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“I know something happened. You cantalkto me.” His hand rolled back over her shoulders. He leaned in close, burning her with the fire of every word. “Whatever it is, I can help you. I... There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Anastazja had been wrong about her ability to hold back tears. They streamed down her rosy face like a flash flood. She shook her head again, because if she turned to look at him, it would be over. She’d cave and tell him everything, and then he’d insist on sharing the burden.
But that could never,everhappen.
Magda would kill him.
“Pleasetalk to me. I know there’s more than what you’re saying.”
Anastazja inhaled a quaking gasp, then swallowed it in a hard gulp that steadied her. “I mean it, Tyr. This...” She closed her eyes and tried again, but all she could think about was how soft and wonderful the weight of his hands felt on her shoulders. Her tender, protective lover. “This went on far longer than it should have.”Say it. Leave no room for doubt. Leave no opening for him to walk through. You must wound him to save him.“I didn’t expect you to get attached to me, and I can’t have you hanging on like a stray kitten when I’m trying to make a good marriage for myself and my family.”
Tyreste’s scruffy tomcat, Rikard the Mouser, curdled a deep, throaty meow.I didn’t mean you, Riki. Sorry, boy.
“It would almost be easier if I believed you. You’ve never been much of a liar though.”
She felt his rebuttals echo in his hands, in the light shake in them.
“You’re afraid. I understand. I even understand pushing me away, because that’s what I did for years, before I met you. But you know, no matter what we might call this, it’s more than that. You’re afraid of saying the words we both hold in every time we’re together, hoarding them like... like we’re waiting for the perfect moment. But what is the perfect moment if not now, when you’re pushing me away out of fear?”
“I don’t love you, Tyreste, you fool. How could I? How could someone like me everlovesomeone like you?” She wrung her hands through the cruelty that was cutting herself almost as deep as she knew it was cutting him. “You’re just an... an amusement I enjoyed longer than I should have. A toy I didn’t tire of quickly enough. A... a tavern boy with a talented tongue and a generous cock.” She sucked in her lip. “Fortunately for me, there are many men who can fill those needs when you’re gone.”
Tyreste’s breathing tapered. His hands slid away, and the air cooled with distance between them. “I’m going to give you an opportunity to take that back. To tell mewhyyou’re so afraid, so I can help you. If you—” A muffled, gravelly tremor threaded his solemn tone. “If you tell me what’s going on, I can help you. I can forget how hurtful what you just said to me was because I know all too well how fear can hold us in its grip, convince us... convince us we don’t deserve happiness. But if you walk out that door, Ana, then you and I... We’re done. Forever done. I’ll never want to see your face again. Because there’s no room in my life...” His voice clogged with emotion. “For someone who thinks so little of me.”
Anastazja’s heart had broken before she’d even said a word, but finally it shattered altogether, the remnants diffusing through her like shrapnel from an incendiary. How easy it would be to speak the truth of her heart and say the words.Let’s run away together, where we can be whomever we want to be.But leaving wasn’t an option. Tyreste had told her enough of his past for her to know he craved the foundations he’d built in Witchwood Cross over the past five years. And she could never abandon her father and brother to the mercy of Magda.
Ancestors, give me strength.
By the wings of this life or the bones of the next.
“I don’t need your opportunities. Your concern. Yourunderstanding.Any of it,” Anastazja hissed. She raised the skirts of her half-laced dress and marched for the door, careful to keep her face—her truth—hidden. “And I definitely don’t needyou, Tyreste. So please, make good on your threats. Don’t follow me. Don’t meet my eyes on the village roads. Don’t fear me coming into your lowlytavern.” She dug her toes into her boots and said it, the thing she knew would add the finality required. The final serrated dagger. “Your services are no longer required, publican.”
Anastazja flung the door wide and slammed it behind her without stopping. She raced down the snowy path and into the comforting arms of a fresh storm, not stopping until she reached the towering gates of Fanghelm Keep.
Tyreste trudged straight from his cabin, marching across the snow-covered field and down the rocky path leading into the narrow passage behind the Tavern at the Top of the World. He hadn’t bothered with his cloak or furs, wearing only the same long-sleeved shirt, rolled to the elbows, that he’d had on when Ana had shown up with that languid smile in her eyes that always turned him into a puddle. After he’d watched her leave in a storm of confusion, he’d hardly managed a shirt and trousers, unbuckled, before his desperation for fresh air had sent him hurtling out into the storm.
Neither the fresh snow nor the chill wind rolling down off of a sinister-looking Icebolt did a thing to douse the fire burning him from the inside out. His flesh was scorched with fury and grief and frustration, with no viable means of release. She’d always known how to turn his foul emotions into fairer ones. The right words... the right touch. On his worst days, when he’d first come to Witchwood Cross after fleeing deep trauma in the Westerlands, she’d saved his life with those words, and that touch.
He slammed the heels of his palms against the back doors of the tavern and flung them wide with his entrance. Agnes glanced up with a liberal eyebrow raise and returned to scrubbing dishes at the steaming basin. Evert stepped out from the distillery, his lip curled at the edge, and shook his head before dipping back in to finish his work. Only little Adeline—who at fifteen wasn’t so little anymore—came over to see if he was all right. She couldn’t voice the words, instead spelling her concern with her hands, a skill she’d had to learn after losing her hearing in the terrible fire that had transformed the Penhallow family forevermore.
Her sweet, guileless face dulled his angst long enough for him to smile and assure her he was fine, but as soon as she was behind him, his smile departed. He strode past all of them and slipped into the office.
“Tyr.” His father dipped his quill, squinting at the ledger he was notating. The eyeglasses Tyreste had purchased him in the market last year sat across his desk, defiantly untouched. He never had to wonder where his own stubborn pride had come from. “You’re not scheduled until this evening. You’re covering nights for Rik until the baby is born, remember?”
“I need to worknow,” Tyreste said. He gripped the back of the unstable chair and leaned over his father’s broad desk. “Where do you need me?”
Olov re-inked his quill and continued scribing, his bushy eyebrows curling in concentration. “Ah, well, seeing as we’re in between the morning and evening rush, Idon’treally need you. Not yet. The others are on prep, but they’ll be nearly done by now.”
Tyreste sliced his tongue along the back of his teeth. “Surely there’s ale to be tended.” His death grip rattled the chair, which finally made his father look up.
Olov set the quill neatly beside his logbook and watched his son with a shrewd look. “Did something happen?”
“Didn’t sleep well,” Tyreste said. He hated lying. The lies of others had ruined his life. But both Olov and Fransiska had cautioned Tyreste about his dalliance with Anastazja, the “pretty highborn beyond his reach.” The only thing that could make him feel worse would be their sympathetic, knowing smiles when they realized they’d been right.
“Just waking up?” Olov mimed looking out a window, despite that the office had none. “It’s nearly dusk.”
“Is there work for me, Father?”
Olov stretched his arms to the sides with a long sigh. He’d probably been hunched in the same position for hours. “Sit.”
