Page 109 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“Ah,” Terlo said, slightly flustered. “Well. No.” They took a sip of their coffee, glancing back over their notes. “Nothing I could find in Maerin. But I want to see a temple today, in Osar, if you’d like to accompany me.”

“Of course I can,” Nore said. “What are we looking for there?”

They frowned, shaking their head. “There were some artifacts in my research that may be connected—a book of early lore, the personal journals from early inhabitants of the Isle, a token of favor that seems more substantial and distinctly unfishlike, and some early artifacts from the first of the High Sovereigns on the Isle, pre-Common. I’m hoping, if we find the tomb dedicated to one of their goddesses, there may be some retelling—some iconography or another indication.”

“Then let’s go find out,” she agreed.

They chose to walk instead of waiting for one of the carriages that went back and forth between Locke’s main towns. Though Terlo was much taller than Nore, they were considerate, slowing their gait to match hers. “Do you and your husband travel much?” they asked as the pair left the outskirts of Maerin behind.

“No, not in a while,” Nore said. She had a scarf on, and a hat, but that was still not enough to protect her from the Isle’s tearing winds. “We’ve always talked about it, but my work often takes me away and he is not at liberty to join.”

It was close enough to the truth.

“A pity, that. How work draws us in.”

Nore nodded. “Do you have a partner?” she asked, risking a sideways look at Terlo.

They laughed heartily. “Oh, no. I’ve never been one for that sort of entanglement, romantic or by any other definition.” They shook their head, looking at Nore with that smile that always seemed to warm her—there was something good about Terlo, which was rare. In Nore’s line of work, she very seldom came across anyone who seemed fundamentally good.

“I have my books, and my friends, and my students, and that fills me to the brim with so much love that I can’t imagine adding anything more.”

Nore thought about this. She had very few books—she’d given away most of Caspian’s once he’d moved out—and very few friends and absolutely no students. She did have a cat, but if given the choice, Grimsby probably would’ve chosen Caspian, too.

“I fear my own emptiness sometimes,” Nore said. She wasn’t sure where the statement came from, but as soon as she spoke it, she felt the truth in it.

A hand landed on the middle of her back. It took her half a second to realize that it was Terlo’s form of comfort. She swallowed down the lump in her throat at their kindness.

“There is more to life than work,” they said. Nore wondered if they could see right through the facade she and Caspian maintained, to the rotten root of their relationship, their sham marriage.

“Of course,” Nore said, feigning a smile.

Osar was smaller than Maerin, but not by much. In the end, it was easy to find the temple: perched on the cliffs, it was a huge, sprawling structure, looking out to sea. It was also decidedly no longer a temple.

They hesitated on the outside, reading the sprawling list of names on the stones outside, in the square in front of the temple.

“What… is this?” Nore asked, her breath caught in her throat. The other temple she’d seen on the other side of the wood, crumbling into the sea, had felt like a tomb. But this—Nore could hear the merriment behind her, the festivalgoers visiting street carts of food and wares, and spilling out of pubs, but here, it was all drowned out by the sound of the crashing waves.

“Do you read Idistran?”

“Well enough,” Nore said. “But those aren’t words.”

Terlo nodded. They went to the very first plaque. “They’re names,” Terlo said.

Nore looked. There were thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands. “Whose?” she asked, something in her heart cracking.

“Most of them are those who died when the Isle was destroyed,” Terlo said. “And the rest are those who died in the battle that reunified the Isle.”

Nore took a hesitant step forward. She ran her fingers over the stone: black obsidian, like it was taken from the Isle’s very cliffs.

“How do they bear it?” she asked.

“Bear it?” Terlo repeated.

“Living on such a grave.”

Their lips thinned into a line. They looked out to sea, then at the temple before them. “I don’t know,” they said finally. “Perhaps it makes it easier, the merriment. The festivals. That things continue. That life goes on.”

Nore chewed on her lip. “And the High Lady. She survived both.”