"Seven years had passed since I left Lanark, my birthplace, and the city where I trained to become the Commander of the Second Order of Emorian knights... I left behind the woman I had grown up loving, my half-sister."
He closed his eyes, revisiting the agonizing memory of escorting her down the aisle in her wedding dress, knowing he could only ever be her knight and her brother while she vowed her life to another man.
By the time he opened his eyes again, there were no lingering feelings – not the love he once had, nor the agony that accompanied it. Only wishes remained. Every time he thought of Adela, he wished she was happy with her husband wherever they might be.
But where were they now, anyway?
"Becoming a mercenary over a woman, eh?" The man standing next to Arkin mumbled with a deep, matching tone and an enormous physique.