Galen nodded and, for once, didn’t argue.
Nik climbed onto Grim with practiced ease, then offered me a hand. I took it, and he hauled me up behind him as if I were light as air.
“Wait,” I told him, then looked up at the Anima who still circled the house. “We’ll take care of him,” I said quietly. “Tommen and those who caused his death.”
For a moment longer they watched, measuring the truth of my promise. Then their circling slowed, the Aether diminishing. They raised faint hands in goodbye and disappeared into a fall of stars.
Like a response from Terra itself, a warm breeze ran through the woods, rustling the leaves.
“They’re gone,” I said quietly. “They’re satisfied we’ll help him.”
“I felt it,” Galen said with a hint of awe in his voice. “I felt them leave. There was…a lightness.”
I looked back at Nik and found his gaze fixed on me, his brow furrowed. “Who are you?” he asked. And there was surprise and suspicion in the question.
Never be noticed.
“No one,” I said. “Just a girl who sees ghosts.”
We rode back to the district in silence. Nik didn’t push Grim for speed, but it also wasn’t a leisurely walk. We had news to deliver, and it needed to be given as quickly as possible. He stopped when we reached the imperial soldiers who waited near the gatehouse. We dismounted, and he turned over Grim to their care and gave them instructions. Then we walked to the blacksmith’s shop and the tidy wooden house beside it.
Telling Tommen’s widow of his death was as horrible as I’d imagined. Turns out it didn’t matter that I was less of a stranger than the prince’s bodyguard; death was an insult either way.There’d been arguments, refusals, and then cold devastation. She was joined by relatives—sisters by either blood or marriage—who sat with her and worked to calm her body-racking sobs. We waited nearby in awkward silence.
One of the women offered a coin for delivering the news.
“No need,” Nik said, and folded her fingers gently over the coin. “We’re sorry for bringing death into your home.”
“You aren’t the first. They had three daughters; they’ve lost them all within the last two years. The traveling sickness.”
The Anima circling at the abandoned house—they’d been three daughters mourning their father.
“I’d been worried,” the widow said.
“Worried?” Nik asked, shifting his gaze to her. “About what?”
“He’s been gone for two days,” said one of the women who’d joined her. “She’s been worrying since he left.”
“Where did he go?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” his wife said. “He was excited about earning extra coin. I don’t know what it was for, but he said we’d be able to fill the storehouse. We’d have enough to see us through the lean times.”
“He made good on that promise,” Nik said, and offered the pouch he’d found in the house.
“What’s this?” the other woman asked. When she looked inside, her lips trembled.
The house was nicer than most in the district, with real glass in the front windows and colorful tapestries decorating the walls. But there’d be no more income from the forge, and there would undoubtedly be more lean times.
“He earned this for you,” Nik said.
The widow’s eyes were red and devastated, but she pursedher lips and managed—by bearing down hard—to keep her composure. “You’ll bring him to me?”
“I’ve made the arrangements,” Nik said. “And we’ll find the person who did this.”
“Does it matter?” one of the other women asked. “He’s gone.”
“Of course it matters,” said his widow. “Justice should be done, even if it doesn’t bring him back.”
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Nik said. “If you need anything, you can tell the guards at the palace. The prince will help any way that he can.”
