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"Cruelty?" Jocelynn said, blinking in surprise as she turned away from the courtyard for the first time since Isabell had arrived to truly look at the other woman.

In her hand, her teacup clattered lightly against the saucer on the table as she set it down.

"Do you really, really see him that way? " she asked hesitantly.

After hearing how Isabell had fought in a brutal civil war for the right to bring her husband away from the court of the Emerald King, Jocelynn had hoped that Isabell would understand Owain better than anyone else.

After all, Isabell had fought in just as many battles or perhaps even more battles than Owain had, and she still chose a life of love with the man who won her heart with poetry.

If Isabell could do that, then... couldn’t Owain do the same?

"Cruel, ruthless and ambitious," Isabell said without sugar coating her words in the slightest. If she was going to make sure Jocelynn understood the danger she was in, Isabell couldn’t afford to leave any grey areas or doubts in the young woman’s mind.

"He reminds me of the men in the Emerald King’s court who thought he should follow his victory with a campaign of expansion," the engineer continued.

"They wanted to turn on a vulnerable neighbor and resolve a centuries old dispute over a border with the might of the army the king assembled to win the civil war. "

"Surely Owain is different," Jocelynn said.

After all, those men were fighting their neighbors while Owain was fighting demons.

Even though he was still fighting to expand his lands, he was also fighting a just and holy cause instead of one motivated solely by ambition and greed. That had to make him different.

"Did those men fight in the war themselves?

" Jocelynn asked. "Or were they like the knights in Father’s court who dream of a chance to win glory in the next crusade without ever having fought in a battle before?

Owain is like this because he throws himself into battle against the demons every year," she said in a voice that grew steadier with each word. "That’s very different from most men."

"No one came through that war unscathed," Isabell said sadly after sipping her tea. "I don’t call Owain cruel because he’s an extraordinary fighter who can slaughter many demons," Isabell said.

"I call him cruel because, even in training, he fights his own men the way he fights demons," she said, pointing at the men who were helping each other to limp away from the courtyard after Owain’s beating.

"I call him cruel because when I’ve looked into his eyes," Isabell said, recalling all the times she’d faced Owain across the negotiating table in Blackwell City and ever since then.

"I see a man who sleeps too well for someone who brutalizes his men this much. I’ve known other men who slept peacefully after battles where hundreds or thousands of men lost their lives. .. I call them cruel as well."

"And you?" Jocelynn asked hesitantly. "Did you sleep well after battles?"

"Not once," Isabell said, picking up a rich, buttery pastry topped with chopped nuts and nibbling on it slowly. "It wasn’t until we’d been fighting for months that I could get through a battle without emptying my stomach.

The nightmares that followed," she said softly as her gray eyes grew clouded. "Those lasted for years, even after I returned home. If Casquas hadn’t been there for me... I might never have known a peaceful night’s sleep again. "

"Were you ever afraid," Jocelynn said slowly, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

Her eyes darted toward the door as though checking if anyone might be listening.

Her fingers methodically shredded the pastry into smaller and smaller pieces, growing slightly sticky with bits of sweet cream and flakes of pastry.

Her movements were increasingly awkward, seeming like she’d forgotten about the pastry in her hands and she didn’t appear to have any intention of eating the bite-sized morsels she’d torn off.

Instead, she slowly leaned forward, hunching her shoulders protectively inward, and when she continued, her words came in short, halting bursts.

"Were you ever afraid that the men who fought beside you, the ones you called cruel," she said quietly.

"Did you ever worry that they would turn on you?

Maybe not intentionally," she added quickly.

"But, accidentally. Because, because they spend so much time fighting," she rambled.

"Did you ever worry that they might lash out at you... even, even if they didn’t mean to? "

A faint tremor ran through her body as she glanced toward the courtyard where Owain was still training.

The common soldiers had all retreated from the courtyard, perhaps to tend to their wounds, and now Owain was belting on a suit of light armor, looking handsome and larger than life as he prepared to face off against Sir Rian who had donned a similar suit of armor for fighting with blunted steel swords.

Nervously, Jocelynn fidgeted with the necklace of shells and frosted sea glass around her neck that Owain had given her after his return from Blackwell City.

She hated the necklace, hated how cheap and common it looked but she’d reminded herself again and again that Owain had needed to conserve his traveling funds when he bought it, or he surely would have given her one made of pearls and fine jewels the way tradition said he should.

Here in Lothian City, none of the other ladies knew the tradition that the necklace represented and shells of any sort were exotic so she avoided too much embarrassment wearing it publicly, but the real reason she wore the necklace...

"If, if you did the wrong thing or said the wrong thing, did those men ever..." She swallowed hard, her throat visibly constricting as if the loose necklace running through her fingers had suddenly become as tight as a noose. "Did they ever frighten you?"

"My lady," Isabell said as her stoic expression crumpled, replaced by a brow furrowed deeply in a very motherly look of concern. Standing from her seat, she took Jocelynn’s hands in her own and pulled her away from the balcony, drawing her back into the small private dining room and only letting go of Jocelynn’s hands long enough to close the door before guiding her to the small table in the dining room.

"My lady," Isabell said, reaching out to lift Jocelynn’s chin when the young woman seemed reluctant to meet her gaze. "Has Lord Owain done anything to you? Has he hurt you in any way?"

"What? No, no he hasn’t," Jocelynn said, snatching her hands back and shaking her head fiercely.

"He, he hasn’t ever," she started to say only for her voice to trail off part way through her sentence.

"He’s never struck me," she said slowly.

"It’s just that there are times when, when something provokes his anger and, and he can be a bit.

.. frightening when that happens. But he would never.

.." she tried to say, only to stop again without finishing the sentence.

After all, after what he’d done to her sister, could she really say that he would never hurt her?