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“I’m curious,” Nadder said, “but I don’t really care.”
I’m curious,Brandon thought,and I already might care too much.
About thirty minutes later, when Brandon stepped outside, he looked automatically for Villette’s shadow under the pavilion. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust, but then he peered harder. He couldn’t make out her solid shape against the ruffled darkness; was she even there? Had she somehow slipped over the wall while the three guards were laughing over dinner? He took a step toward the awning, narrowing his eyes as if that would improve his vision.
Her voice came from somewhere to his left. “I’m over here.”
He spun in that direction. The moon was about half full and not particularly helpful, but it gave off enough light to show her silhouetted against the high stone of the enclosing wall. He felt like he should answer her but he didn’t know what to say, so all he managed was “Oh.”
“Sitting made me feel anxious,” she explained. “So I’ve been pacing instead.”
“Has it helped?” he asked.
That made her laugh. “A little.”
It seemed like she might be willing to engage in conversation again tonight, so he risked another question. “Why are you anxious?”
She began a slow promenade along the edge of the garden. He heard a slight crunching sound with every footfall and remembered that the perimeter near the wall was lined with gravel. “I shall be meeting with my enemy tomorrow. It always makes me fretful.”
“The high divine.”
“So someone told you.”
“Just that he was coming. Not why he’s your enemy.”
Her deliberate pace had led her far enough away that she now had her back to him. He saw her slice a hand through the air as if to indicate the story was too complex to relate. “He wants things from me I cannot supply,” she said, the words floating back to him. “Or refuse to supply, if you believe his version of events.”
“And would he release you if you could—or would—supply them?”
Now she responded with a muffled laugh. “Oh, he would put me in a different sort of prison altogether. A worse one, if you can believe it. There is no advantage to me in acceding to his demands.”
It didn’t make any sense, and Brandon figured it wouldn’t unless she wanted to sit down and explain exactly what her situation was. Which he was pretty sure she wasn’t planning to do. He stopped asking questions.
She reached the far wall of the garden, sighed, and turned back in his direction. “But let’s not talk about the high divine,” she said. “Let’s talk of more interesting topics. Tell me about yourself.”
“I don’t think I have a single story that you would call interesting,” he replied.
“Oh, that can’t be true. Tell me about a time when you were growing up. Some game you played with your brothers.”
He grinned. “Mostly we didn’t play games. We were fighting or wrestling—it was always ‘see who can punch the hardest.’”
“And who could?”
“My oldest brother, because he was the biggest. Until I was about twelve, and then I was the biggest.Andthe one who hit the hardest.”
She was drawing nearer with every step. “And that’s why you decided to be a soldier?”
He shrugged. “It seemed to be a road out.”
She stopped when she was only about five feet away. This close, even in the thin moonlight, he could almost make out her features. Those slanted cheekbones. Those sad eyes. “Did you leave the islands and come straight to Corcannon? That must have been a shock.”
He shook his head. “Spent a couple years in southern Marata working for different landowners. There’s a lot of unrest in that part of the country—people poaching off each other’s property, and brigands on the road. So there was plenty of work.”
“But you got restless again, so you came here.”
“Not that, exactly. I took a job with a merchant hauling cargo to Corcannon. After my third trip across the canyon, I decided to stay.”
“Do you miss the island life?”
