Page 119 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

Gemira

Marel tightens the wrap at my ribs with hands I remember from childhood. The same hands that braided my hair, wiped my tears, and snuck me honey cakes when my mother wasn’t looking.

The land took me and somehow brought me back here. To Northpine, to my village, next door to the cabin where I spent my childhood.

Marel and Olin care for me now the way they always did. Like no time has passed at all. Like I’m still the girl who lived next door, not a woman with a fake name and too many secrets.

I don’t believe in fate. But this doesn’t feel like chance.

I let her finish wrapping the bandage before I speak.

“He has to have her.” The words come out tight. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I keep asking myself why. Why her. Why would the King take Mom?”

Marel’s hands go still against my side.

“I don’t know, honey. Your mother was always guarded about her past. As close as we were, I always knew she had things she wasn’t sharing, long before the lie you had to start living. But she always had a way of taking care of herself.”

I want to believe her because the alternative isn’t something I can hold and still function.

“Does he know about your mom or the rest of it?” Marel asks, nodding toward the window. I follow her gaze. Outside, Ryewood, Grier, and Olin are chopping wood in the snow, the crack of the ax carrying in through the glass.

“No,” I answer, and every part of me wishes it was different.

“Good.” Marel exhales softly through her nose. “Then you still have room to breathe.”

It should reassure me, but my chest pulls tight anyway.

“How does it feel,” she asks, “carrying it all?”

The question lands harder than anything else she could have said.

“I don’t know how to put it down,” I admit. “Not without risking everything.”

Marel nods, like that makes sense.

“You’ve always been like that, taking the weight first and deciding later if you can survive it.”

I huff a weak laugh. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It’s not meant to be,” she says gently. “But it’s not an accusation either.”

She rests her hand against my face, reminding me that I’m loved.

“Olin sent word to Finn this morning,” she says. “Letting him know that you’re here and safe.”

She cups my face with both hands the way she did when I was small.

My voice drops. “He’s entering the trials this year.” Marel’s typical composure cracks. “I keep telling myself he’ll survive. He’s strong, careful, and smarter than most. But even the ones who do survive come back different from the trials. I don’t know who he’ll be when he comes back.”

She pulls me in, and I let myself be held for a moment.

“Love doesn’t vanish so easily, honey.”

I nod, though the fear doesn’t loosen.

Marel’s gaze flicks toward the door as it opens. She smiles, faint and knowing.

“He made it longer than I thought before checking on you.”