But gratitude did nothing to ease the long evening that followed.
Throughout dinner, she could barely swallow. Halverton spoke of estate matters, of troop rotations, of a new shipment from the capital. She nodded when he expected it, performed the part he had given her, and tasted none of the food. Every tick of the clock tightened the band around her ribs.
Afterwards, in her room, she paced.
To the window.
To the hearth.
To the door.
Again and again.
Clara’s words echoed: Cormac seems like a good man, but we’d all be punished.
She told herself she only needed ten minutes with him. Five. A moment.
To see that he was alive.
To say that she was sorry.
To breathe the same air before…
But she couldn’t allow herself that thought. Even thinking it seemed like tempting fate.
He would survive. He had to. She’d weighed taking her chances with the lash. The odds weren’t insurmountable.
But they weren’t good, her mind insisted on reminding her.
The house quieted by slow degrees, footsteps fading, doors shutting, the occasional murmur of soldiers on patrol. Midnight crept closer.
At last, a soft knock came at her door.
Clara.
Aoife snatched her cloak, and they slipped into the servant’s corridors, the lamps burning low and the air cool against her skin. They moved through passageways Aoife had never seen, avoiding the creak of certain boards Clara knew by heart.
Outside, the garden was silvered with moonlight. The house loomed above them, its windows shuttered, its shadows deep. Clara led her around the back, then down a narrow cut in the earth that Aoife would have walked past a hundred times without noticing.
Steps descended into darkness. At the bottom stood a heavy wooden door banded with iron.
Clara knocked in a deliberate, measured rhythm.
A bolt slid back. The door opened.
Torchlight spilled over them, and Aoife stepped inside to find two soldiers waiting.
Her heart jolted when she recognised Wiren inside the threshold, lamplight catching on the braiding at his shoulder. His expression didn’t change when he saw her; his stillness made her chest tighten.
Wiren hadn’t stepped between her and the rifle-butt in the market square, not the way Lugh had, but he hadn’t joined in either. He had only watched, jaw clenched, eyes tracking every blow.
A man suspended between two worlds.
Inis Morra born but moulded into an Eldrossi soldier.
Alton trusted him; she would have to do the same.
He inclined his head towards her, barely a nod.
