Another of the apprentices was chasing the girl. It was a boy called Briac Kincaid, though it was difficult to think of him as a boy. He was only fifteen, like Catherine, but he was already as tall as a man, and his face had a ruthless cast.
Catherine reached a clearer patch of the woods, and here Briac caught up with her. He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. Maud saw the flush in Briac’s fair skin, which contrasted starkly with his jet-black hair.
“What were you doing in the cottages?” he asked.
“Why are you following me?” Catherine demanded, yanking her arm away.
Briac took hold of her shoulders and smiled. Catherine took a step back and found herself up against a tree.
“You know why I’m following you,” he whispered.
Catherine looked more surprised than alarmed.
But why am I here? the Young Dread asked herself. This was some sort of lovers’ quarrel. Hardly something that should attract her notice. And yet there were qualities about Catherine that reminded the Young Dread of herself and so held her attention. She’d watched the apprentices training over the last several days, as she and the Middle did each time they came to the estate. While most were entirely absorbed in proving themselves to their instructors, so they might be invited to take their oaths, Catherine’s manner was different. It was as though she already saw past her training to her life beyond and wanted to be taught the things that mattered. The Young herself had been like that, asking her master, the Old Dread, a thousand questions about her future, even though he would answer only a select few.
“You wanted me to follow you out here,” Briac whispered.
Maud looked down at the two of them from near the crest of the hill. She was concealed among trees, but she didn’t think they would have noticed her, even if she’d been standing in the open.
“I did not,” Catherine said.
“Come on. Going out alone to the empty cottages?” he asked softly. “Let’s go back inside one of them…”
“I was looking at Emile’s things,” she told him. She tugged one of her shoulders out of his grasp.
“Emile?” he responded. “Why would you spend time on him? A failed apprentice who’s quit and left.”
Catherine tugged free her other shoulder and looked at Briac angrily.
“He was our friend,” she said. “He was training with us.”
“He was a little boy.”
“He was fourteen. Only a few months younger than we are. And I liked the things he wanted to do after he took his oath.”
“Like what? Getting rid of corrupt politicians? Helping the poor?” Briac said these things as though they were a naive joke.
“Why do you say it like that?” Catherine asked. “We’re supposed to do those sorts of things. It’s our purpose.”
“Is it, now?”
“My grandfather got rid of an Afghani warlord, we’ve freed innocent—”
“Bravo, Catherine. You must have a perfect family. But Emile wouldn’t have made it to his oath.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He picked bad company,” Briac said.
“Who do you mean?”
Briac shrugged. “I don’t really know, and there’s no reason for me to care.” His voice dropped back to a harsh whisper: “Forget Emile. That’s not why we’re out here.”
“It’s why I’m—” Catherine began, but Briac cut her off by pressing his lips to hers. The girl recoiled, her light hair tangling in the bark of the tree as she pulled her head away. From the short distance between them, she studied Briac, as though analyzing an unexpected natural phenomenon in a laboratory.
“Come on,” the boy pressed. “We’ve been beating each other up in the training barn for three years. Haven’t you wanted…?”
A look of suspicion crossed Catherine’s face, chased away a moment later by an expression of mild curiosity. She shoved him away from her, then put a hand behind his head and pulled him back. They kissed again.
Maud turned away. There was no reason she should be involved in this moment, and she had dinner to hunt. She had gone a few dozen paces when their voices came to her again. She realized she had extended her hearing to keep watch on them.
“This is…too much,” Catherine said.
“No, it’s good, it’s good…”
“You’re cruel when we train. Half the time I hate you.”
“It’s only because I want you,” he whispered. “Don’t you want me?”
A moment later, Maud heard a violent scuffle and without conscious thought found herself turning back. When she regained the crest of the hill, she saw