I dig my hand into my pocket, pausing when I collide with the lump of caspun I always keep close—finger brushing its leathery skin once … twice …
A cold sweat breaks across my nape.
I nudge the caspun aside, pluck three coins, then slide them across the bar, hand trembling when I gesture to the man seated a few spaces away from me. “Whatever he has.”
She looks at the glass—half the size of his head and filled with a black liquid capped with white froth.
Big enough and dangerous enough to warm my insides.
With a curious sweep of my garb and a tight nod, she takes my coins and makes for the shelved wall holding a scattering of empty mugs. I look to the back wall lined with a mirror that’s mottled in places, noting my reflection.
Or more to the point, myabsenceof one.
My hood is pushed so far forward there’s nothing but a scoop of blackness in place of my face, resembling the shadows I spent all my life learning to cling to. My gaze drifts sideways to the sea of men—almost every one of them stealing looks in my direction.
I drop my stare to the bar.
A glass of water lands before me with a thump, liquid sloshing over the sides. “I didn’t ask for water,” I say, making a move to hand it back when a bowl of something steaming and fragrant lands before me. “Icertainlydidn’t ask for—”
“No.However …”
The voice knocks me off guard—deeper than that of the barmaid and with a cynical lilt.
Slowly, I look at the woman now claiming the stool beside me.
Her long hair is dreaded, the stark-white tresses twisted at her temples and bound in a half-up, half-down style that contrasts her dark skin and boasts her severe features: pale gray eyes, sharp nose, high cheekbones. The scar that runs from the corner of her mouth and up her cheek reminds me of the man I gave myself to—a thought that might strike somewhere tender if I weren’t so blissfully numb.
She’s familiar, but the memory of where or when I’ve seen her is hard to pinpoint.
“Who are you?”
“Cindra,” she tells me, and I wait for her to elaborate.
She doesn’t.
“However?” I prompt, watching her ease the merchant’s cloak off her shoulders, revealing Ocruth garb—pants and a shirt, the sleeves of which are rolled to her elbows. A leather vest tapers to her plump curves, Ocruth’s sword-through-a-crescent-moon sigil pinned to her lapel.
She drapes the cloak upon the bar and leans back, digging through the pocket of her tight pants. “You’ll need to consume both if you wantthis.” She slams a brass key on the bar, then intercepts the barmaid, taking what I suppose is my original frothy order and downing the liquid in three drags.
I should be pissed. Probably would be. Except there’s the faintest hint of a leathery musk nipped with frost …
My gaze drops to the key again, clings to it as I draw deep, realizing Rhordyn’s touched that key. Held that key.Usedthat key.
Does it open the door to his room?
My fingers itch to reach out and snatch it. To cradle it close to my broken chest.
I swallow, curling my sweaty hands into fists, stretching them out again.
I thought my feet led me to this inn, but I was wrong. It was my bruised and battered heart. The part of me that wants to be surrounded byhim.Tasting him in the air I breathe.
The part of me that almost took that final step over the cliff and chased him through the doors of death.
“What’s that?” I feign past the lump in my throat.
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,Mistress.”
My heart falters, then gallops ahead.
