duty to her?
A band of yellow light glowed beneath the door, and soft footsteps padded in the kitchen. I needed rest, but I also needed a distraction to dull the immense pain before my eyes closed in sleep. Perhaps I could sit by the fire and wait for the flames to thaw my power into submission. I would assure Severo’s mother that I would leave in the morning and no longer put her family in peril. Perhaps with a proper disguise—unremarkable commoner clothes, a scarf over my head and face, which the cold readily excused—I might be able to get a message to Devorian at the palace. Maybe Severo had a contact there who had not succumbed to Ambrosine’s influence.
I rose from bed, taking care to tuck the covers back around Navara’s shoulders, and slipped out the door.
But the shadow thrown into relief in the firelight was not Severo’s mother tidying up before retiring. It was the huntsman himself, staring into the fire. He held a mug of frothy ale.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning back toward the room.
“Do you need more quilts?” he asked impassively. “You can take mine from upstairs.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid to sleep,” I said, surprising myself by admitting it aloud. “I might make it colder if I have bad dreams.”
Setting his jaw, as though to show this was an act of mere decency and not of kindness, Sev dragged a chair close to the hearth and gestured for me to sit. I folded my arms against the chill and shuffled forward, suddenly aware of how threadbare and damp my linen nightdress was.
“I feel the need to apologize,” he said, unable to meet my eyes.
Not exactly an apology in and of itself. “For barging in on me bathing?” I asked disingenuously. I was going to force him to say what he meant. “It’s all right. I have nothing to hide.”
He seemed taken aback by my brassiness, his ironclad expression giving way to amusement. But he immediately banished the rogue quirk at the corner of his mouth.
He spoke carefully, in Nisseran. “I’m sorry I injured you.”
“And almost killed me.”
“Yes, that. Does your head hurt?”
“A little,” I admitted.
“Let me see.” He clanked his mug on the table.
I turned in my chair so that his fingers could part my hair and brush over the contusion. He remembered the spot where he’d ripped a lock out by the roots, and examined that, too. Despite the soreness, his touch didn’t hurt.
“You ripped my hair out for nothing,” I said irritably.
“If you had lain low like I said, it wouldn’t have been for nothing,” he replied, slipping back into Perispi. “Here, hold it like this.”
He handed me a section of thick hair and went to rummage through a cupboard, producing a bottle of salve and a ratty but clean washcloth. He returned to dab at the wound.
“It’s a good thing Ambrosine was too cowardly to kill us with her own hands,” I murmured.
He finished his work and put away the salve, throwing the cloth into a wicker basket. He turned abruptly and raked back his springy dark curls. “I didn’t want to do what she commanded. I was protecting my family.”
I sighed as though a deep enough breath could fill the cracks in my broken heart. “I would have done the same.”
I reached for Sev’s mug of ale. I was owed a nightcap at least.
“You won’t like it. Our neighbor Yannis makes it.”
“Don’t presume to know what I like.” I took a sip and nearly spat it back out, but let it pool in my mouth until I found the fortitude to gulp it down. “That’s awful.”
A dimple formed in his right cheek, though nothing else about his face signaled a smile. He dropped into a seat at the table. The firelight glistered in his dark eyes, and his long eyelashes cast shadows across prominent cheekbones.
“How often do you come here?” I asked. “Is it a long way from the palace?”
“I try to come once every few days. When Jeno and Stasi are old enough to take care of the others the way my mother and I do, I’ll feel better leaving them for longer. But that doesn’t matter anymore. I won’t be going back to the palace after today.”
“Is it safe here?” I asked. “Now that Ambrosine knows you didn’t kill us?”
“I’ve told very few souls where we live, and I know how to make sure no one follows me. We’ll be safe for one night.”
I nodded. “If you say