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He’d never forgive her for loving him twice.
For leaving him twice.
Ana arranged the letters on her desk, putting them back in order. She wasn’t supposed to know the other language, Old Ilynglass, but Imryll had secretly passed her knowledge down the line. By the time Ana’s generation came around, much of it had been lost, but she still understood enough to piece together the general messages from Paeris’s letters.
She traced her fingers along the most damning of the words from each writer.
From Zofia:
High Priestess Avalyna came to visit. She refused to meet with my mother or father and demanded an audience with my grandmother. They were alone in a room for over an hour, and when they emerged, my grandmother looked more terrified, more pale, than I’d ever seen her. I asked her what happened, and instead of responding, she locked herself away for days. Even Grandfather couldn’t rouse her.
From Paeris:
I know you said to stay away from Mortain, but I cannot. Five Ravenwoods missing, and no one has tried to stop him. Perhaps I cannot. Perhaps I’m sending myself on a fool’s errand, doomed to catastrophic failure. But you can do nothing from there, Zo, and I am uniquely positioned to be near the creature. So tonight, I will take my father’s dagger, dip it in poison, and catch the sorcerer unawares. If fortune smiles upon me, Zo, my next letter will be announcing we are rid of this evil for once and all.
Ana’s hands shook as she traced Zofia’s next words.
Par, it’s been a month. A month. You have never gone more than a fortnight between letters, and I fear the worst has happened. Please, even a raven telling me I’m overreacting would be preferable to silence. I just need to know you’re all right.
The final letter from Duncarrow didn’t come from Paeris but from a woman named Annelyse. The message was succinct, cold.
Zofia, please cease your correspondence with Duncarrow. You’ve done more harm than you can ever know. I cannot read the letters you wrote my son, but I know all blame for his death falls strictly upon you and your childish incitement. Please inform your grandmother that my father, her brother Octavyen, succumbed to a brief illness days after Paeris died. His final visit several years past will be considered the last time any Rhiagain or Noble House of Duncarrow visits Witchwood Cross. With his death, the House of Glaisgain falls to me. Henceforth, the name Wynter will be forbidden upon our isle.
If Zofia betrayed her aunt’s wishes and sent a letter in response, it wasn’t part of the collection.
Paeris of Glaisgain had been killed for trying to stop Mortain. His grandfather, Octavyen, had died soon after from shock or grief—or maybe even something more sinister. Imryll had been so disturbed by a visit from Midnight Crest, she’d locked herself away. Familial relationships ended when the letters did.
The letters marked an abrupt end to a piece of Ana’s history she’d never heard anyone speak of in detail. That they had resurfaced when she was embroiled in her own terrorizing of the Ravenwoods, hundreds of years later, had to meansomething.
But where didTyrestefit into the whole bloody mess?
He’d been doing translation work for years, but when she’d heard him speak of it, he usually dealt with boring legal documents no one but archivists would ever take interest in.
“Archivists,” Ana whispered. She took a step back from the table.
Perhaps a visit to thekyschun will give you needed perspective.
Tomorrow, after she saw to Varradyn and helped Tyreste and his family prepare for the Cider Festival, her last hurrah as Nessa Arsenyev, she’d send the kyschuna formal request for a meeting. They might refuse to see her. If they granted an audience, they might tell her nothing. They alone decided who was worthy of the past.
But if Ana couldn’t wrap her mind around the past, there was no hope whatsoever for the future.
Chapter12
Digging Her Gold Slippers into the Pigpen
“It will befine.It always is,” Tyr said, reassuring his mother.
Fransiska stood in the middle of the tavern floor, her hands looped over her head, looking so frazzled, she had him stressing too.
“No one expects perfection, Mother. Just ale that doesn’t stop flowing.”
Fransiska leveled an exasperated look his way. “Really? Is pleasing the apple-loving masses as simple as that, Tyreste? Unending ale?”
“Evert fixed the stills. We brought all the old kegs back from the well house.” Remembering his tryst with Ana there tripped him up. “We have enough. Besides, there are two new taverns this year that weren’t open during the last Cider Festival.”
“And you think that’s what I want? To send business elsewhere?”
There was nothing he could say to ease her. She was like this every year in the final hours before the Cider Festival kicked off, and she’d find something to stress over even if they had a hundred kegs at the wait.
