vacant stare, a curled fist, a defiant lip twisted at some memory—deeper scars from seeing people she loved murdered and knowing more had died after her escape. I saw that she cared about the Vendan people. She often spoke in their language with Kaden, and her remembrances included their traditions as well.
“Are you one of them now, Lia?” I had asked her.
She looked at me, surprised at first, but then some memory flickered in her eyes, and she didn’t answer. Maybe she wasn’t sure herself.
It was her remembrances that had changed the most. She didn’t say them by grudging obligation anymore but with a zealous power that stilled the air, calling up not just the gods, but it seemed the stars and generations too. A fullness grew in the air as if the breaths of the world kept time with our own, and I saw her stare into the darkness, her eyes focused on something the rest of us couldn’t see.
She didn’t fear the gift any longer but embraced it. She coaxed, demanded, trusted. She spoke of the gift in ways I had never heard before, its ways of seeing and knowing, and trusting, ways that made me reach deeper inside myself.
I had seen a glimpse of her brokenness too. She hid it well, but when Natiya began describing to Berdi and Gwyneth what the Dalbreck army and outpost were like and she merely mentioned Rafe’s name, Lia walked out onto the porch as if she couldn’t bear to listen. I followed and found her leaning against a post watching the downpour.
“She seems fascinated with the Dalbretch army,” I said. “She’s very young to be carrying all those weapons. I didn’t think vagabonds—”
“They don’t carry weapons,” Lia said. “Natiya tried to help me by sewing a knife into the hem of my cloak. Her camp paid dearly for it.”
“And now she wants justice.”
“The very people she had welcomed into her camp betrayed her. Her way of life—and her innocence—have been robbed. One she may get back, the other, never.”
I tried to gently nudge the conversation. “She thinks highly of the king of Dalbreck.”
Lia didn’t respond.
“What happened between you two?” I asked.
Her cheekbone glowed with light from the cottage window and she faintly shook her head. “Whatever happened was for the best.”
I touched her shoulder, and her gaze met mine. The best wasn’t what I saw in her eyes.
“Lia, it’s me. Pauline. Tell me,” I said softly.
“Leave it. Please.”
She tried to turn away, and I grabbed her arms. “I will not. Pretending you aren’t hurting won’t make the pain disappear.”
“I can’t,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. Her eyes puddled, and she angrily swiped at her lashes. “I can’t think about him,” she said more firmly. “There’s too much at stake, including his life. I can’t afford distractions.”
“And that’s all he was? A distraction?”
“Surely you of all people know these things don’t always work out.”
“Lia,” I said firmly, and I waited.
She closed her eyes. “I needed him. But so did his kingdom. That is a reality that neither of us can change.”
“But?”
“I thought he’d come,” she whispered. “Against all reason. I knew he couldn’t. He shouldn’t even, but I still found myself looking over my shoulder, thinking he would change his mind. We loved each other. We made vows. We swore that kingdoms and conspiracies wouldn’t come between us—but they did.”
“Tell me everything from the beginning. Tell me the way I told you about Mikael.”
We talked for hours. She told me things she hadn’t shared before, the moment she first realized who he really was, the tense minutes before they crossed into Venda, the note he had carried in his vest all those months, the way she’d had to pretend to loathe him when all she wanted was to hold him, his promise for a new beginning, the way his voice kept her pinned to this world when she felt herself slipping into another—and then their bitter argument on parting.
“When I left him behind, I marked every day between us by writing his last words to me in the soil—it’s for the best—until I finally believed them to be true. Then I found my wedding dress where he had hidden it in the loft at the inn, and it tore everything loose inside of me all over again. How many times do I have to let go, Pauline?”
I looked at her, unsure how to answer. Even after everything Mikael had done, every day I had to let go again. He was