Marian’s fingersscribbled across the parchment before sliding it over to me. I stared at the arithmetic problem and willed myself not to grimace. I hated these studies.
The last golden ray of the sunset slipped beyond the angle of the sole window in the small room, and Marian stood to light a few more tapers. I begrudgingly turned back to the problem, running the numbers through my head before dipping my quill and scratching the first answer.
Marian had insisted Ronan allow at least two hours for daily study, despite formal education for girls ending at age fourteen in Sultira—one of many things Ronan planned on changing.
I slid the paper back to her, and she slipped on her spectacles, pinching her brows before giving a firm nod. Good enough, I guess.
I rubbed the exhaustion from my face as she cleared the table of today’s work. My mind replayed the conversation I’d overheard at the sparring courtyard. Why did their argument leave me so edgy?
“You all right?”
My periphery caught on the last of Marian’s hand movements, and I shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. Why was it so hard to feel comfortable here? I missed the mountains. I felt more at home when I was trekking through the tunnels with Gork.
Ronan had been a comforting presence since Ezrich and Drystan left on their errand. And ever since Vander arrived… Gods, I’d spend any free moment I could get with him, but after overhearing their conversation… My stomach wound in a weird mixture of nerves and anxiety. What they’d both implied…
“Join me to visit Father Marcus?” Marian asked, her brows softening as she scanned my face.
I dragged my eyes to hers, and she slipped a stray strand of gray hair behind her ear before crossing her arms.
My brows narrowed.
“Why do you take care of him?” I asked, arching a brow, certain I was stomping on eggshells. Marian could be prickly. But why should I open up if she wouldn’t?
Marian’s jaw feathered before she dropped her gaze to the floor, as if considering. She frowned as she stared at the stone tiles.
“Father Marcus was my husband’s brother,” she finally replied. Her soft brown eyes shifted back to mine. “It’s been twenty-five years since my husband learned of the tribute, and he decided to leave the Order of the Death Scholars. Marcus urged him to keep quiet about it.”
A glossy sheen coated her lower lids as she heaved a sigh.
“He didn’t,” she finally signed. “And we were targeted for the next tribute.”
My lips parted as I stared at Marian in a new light, someone who had been on the run from Sultira for twenty-five years…
“But you escaped,” I murmured, realizing we had that in common.
“Because of a friend.” She nodded, a fat tear plopping to the stone ground as she blinked. “My husband didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, unsure what else to say. “I get it now. Father Marcus is family.”
Marian’s head hung for a moment.
“I’ll come with you,” I finally said, standing and leading us to the door.
My thumb ranacross the jagged surface of my lucky arrowhead, the comforting sensation quelling the anxiety that had filled me since eavesdropping. Its weight plopped into the deep pocket of my tunic as I reached for the door to Father Marcus’s chamber.
Marian strode to his bed in the corner, adjusting the sheets and tucking them neatly beneath the thin mattress. The old priest’s frail form stuck beneath the sheet like a mourning shroud over a skeleton. Lyvia’s mentor had continued to lose weight in the months we’d taken Aedrialis back from King Saros.
I moved to the counter, setting down the basket of strawberries we’d snagged from the center city market earlier in the day. My eyes caught on the bottle of winter wine. I tipped its contents into the pewter goblet sitting next to it, glancing over my shoulder to ensure Marian was occupied with her brother-in-law.
Sometimes, it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.
I brought the goblet to my lips, inhaling the spicy-sweet wine, just before Marian’s scream ripped across the stone walls. My stomach knotted at the sound, and I whirled around, moving my hand to the dagger at my belt.
Marian’s knees crashed to the floor beside Father Marcus, whose hazy eyes stared at the ceiling. His gaunt mouth hung open, his jaw twisted to the side in a silent scream wrenched from his unmoving lips.
The pewter goblet slipped from my fingers, the deep red of the winter wine spraying across the floor in a crimson pool as Marian wept over Father Marcus’s dead body.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
