Read Online Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) by Honor Raconteur - Free Book Online

and by the time he had, their relationship had become firmly lodged as friends. After that, Siobhan had never thought to see him as anything else or even try to.
      “The question you need to ask yourself,” Sylvie continued, “is whether or not you can see him as one.”
    “Grae said the question I had to ask myself was what my heart wanted from him.”
    “That’s another good one,” Sylvie agreed. The calm way she said this was irritating, as if she already knew the answer, but was refusing to say it.
    “I don’t like it when you know things and won’t tell me.”
    “I know.” Sylvie was bad at hiding her smirk. “But you know, don’t you, that it’s fear keeping you from finding the answer on your own. Markl can give you a whole discourse on why he was afraid to approach me, and I bet his reasons are very similar to yours.”
    More than she cared to admit.
    “I think you also know that the door is open. You can’t shut it and pretend you didn’t see it.”
    “I know.” Siobhan drew up a knee so that she could rest her forehead against it. “I know.”
    ӜӜӜ
    Rune’s back and knees were absolutely killing him. After four straight days of kneeling on the ground, hunched over, that was to be expected. He had to act like he was perfectly fine, though. If he let out how sore and stiff he was, then he couldn’t tease Grae about creaking like an old man.
    The sun was setting, the light failing, so everyone else had already stopped for the day and gone back into Converse, no doubt hunting for dinner. But he lingered, looking over the pathway. It was almost complete. Another half-day’s work would see it finished. And when that happened, nothing else needed to be done. They would be ready to go into Goldschmidt.
    Rune wasn’t as attached to Goldschmidt as everyone else. He’d only lived there six months, after all. The city had been kind to him, more welcoming than Sateren had ever been, so it had bothered him when it had fallen into enemy hands. But more importantly, it had grieved everyone in the guild. Denney and Siobhan especially had cried many a tear about the loss of it. Those tears bothered him, somehow. It made him restless, and his hands twitched as if looking for someone to punch whenever he thought of those sad expressions. He’d been perfectly willing before to fight to get back into Goldschmidt, just on general principle of it being his new home. But after seeing how devastated his guildmates were, he’d become fiercely determined to win Goldschmidt back for them.
    There was also the fact that Denney was safer in that city than almost anywhere else. Except Saoleord. She’d had more freedom there than anywhere else in the four continents. But Goldschmidt was her sanctity, of sorts, so he needed to regain it for her. And that still felt odd, thinking that way. Rune had spent eighteen years thinking of only himself as a priority. To suddenly have his thoughts shift, to where another person’s happiness and well-being were automatically first, still threw him for a mental loop from time to time. Then again, it was this shift that had made him realize how he felt for her. So perhaps it was a good thing he now thought that way.
    “Ah, there you are, Rune!”
    He turned and automatically smiled at Denney as she came to him. Something about the sunset highlighting her blonde hair made her seem prettier than usual. Or was that his imagination? “What is it?”
    “You’re late,” she informed him, head cocked in question. “What are you doing still out here? Grae came back ages ago.”
    “Thinking.”
    “About?”
    “You. Pathmaking. Goldschmidt.”
    She blinked, perplexed, then her brows twisted up in bemusement. “How in the world do I relate to either pathmaking or Goldschmidt?”
    “You do,” he drawled. “Trust me.” Everything related to Denney, in one way or another. “We’ll be done with the path tomorrow. We’ll probably launch our attack tomorrow night.”
    That sobered