Tamlyn Read Online Free Page B

so hard to convince me of your betrayal. I’m sorry, Tamlyn, truly I am. Please forgive me — not just for handing Lucien to him the way I did, but for doubting you. I see, now, that it was all lies and I didn’t want to believe him anyway. I fought it, but he seemed so …’
    I trailed off, and waited in dread for what would come from Tamlyn’s beautiful mouth. In trying to justify my actions I had managed to humiliate myself even more. I’d let him down; I’d believed Coyle’s lies instead of what I had learned about Tamlyn during our days together. He had every right to be angry with me.
    When he spoke, though, it was to say something I wasn’t expecting. ‘Why didn’t you get into the dinghy with my father? There was time for you to step aboard. Instead, you waited for me on the jetty, yet, if his stories about me were true, I would have cut you down in an instant.’
    Why had I stayed on the jetty? Where my answer came from I don’t know, but I heard my voice say, ‘My head believed you had betrayed me, but not my heart. I stayed because … because I would rather die than discover that you had been loyal to me all along and I hadn’t done the same.’
    â€˜Then you have been as true to me as I have been to you, Silvermay.’
    If this thought had come from my own mind, I would have rejected it as the easy forgiveness that the weak grant themselves. But it was Tamlyn who said it and so the words were light in my ears. He offered me a glimmer of the happiness I’d never thought to feel again. But even that seemed treachery of a different kind.
    â€˜Poor Ryall is dead,’ I said. ‘Coyle told me you killed him. It was the last straw, the thing that finally made me believe him, yet it was the biggest lie of all. It was Hallig who killed him. Somehow, he’d got hold of your dagger, the one you gave to Ryall to help him protect me.’
    Tamlyn said nothing; he simply stared at me until I became uncomfortable.
    â€˜What is it?’ I asked. ‘I thought you would at least praise Ryall’s sacrifice.’
    His face became even more solemn. ‘He was a brave young man, Silvermay, and he still is.’
    At first I thought he was speaking like the poets, about the spirit of the dead that remains with us. It was his unshakable gaze that made me think otherwise. ‘Are you telling me …?’
    â€˜Yes, Ryall is still alive.’
    â€˜Oh, Tamlyn, that’s wonderful news.’ This was something I could celebrate, no matter what else had happened that day. ‘Where is he? I want to see him.’
    Again, Tamlyn didn’t respond as I thought he would and I felt the dull weight of dread on my shoulder. Why wasn’t he overjoyed like I was?
    â€˜What happened? Why do you look sad? Is this some cruel lie?’
    Tamlyn shook his head. ‘Ryall is alive, but only just. He has suffered terribly. Hallig found him in the woods, as you guessed. The cruelty of his Wyrdborn nature made him toy with Ryall for sport rather than killing him instantly. It is not a sight any woman should see.’
    â€˜I want to see him. I don’t care what a shock it is.’
    â€˜I found him in the forest only yesterday, while I was searching for you,’ Tamlyn explained. ‘He’d been left for dead. You must steel yourself, Silvermay. He’s in a bad way. I carried him to a shepherd’s cottage and left him in the man’s care while I continued looking for you. It’s in the hills above the ocean shore, not far from here.’
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    Tamlyn insisted we eat before going to find Ryall, and with my stomach rumbling I didn’t object. But as soon as we were full of bread and a creamy chowder of clams and mussels, I tested the cloth of my dress, eager for it to be dry.
    â€˜That yellow dress of mine is better than the rags you’ve been wearing, for weeks on end, I’ll bet,’ Mrs Wenn