From Darkness Won - Jill Williamson [179]
“What assurance do you need?”
“That you love me and not my title or inheritance. I have given it up, so it is unlikely you would get it anyway.”
“Nothing has changed, Sparrow. I don’t want your inheritance. Here.” He took his father’s ring from her hand, lifted the cord over her head, and set it on the table. Then he ripped her sleeve from his arm and dropped it on top of the ring. “I cannot renounce the throne, for that is Arman’s call on my life, but…” He dug the gold coin with his father’s likeness out of his pocket and slapped it on the table. He drew his boot knife and cut the coin in half, surprised how easily the blade sank through the gold.
“This is how peasants often do it, maybe not with a gold coin, but a coin of some sort.” He held up the two halves, each pinched between his thumb and forefingers and hoped this would in no way offend her.
Sparrow’s eyes focused on one half and then the other, and then his face. “I do not understand.”
“Most peasants can’t afford the pomp of a marriage celebration and feast, so the local smithy witnesses their promise to one another.” He swallowed, wanting to say things just right. “You were right about me, Sparrow. I’m a man capable of unfaithfulness. I know because I was tempted recently. My father was such a man. And I am his son, so I could be just like him. I feel that weakness inside, calling to me. But I won’t give it ears. You see, I have prayed that Arman will help me be a better man than my father. To make a different path for me and my sons. Arman has changed me, and I know that with His help, and yours, I will not betray you.”
“Who tempted you?”
“A woman that Kurtz… Oh, Gâzar himself. Does it truly matter? The point is, I walked away and became stronger. And I pledge myself to you alone, forever, if you’ll have me.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Do you truly believe Arman is the One God?”
“Aye, and Câan His Son, who saved me from myself.”
Sparrow’s lips parted. “When did you come to believe?”
“The day you left Mitspah.” He smirked. “I should thank you for leaving, I suppose, for if you hadn’t, I might not have figured all that out.”
Sparrow broke into tears then, weeping openly.
“Please don’t cry, Sparrow. I promise to be a man worthy of your love.”
“Oh, Achan. You already are such a man. As if my behavior has made me worthy of such devotion. I punished you for crimes you had not yet committed while I stood by, blinded by fear and lying like a rogue. But my lies never kept my heart safe. Please, do not believe your weakness is worse than mine. Arman does not put one transgression higher than another. All are disdained by him.”
He took her hands. “We can help each other be strong.”
“And you still wish to marry me?”
“Very much.” He set one half of the coin on her palm and closed her fingers around it. “A token of my promise, from a stray boy named Achan to a stray girl named Vrell.”
She looked at the coin. “I’d rather have the half with your face on it.”
“It’s my father’s face, not mine. Though Sir Gavin swears they’ll make coins bearing my likeness someday.”
Her eyes flitted over his face. “What happened to your hair? Your ear?”
“During the Battle of Reshon Gate. A black knight—”
She reached up and ran her fingers over his ear. The sound of her skin on his magnified in his eardrum, like listening to the sea inside a shell. Her touch flustered him, excited him, and kind of hurt the blister that was forming there. The intensity of her green eyes weakened his knees.
“Please let me kiss you.”
Her eyes widened. “Here? With our chaperones watching?”
Achan glanced at the doorway. Shung and Esper were still talking, about what he could not begin to guess. Achan bet Shung had never talked so long in his life. “They’re not watching.”
She inched back a step.
Achan had a sudden urge to wrestle her. But she was a girl—which perhaps explained why she’d never beaten him. “Meet me tonight?”
“Where?”
“In here.” Achan pointed to two oversized doors on the far wall of the solar. “Those lead to