you asked back then, and you knew it... You could have used me, and you didn’t.”

”And that’s why.”

I’d had a speech too, I think. I can’t remember it.

It must have been terrible. It went out of my head the second she stopped talking, and what came in to replace it was something simpler and much harder to say.

”I tried not to see you as a candidate,” I said.

She blinked.

”From the first day... In the stable, when you dropped the bucket.”

”I looked at you, and I thought, no, she’s a person, she’s a knight, she’s somebody’s friend, don’t make her a number... And still... I couldn’t do it.”

”Because the small things kept getting in the way.”

”What small things?”

”The way you write everything down... In very neat letters, with all the lines level, even when you’re nervous.”

”Especially when you’re nervous.” I rubbed the back of my neck. ”The way you apologize to horses...”

”The way you drop a tray and look at the floor and then at the ceiling and then at the world, like the world was supposed to have been standing somewhere else.”

A small, strangled noise came out of her.

”I was scared when Garrick went under,” I said.

”I was out of my mind... But when you went into that gap, I...” I stopped and swallowed and started again. ”I’ve faced down a dragon-blooded boss and a man with a crystal in his chest.”

”And that was the most frightening thing I’ve ever been... Watching you disappear into a hole in the rock, and not being able to feel you...”

”I don’t have the words... I just know I never want to feel it again.”

I took her hands. They were small and cold and still trembling slightly.

”I love you,” I said.

I didn’t make a joke of it. I’d decided that on the way up the hill.

I said it plainly, and I looked at her while I said it, and I watched it land.

Her mouth opened. Her ears shot straight up, then folded halfway down, then rose again, as if they couldn’t make up their minds.

Her eyes filled with water. A great, helpless, radiant smile spread over her face, and she began to laugh and cry and breathe in short wet gulps all at the same time.

”I’m also at fourteen percent of whatever the curse measures,” I added, because I’m a coward, ”so this is a terrible time.”

”That’s exactly why I wanted to say it now.”

”What?”

”I wanted you to know I wasn’t waiting for you to be strong.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her wrist. ”I didn’t come when you were at a hundred...”

”I came when you were out of everything, and you’d had a horrible day, and you were sitting under a tree... So it couldn’t be about that.”

I looked at her, and I felt something in me go very quiet and very warm.

”Eveline,” I said carefully. ”Before anything else...”

”I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer it honestly, and not because you think it’s what I want.”

”Okay.”

”Are you sure? About all of it...”

”About what it means, with the others...”

”Alicia and Laura know about this; I know they do, but I need to be certain that you...”

”I talked to them,” she said in a rush and then slowed down. ”After the midday meal, while you were asleep behind the wagon...”

”Alicia took me aside and gave me the rules... She said I could walk away at any time, for any reason, and nobody would ask why, and she’d be the first to defend it.”

”Then Laura gave me this cloak and told me it gets cold, and she meant two different things by it, and I understood both... And they both left me alone to think.”

”And?”

”And I thought.” Her voice was steady. ”I’m sure... I’m nervous, and I’ll probably be nervous for a long time, but I’m not going to stop just because I’m nervous.”

”If I want to stop, I’ll say so... I’ll say it out loud, with words! I promise.”

”I promise the same.”

”You’ll stop?”

”The instant you say a word.”

”Even in the middle of a sentence?”

”Especially in the middle of one.”