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“You invited me.”
“No,” Tyreste said. “I mean here, in the Cross. And why spend so much of your time with someone you just met? You hardly know me.”
“Well,” she said slowly, forming a careful response to the question she’d been anticipating for weeks. “My father brought me to visit my family, and I’m not especially... especially close with any of them.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Tears sprang into her eyes as truth and lie blended. As she thought of Niko, who had been sent away before she could even tell him good-bye, and was out there, somewhere, alone and perhaps suffering. “But when I met you, I knew I’d rather spend my time here, with you, than there, with them.”
Tyreste rolled a hand atop her forearm. “Hey. Nessa, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Ana flashed him a quick smile. “You didn’t. Promise.”
He slowly withdrew his hand, watching her. “It’s the strangest thing, but I feel like I’ve known you for years.”
Her heart beat wildly out of order. She shouldn’t be there, digging herself deeper into her deception, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “I feel the same.”
“There was...” Tyreste turned his gaze forward. “Someone. I loved her, though I shouldn’t have. You remind me of her, but that feels strange to say because you’re nothing like her at all. And yet I feel like I could tell you anything. Does that sound mad?”
Ana’s eyes burned. Relief. Joy. Disappointment. She hadn’t prepared herself for how she’d feel when Tyreste loved the illusion more than the woman. “No, it doesn’t sound mad at all.”
“Do you have siblings, Nessa?”
Shealmostnodded but caught herself. “No.”
Tyreste nodded toward the tavern. It was too dark to make out the shape of the building, but the torches and candles burned bright. “I have five. I used to wish I had none.” He laughed and swiped his face with the back of his hand. “But then I lost all of them. And it took years for me to get them back.”
Ana stilled. She knew the story, but Nessa did not. “You lost them?”
His shoulders lifted in a hard inhale. “Yes,” he said, breathing out. “Before I came to the Cross, I was from a small, forgotten post in the Westerlands. Have you ever heard of Parth?”
“Tavern at the Middle of the World,” Ana said, feigning the same slow realization she’d come to when she’d heard the story the first time. “Well, nowthistavern’s name makes a little more sense.”
“Suppose we’ll have to move to the Southerlands next. They’re probably feeling left out down there at the bottom of the world.”
Ana laughed at the joke for the second time. “Might be right.”
“I was born in Parth,” he said. “And I died there too.”
Ana turned toward him. “Died? How do you mean?”
Tyreste shook his head at his hands, laced around his knees. “You don’t really want to hear this story.”
“I would listen to any story you told me,” Ana said softly. “But only if you wish to tell it.”
Tyreste said nothing for a long time. “I had this friend, Rhiainach, and I just... just adored her. Loved her, maybe, but what did I really know of love? She was highborn, and I was only... the son of a taverner. But the thing about Rhiain was she never saw me as such. We were childhood mates, close as two people can be. One day, she came to me and said her father was marrying her off. She was miserable about it and wanted to run away together, and maybe I should have said yes, but I knew... Iknewwe’d be running the rest of our lives. Her father was a madman who had kept her purposely in the dark about parts of her life. Important parts. He’d never have let her leave without a fight.”
“And did she? Run away?”
“She never got the chance. That same night, both our lives changed forever. Rumor spread about the few moments we’d been alone together in my room, and word got back to her father. Nothing inappropriate had happened, but the damage was done. He sent men to burn down the tavern and take me prisoner. The men who kidnapped me told me my family had died in the fire and that Mathias, Rhiain’s father, had spared me because he had use for me. He sent me to the Reliquary as his spy, and as long as I reported back on the doings of certain men, he would spare my life.” He twitched his brows. “For several years, Rhiain thought I was dead. My family thought I was dead. And in many ways, I was. I wanted to be.”
Hearing the story a second time was just as powerful. Painful. She wanted to scoop him into her arms and kiss the hurt away, to give him the safe space he’d craved and she’d denied.
“Three years.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Three years I spent in the Reliquary dungeon. And then fate brought Rhiain there. It wasn’t her fault, what her father had done to my family, but I blamed her just the same. I wanted her to suffer as much as I had. But then I realized she was a victim too. Years of her life, of her memories, had been erased by her father in order to control her. But Mathias’s plans fell apart when Rhiain fell in love with the same man I was sent to spy on, Asterin Edevane, and their love brought years and years of secrets and lies crashing down around both of us. Mathias eventually confessed to everything he’d done, but among his terrible revelations was an unbelievable one: my family was alive and had been sent to the Northerlands by Mathias to start a new life, without me. He’d told them I was dead and given them money and references to start anew.” Tyreste bowed his head. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “Mathias threatened to have my family killed if she didn’t marry the monster he’d arranged for her. She was going to do it too. For me.” He squinted and tears spilled. “But I couldn’t let it happen. Asterin and I were determined to save her from that fate.” He chuckled under his breath. “Not that she needed us. She found her own way to hold Mathias and the other men who had hurt her to account. And when it was done, I went back for my cat, Rikard, put the Westerlands in my past, and traveled north to surprise my family. I left all the rest behind. My friends. My love of drawing. I used to draw day and night, draw everything... It doesn’t matter. I could never do it again without thinking of those endless nights in the dungeon.” He shook his head, sighing. “I’ve been here five years, but that part of my life feels like it happened yesterday.”
It was no easier hearing the story for a second time. The way he spoke of those days was similar to how Vjestik spoke of the horrors of Nok Mora. “Tyreste. That’s... a lot for one man to carry.”
He shrugged, but she didn’t miss the tight press of his mouth, the active effort to suppress the worst of his pain. “I suppose it is. But I was fine until Asterin showed up a few weeks back, to visit.”
