Page 84 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

A pause. “I’m an amalgamate,” Caspian said finally. “You knew that. You’ve seen me do that much. You can’t blame me for lack of observation on your part.”

“Fuck you,” Nore snarled.

“Finch, please—”

Nore turned, nearly falling; he gripped her elbow. His hands were sticky with her blood. “Was it all a lie?” she asked, the words catching in her throat.

He stared at her, uncomprehending for a moment. “I never lied about loving you,” he said.

All those nights at the pub, when she thought he was working. The strange injuries that sometimes cropped up. His thirst for knowledge, for information. The beautiful agility of his body. It all made sense, when she looked at it together.

And perhaps she had known about his magic—perhaps she’d understood that some of the things he could do weren’t normal.

“Who are you working for?” she asked again.

Resolutely, Caspian closed his mouth. He crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

Nore reached into her dress and pulled out her wedding ring on its chain. She pulled, hard, until the chain snapped. Caspian flinched when she threw it at him.

“I never want to see you again,” Nore said.

“Please,” he said, weary, pushing his hair back with his hand, only managing to streak blood across his forehead. “Just let me get you home, and we can talk.”

Nore found her backup blade strapped to her hip. She wielded it, turning the blade on Caspian—she was probably unable to hurt him physically, but she could not ignore the flash of despair on his face when he saw the blade. He stopped. Nore hesitated, breathing hard, pushing her other forearm to her ribs to staunch the bleeding. Tears sprung to her eyes as the move jostled her wrist.

“Come any closer,” she said, “and I will not hesitate to kill you.”

They both knew he could overpower her. But Caspian only stopped, raised his chin, met her eye. An unspeakable moment passed between them.

Nore turned away first. She got in the first carriage she found and asked for it to take her to Edith’s.

There, alone, crying silent tears from the pain as she clutched her wounded side, it occurred to her that Cas could’ve forced her to come home with him. Could’ve dragged her. Could’ve picked her up and taken her wherever he bid.

But he didn’t. As always, he let her make her own choices—and perhaps, in the end, that hurt just as much as anything else.

I think of that night constantly—I don’t think you understand what it was like to have your blood on my hands. I have killed before (surely, you know that by now) but your blood on my skin… there is no feeling, no dread nor fear in the world to encompass the nightmare.

Letter from Caspian Khari to Nore Gordon, unopened, 1632 UCE

sixteen

IT WAS FAR TOO early to start doing anything, but Nore was too restless to go back to sleep. She’d never been good at falling back to sleep after an interruption, and now, she still felt the phantom heat of Caspian’s skin against hers.

She couldn’t stay in this room, surrounded by the desires she had not yet given in to.

Nore dressed quickly and pulled on her thick coat. She was scheduled to meet Terlo for a late breakfast to exchange notes on the previous day, but that was still five hours away.

If Caspian was off doing her mission, then she would get a head start on his, possibly out of spite. She reviewed the map Caspian and Terlo had marked up before they left Eprain, tracing her finger over a few of the spots they had identified that might have clues about the artifact. As far as Nore knew, these were the oldest places on the Isle, the areas most likely to have some link to the strange magic that would make a powerful artifact in a system that didn’t allow for such things.

She wouldn’t venture into the libraries or archives without Terlo, and the hall in Osar was almost certainly still locked for the night. But there was a circle in the middle of a wooded area, set far from everything else—or at least as far as anything could be on such a small isle.

Before she thought better of it, Nore slipped the Karathak medallion around her neck. It was unlikely anyone would try to perform magic on her, but she felt safer with it on.

She started resolutely through the city, toward the road that wound up to the northern part of the Isle, toward both the small woods marked on the map and the larger area called the Barrens. The Isle was not large—it was its power that made it an independent nation, not its size nor population. Last night, Garna had told them that it was just over an hour’s walk to the fortress, and it would be even less to reach the woods on the west of the Isle.

Nore walked with her hands buried in her pockets and her chin tucked into her coat. She passed the side streets that wound through Maerin, the shops and cafés and pubs still shut, the little bakeries already starting their work. It seemed like a peaceful place—at least, more peaceful than Nettlepool ever had been—and that was a funny thing to Nore. An island full of warriors, now entirely at rest.

She reached the scrubby outskirts and pressed on. The road was well maintained, but she couldn’t recall seeing many carts in Maerin. There were others on the road with her, walking in twos and threes or riding. Some of them had swords, and Nore wondered if they were also going to join the Viper’s training.