Again, she received no answer.
Essie didn’t just go off on her own without telling Roa. They were an inseparable pair. And tomorrow morning Roa would ride back across the desert with the husband she had no love for, to a city that wasn’t her home. She couldn’t go alone. Roa needed her sister by her side.
At the entry to her and Dax’s room, she tried not to panic.
She’s just angry at me for running away,she thought, trying to calm herself. Trying to convince herself that Essie would be nestled in her usual spot on Roa’s pillow come morning.
Stepping inside her room, Roa pushed down her unease and closed the door behind her. The moonlight spilled in through the windows and across the bed.
A bed that lay empty.
It didn’t surprise her. Roa avoided Dax’s bed like a disease, and in return, Dax sought out the beds of other women.
Her family didn’t know this. They didn’t know the rumors whispered up and down the palace halls at Firgaard: that her husband took a different girl to bed every night.
Normally Roa wouldn’t care how many beds he slept in as long as Dax stayed far away from hers. It made being married to him easier.
But tonight? Maybe it was the too-sharp absence of her sister, or maybe it was the five days of humiliation at his hands... the empty bed felt like an insult.
This was herhome. Almost every girl beneath this roof was related to her.
It made Roa want to throw something—but that would wake her family, who would come asking what the matter was. So instead she moved to the wooden chest at the foot of her bed and lifted the ivory-inlaid lid—a gift from her mother.
Sliding off her linen dress, she quickly pulled a nightgown over her head. After checking that the knife she kept sheathed at her calf was still secure—Essie’sknife, the one Roa promised to hold on to—she started doing up buttons.
Which was when she heard the voices in the hall.
The whispers were muffled and soft, but Roa could tell one voice belonged to a young man and the other a young woman. They giggled as if drunk, then hushed each other, and though Roa couldn’t tellwhothe voices belonged to, she had her guesses.
They moved closer to her door.
Roa’s hands fisted. Part of herwantedhim to open that door. Wanted a reason to unsheathe her sister’s knife and wait for him. But a wearier, unhappier part of her whispered,Run.
And that’s what she did.
Pushing the window open, Roa climbed to the sill just as the voices reached her room. Before she could find out who Dax was with, Roa dropped into the garden. When the door swung open, she was already headed for Lirabel’s room.
She’d been sharing her friend’s bed all week. What was one more night?
It was a habit she’d fallen into after Essie’s accident—climbing into Lirabel’s bed. Knowing that someone was lying next to her, that there was another heart beating beside hers... it helped soothe Roa.
Roa knew there would be a night when Dax came to collect what she owed him. It could hardly be prevented. A king needed an heir, and Roa was his queen. It was her duty to provide him with one.
But it would not be tonight.
A People Divided
When the First Namsara brought the sacred flame out of the desert and founded Firgaard, no king ruled it. No walls caged them in. Instead, the Old One’s people governed themselves. Each voice was heard and decisions were made all together. Those who owned much shared with those who owned nothing. And the sick and the weak were esteemed as much as the healthy and strong.
The Old One’s people believed they belonged to one another, and therefore took care of each other.
But as the years wore on and their numbers grew, disagreements turned into division. They forgot how to see each other as equals, no matter the differences. Forgot that those who owned nothing were just as important as those who owned much. Forgot that everyone’s voice mattered.
The Old One’s people forgot how to take care of each other.
They wanted a king who could make laws to govern them. They wanted an army to protect them. They wanted a wall to keep others out.
This was not the Old One’s way.
