Page 106 of Flames and Blood

“People at Aurora took a full account. I’d start with your aunt and let her ask them for it.”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve answered me without saying anything.”

“Then it’s a habit.”

“It’s a very good habit.” He stands and knocks the creases out of his coat. At the door he stops and turns round, his smile still warm. “You’ll be at the gathering, I hope. It’ll be a crush. Come and stand at the back with me and we’ll be unhelpful together.”

“What gathering?”

The smile stays on his mouth, but it goes out of his eyes for half a second. His hand tightens on his coat. Then he’s easy again, already talking.

“They’ll tell you. They tell the guests before they tell the household, usually, which is backward, but there it is.” He raises a hand. “Rest. Or whatever it is you do.”

He goes, his feet loud on the stone going up. He’s pleasant. Concerned. And he’s the first person in this mountain to ask what she knows.

I sit back down in the chair.

It could be nothing.

A likable man asked reasonable questions about a woman he helped bury. A lot of people probably want to know the same things. I set it aside. The counting woman gets to forty about nine more times.

Then two of the household stop in a passage that runs over the back of the stores, and I hear them talking, because there’s a foot of stone between us and stone carries.

They’ve got their hands full. I can hear the strain in their voices as they carry something.

“—the long room, then. Not the hall.”

“The hall’s for the clan. The long room’s for the two families.”

“Both families in one room. My mother will not survive it.”

“Your mother has been waiting thirteen months to bury a grievance instead of a girl.”

There’s a noise that’s somebody shifting a weight.

“When’s he expected?”

“Four days. Five if the pass is bad.”

“Four days. God help us all.”

“He’ll have been on the road since the runner reached him. You know what he’s like about being first at anything.”

“Poor woman. She’s had one night in her own bed.”

“She’s had one night in her own bed and a whole life knowing this was coming. It was set before she could fly. Nothing that’s happened since changes that.”

“No.” A huff. “So it’s a wedding. After the year we’ve had, I’ll take a wedding.”

“I’ll take a wedding,” the other one agrees.

They pick their load up and go. Their voices fade up the passage. Then it’s quiet, and I sit in a chair in a stone room and put it together.

They were talking about Kalli. There’s no doubt in my mind about it.

But that’s not what gets me.

There’s a man here for her. She was promised as a child. She’s known all along.