sparrow and lion

Chapter 12 - the quietest lie

It was not, of course, difficult at all for Wren to notice Leo's imminent escape.

She had asked him for permission to visit the lavatory. Leo. Asking for permission. If it hadn't been such an obvious ploy, he might have been completely overwhelmed by the shock of it.

Wren watched as Leo walked away from their breakfast table. She walked into the lavatory and closed the door. Immediately, the door opened. Leo walked back out of the lavatory and right out of the inn. She hadn't even glanced his way to see if he could see her.

For obvious reasons, Wren followed her. Leo went down a long alley and then turned toward the market square. She was immediately swallowed up by the crowd. He had lost her. Just like that.

He had worried that might happen.

He made the necessary detour.

Wren wished he didn't take this so personally. He hadn't even been at the estate the day she had run away. She had been locked in her rooms until she gave up on her ridiculous hunger strike and he had been attending a bacchanalia with his betrothed.

He knew Leo didn't like Eileen. That was why he had left her there without company and without a word. Wren liked Eileen. She was strong in the same ways Leo was, but Eileen was soft where Leo was hard. It felt good to feel needed as well as wanted. Leo didn't need Wren. Wren needed Leo. And maybe he shouldn't.

That was what it had been about. He had gone with Eileen to feel the good feelings. He had left Leo behind because he didn't want to feel the bad ones. And when he had come back, Leo was gone. She had run away from the estate. She had fled her upcoming nuptials.

She had left him.

And that felt personal.

"She gave you the slip, eh?" the constable said when he saw Wren.

Wren nodded. He had thought she might. The constable had been less convinced. But the constable didn't know Leo.

"I'll get my men on it," the constable said. "Anyone spots her, they'll let you know."

If Wren thought about it too much, he wondered if that was the problem with knowing someone the way they knew each other. He and Leo. They couldn't lie to each other. They always told one another the truth. But he had lied to her about Eileen.

Perhaps not in the strictest terms. He had never told Leo he wasn't going to spend the evening with Eileen. He had simply not told Leo anything at all. Wren had just left.

Leo had waited for him. She hadn't told him so, but she didn't need to. Leo always waited for him. In all their years together, he had never left her alone when the lord locked her away in her suites like some sort of captive fairytale princess. No. He knew she had waited. And she knew why he hadn't come. And that was when she'd finally left.

They didn't need to talk about it for him to know the truth. When Leo had run away that night, she had run away from him.

A trick of the light struck Wren's eye then. Something on a corner caught the sun just right to blind him for a moment. He turned away. His eyes caught on a dot of movement. A figure climbed the steep mountain path towards a temple.

Leo.

Wren abandoned his guilt and followed.