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“From your father. She was a servant in his household. Not as pretty as you, my dear, but a woman’s body has always been a temptation for villains like Ottius Thellele.”
My ears ring at the sound of my father’s name.
“She was with child and hid it a long time, not sure what he would do when he found out,” Ritha says.
My thoughts verge on the horrors of how my father would react to such a situation. To having control taken from him, or leverage used against him. It’s a dark, bubbling pit, and I stand at the brink of it, but Ritha’s story pulls me back.
“I knew my cousin would take her in,” she continues. “She was a widow of ten years and lonely. We had the story all worked out, how Artlina was a distant niece, and the drought ate up her farm and took her husband. All we had to do was get her away before Ottius learned the truth.”
I’m trembling, and I grip the cot with one hand to steady myself. “He did,” I guess. My father is not one to be duped.
Ritha nods.
“Tell me,” I press.
She rubs the cuticle on her thumb. “Guessing from how I found her—”
I wince.
“—she took the path we had planned for her, off the main road. She was dead and bloody, but I didn’t see any stab wounds. And her womb was empty.”
The fire eating up the candlewick feels like winter.
“I don’t know if he killed her or if she fell by the way in the pains of labor and passed giving life to you. But she was there and you were not. And you’re the right age, the right look. I knew it from the moment I first saw you.”
I blink back tears. My body shivers, but my face boils, and I press chilled fingers against my cheeks. I can’t help but see it, a woman round with pregnancy, fleeing through the hills, ravaged by pains she can’t control. Falling by the way ... or did my father push her?
How is it that in a single instance, I’ve both found and lost my mother?
“I told you trolls don’t believe in witchcraft.” Ritha leans close to me. “But I do. And while I don’t think you’re a witch, I do think you’re shifted.”
I search her face for meaning. “Shifted?”
She knits and reknits her hands. “It’s so rare, especially with our people scattered as they are. I’ve only seen it one other time, years ago, before you were born. And only heard about it once besides that.”
I want to both tear the words from her mouth and clamp my hands over my ears.
“There is something different about you, isn’t there, Lark?”
I don’t answer.
“Colson babbled about it after that night.” She’s barely audible. “And for the council to assign you to such a task ... and the caste tournament. Others may dismiss it, but I know better. I understand fear, Lark.”
I stop breathing.
“I think ...,” Ritha says carefully, “that Artlina was terrified in her last moments. As scared as a person can be. And you were born in that fear. You drunk it in and came to life through it. And it lives with you now.”
Abruptly I’m on my feet, a swirl of dizziness beneath my skull. My erratic heartbeat consumes me.
“I was there,” Ritha says. “At the tournament.”
I shake my head. I hadn’t seen any other humans. But neither can I discount her story.
“I saw the look on Grodd’s face. And Etewen ... he told mehisaccount of that night in the schoolyard, before Perg ever came your way.” Her gaze drops to her hands. “I knew it then. That you were the lost child. That you were Artlina’s. I don’t know how you ended up in Cagmar, but given the choice between the trolls and Ottius Thellele, I would choose the trolls.”
I press a hand to the wall, forcing air into my lungs. It’s alarming and yet relieving to hear my secret spoken aloud. To see it in the hands of another ... and not be cast out. Ritha has used discretion so far. I have no reason to believe her story false. She knew my mother. Myrealmother. Tried to help her. And she has helped me. She’s trustworthy.
And yet that does nothing to calm the blood racing through my body, the ache blooming behind my forehead.
