The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,120

stolen from her family and sold to Aldrid the scavenger for a sack of grain. I told her about the histories we never knew and the thieves and scavengers who were the bricks and mortar of our kingdom—not a chosen Remnant. The Holy Guardians were not holy at all. Saying it aloud to her felt cruel, like I had snatched a cherished piece of crystal from her hand and smashed it beneath my foot, but it had to be said.

She stood, dazed, walking around the cottage, trying to absorb this news. I saw her mind ticking through texts.

She whirled. “And how do you know the histories you found are true?”

“I don’t. And that’s the hardest part. But I know there are truths that have been hidden from us, Pauline. Ones we each have to find with our own hearts. Truth is as free as the air and we all have the right to breathe as deeply of it as we wish. It cannot be held back in the palm of any one man.”

She turned away and stared into the loft where the owls roosted. With each shake of her head, I knew she was trying to dismiss it, weighing my truths against the only other truth she had ever known—the Morrighese Holy Text.

Scavengers.

If it was true, this history robbed us of our elevated status among kingdoms. As I watched her, I understood with clarity why the Royal Scholar had hidden Gaudrel’s history away. It undermined who we were. What I didn’t understand was why he hadn’t just destroyed it. Someone had tried to once.

Pauline took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her skirt, smoothing it out. “I have to get back to the cottage,” she said. “It’s time for the baby’s feeding.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

PAULINE

During the night, after feeding the baby, I had lain on my side for a long while, watching Kaden sleep, still wondering at his scars. Now when he looked in a mirror, he would see another mark—the one I had left—alongside the ones his father had laid. Back in Terravin, a simple shirt and a few kind words had covered up everything about who I had believed he was. Mikael had done the same, but he covered up his true nature with a few flowery words. I let those words wheedle into me until they were all I saw.

Was it possible to ever really know anyone, or was I simply the worst judge of character in all of history? I rolled over, looking at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. His seeing my lady parts was the least of my distress. I was still haunted by his expression when he first held the baby in his hands. That seemed real. His eyes were filled with wonderment, but then as he reached out and laid the baby on my chest, he faltered, as if he already knew I would never allow this child in his arms again. One part of me knew I needed to thank him for helping me, but another part was still angry, and a greater part, afraid. How could I be sure if any of his kindness was real this time? What if he was still using us for another purpose the way he had before? I knew Lia trusted him. That should have been enough for me, but trust was out of my reach.

I knelt on the porch, scrubbing the crate he had found in the mill. It might make a passable cradle for now, he had said when he offered it to me this morning. He hadn’t met my gaze. He just set it on the porch and walked away. He was almost out of earshot before I called after him. When he turned I said, “Thank you.” He stood there, studying me, then finally nodded and left.

It had poured for four days straight, rivers of water rushing down hillsides, more leaks sprouting in the cottage roof. I wasn’t sure if the deluge had been blessing or curse, trapping us in such small quarters, but it also forced Lia and Kaden to work out the argument between them: Kaden wanted to go to the Viceregent himself. Confront him. Lia said no. Not until the time was right. I was surprised that he listened to her at all. There was a strange bond between them that I still didn’t understand. But when she implied there was the possibility that the Viceregent had changed, that eleven years could change a man, and she