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“You cannot expect me to help you forever. The agreement was that I deliver you to Jorvik, to the witch. I have honored the agreement. If you want to go back now”—his voice stumbled, choked by a spasm in his throat, and the muscles under his eyes tightened—“I shall not stop you.”

People walked around them. They were now in the middle of the busy market square, the scents of food and drink mingling with leather and wet earth. Dozens of voices rang around them, along with horses neighing, goats bleating, and geese cackling. Their eyes locked, Cathy’s as gray as the winter sky above them. Her blonde hair was braided around her face, the rest falling in golden locks. She was now in his clean clothes, which hung on her as if she was a scarecrow, but she’d put his broad belt around her waist, and it hugged her, showing her figure. She could not look any more like a warrior queen, with a sword on her hip.

Andor’s chest tightened. “You can protect yourself now. Haven’t you been trying to get back to Brad these past few weeks? So go. I am not stopping you.”

“I—”

“Do you not want to go?” he asked, hope flickering in the bottom of his heart.

She licked her lips. “I don’t know, Andor.”

A muscle between his eyebrows jerked. “So, you might want to stay?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He felt lighter. A maybe was not a no.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked. “I thought you did not want anyone.”

She was right. The ghosts began banging at the door, right on time. If she stays for you and dies because you failed to protect her, again, there will be no escape for you. Madness will be your end.

“I do not want to be responsible for anyone. I cannot protect you.”

In truth, he knew that she no longer needed his protection, that she was truly a shield-maiden with the spirit of a Valkyrie, fiercer and stronger than she realized.

“But even if you stayed, Cathy, I can never be with you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Because you still love Svana?”

The town buzzed around him, but all he could see was her. “No,” he said.

“Do you love me?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

“Yes.” His heart beat like a drum against his ribs.

“Then why?”

“Because my heart is still filled with ghosts of those who died because of me. And they always remind me that I fail to protect those I love.”

A tear crawled down her cheek. “Those ghosts, Andor,” she said. “I know them. They echo in me, too.”

He nodded. “I know they do, Cathy. But that is not even the main reason. Even more important is, if you look at me, can you in all honesty say that you see me? That you love me? That you want to be with me and not your betrothed back home?”

Her eyes widened and she paled, then took a step back, blinking. “What?” her voice came out like a croak.

“Do you want to stay with me? Or am I just the living image of the man you really love? Brad.”

She licked her lips, looking at him long and hard. And even before she answered, Andor knew that he had hit the target.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Andor swallowed and nodded. “That is what I thought, Cathy. I live with my ghosts every day of my life. But I do not want to become one for you.”

* * *

Cathy’s eyes stung, and her heart hurt as though a needle was piercing it.

He thought she was still in love with Brad.