23. All Hail the End of Days

Aesylt guessed it was an ambush the minute she saw her brother sitting to the right of Lord Dereham in the Great Hall. His unannounced visit wasn't what put her nerves on edge though, nor the strange, almost fatherly looks passed between Rustan and his son. It was Imryll's face, reddened from a good long cry, that had Aesylt pausing midway to her brother and saying, "All right, someone is going to tell me what's going on right now."

"It's good to see you too, cub," Drazhan said dryly. He was smiling, broader than the general mood seemed to require. "I'm sorry for not sending word first. My movements are closely tracked. Couldn't take the risk."

"You know damn good and well that wasn't my question, wulf."

"Why not begin with some cider? Aesylt, you do recall that all cider we consume here at the keep is in fact made by the Dereham men themselves?" Rustan poured six mugs and slid them to each of those in attendance.

"I recall," she said tersely, glaring daggers at her brother. She chanced a brief look at Imryll, but her obvious distress only inflamed Aesylt more.

"Adrahn, good to see you," Drazhan said. "Will you both sit?"

"Not sure that I will," Aesylt said, right as Rahn took his seat. She shouldn't be surprised he would cow to Drazhan's intimidation. He was a rule man through and through. "Not until you tell me what's upset Imryll."

She had another reason for not wanting to sit. The soreness of her evening antics had caught up to her when she rose that morning, achy and nauseated.

"Aesylt, please," Imryll said, sounding far more passive and defeated than Aesylt was accustomed to. Whatever had happened had done more than upset Imryll. It had broken her spirit. "You need to hear this. And prepare yourself. It will hurt, perhaps more than it should."

Rustan whistled. "The bad news first then?"

"What bad news?" Rahn asked. "Has someone been hurt? Have things in the Cross escalated?"

"Nothing in the Cross is any better or worse than you left it," Drazhan said, his eyes on Aesylt. "Marek remains a craven fugitive. We are still divided, and war seems to be the only weapon we have left to break it." He blinked hard and snapped his gaze at Pieter. "I think the young Lord Dereham should be the one to explain his betrayal."

"Betrayal?" Aesylt shifted her attention between her brother and Pieter. "What betrayal?" What betrayal could be important enough to drag my brother away from the most important days of his stewardship?

He couldn't have told Drazhan about Revelry, or Drazhan would be far from calm.

"It's our hope you'll hear what Pieter has to say with an open mind," Rustan said with a strained smile. "Betrayal requires ill intent, and Pieter has, for all his faults, always been well intentioned in his choices."

Pieter folded his hands with a hard look at the pitcher. "I suppose the only way to begin is to answer a question posed to me on the day you all arrived." He looked up and into the distance. "I told you about my time in the Seven Sisters, Aesylt. But what I didn't tell you is it put me on the path to meet a man named Fair Douglass. Fair is?—"

"The archminister of the Reliquary," Aesylt whispered. Imryll's pulse pounded in her anticipation.

"He is now," Pieter said slowly. "But at the time, the men who conceived of the Reliquary, a place of faith and learning in the name of our Rhiagain kings, had only an old abbey to conduct their work from. The great towers of Riverchapel, most of which are, even now, still in construction, did not exist. He was searching for like-minded men to join him in his vision, and he invited me to become one of his ministers." His hands unfolded and rejoined. "I accepted, followed him to Riverchapel... and that's the truth of where I've been for two of these past eight years."

"Now explain to Aesylt why you kept this from us," Imryll spat. She reminded Aesylt of the woman she'd been when she had come to the Cross to marry Drazhan.

But Aesylt knew what he was about to say. And if he told the full truth, then both Drazhan and Imryll would know her and Rahn's secret, which could never, ever happen. "So let me see if I can fill in the details for you, Pieter," she said, sneering as she paced her side of the table. "Your father... what, wrote to you, to tell you we were coming? You told Douglass, or maybe someone else who was equally bent on edging us out, and he ordered you to come spy on us?"

Pieter offered a penitent shrug. "Yes... and no, Aesylt. You're right about Douglass. He never wanted you involved, but he knew if he just removed you without cause, there would be repercussions. Truth is, I think he's nervous there are two Duncarrow residents living in your village, because he can't know for sure what their relationship is with the current crown." His eyes closed through a long sigh. "I did tell him about all your work with... astronomy." He locked her gaze, the secret passing between them in silence. "I did send along your notes, just as I told you I had. But... He wrote yesterday to inform me that Witchwood Cross may no longer take part in any of the Reliquary's research, at least not in the current conditions."

Aesylt's heart pulsed so hard, she finally had no choice but to sit. She pulled the chair out and perched on the side of the wooden seat. "Our research. Our vision."

"And you wonder why I left Duncarrow," Imryll retorted with a sniff. "The same kind of men who run that rock run the Reliquary. There is no mystery in those men's hearts. They're all the same."

"Did you know, my lord?" Aesylt turned her ire on Rustan.

"No, cub," Rustan replied, no longer pushing his joviality on the table. "We were disgruntledly aware of his association with Douglass, but not that he'd joined their efforts."

"Why though?" Rahn asked, scooting to the edge of his seat as he leaned in. "What cause do they have to make such a decision?"

Pieter lifted his shoulders in another shrug. "He didn't see fit to tell me."

Aesylt watched him lie and read the truth in it. Everything Pieter knew, the Reliquary knew. Using names of other cohort members on their reports had only worked when no one else knew they were the ones actually submitting. Whether intentional or inadvertent, Pieter's own version of events could not possibly match the one she and Rahn had sold in their reports.

It meant they'd known almost from the very beginning of their submissions from Wulfsgate, and yet had let them continue on and on, like fools.

"Doesn't matter the cause." Imryll wiped her eyes. "What's done is done. It was always going to end this way, once they decided themselves the arbiter of right and wrong."

"Gods," Rahn whispered and flopped back in his chair.

Aesylt had been waiting for this day, but it was no less crushing to watch, to feel, her passion slipping from her fingers. There'd be no more research. No more joy of discovery alongside others who were just as curious about the ways of their world. No more building something that everyone could benefit from.

She buried her face in her hands.

"All is not lost, cub," Rustan said, almost tenderly. "Pieter did what he could to save your projects, but this battle was unwinnable, even for him. But it does not need to end here, does it? Your passions can continue." He nodded briskly. "Not just continue, but go further than they ever could have in the Cross."

"Just tell her," Imryll said, looking away.

"The stewardess is understandably upset," Rustan said. "And we will make it right for her. As for you, Aesylt and Duke Rahn, the Reliquary has extended an invitation for you both to join their ranks, where you'll be part of all future research efforts."

Aesylt snorted and shifted her eyes toward the side. "Have they now?"

"That doesn't ring true to me," Rahn said. He squeezed his eyes closed, shaking his head. "If they wanted us to be a part of the research, they would have allowed us to continue as we were. This feels more like..." He clicked his tongue.

"Well, I wouldn't go to the Reliquary and lick their boots if they held a sword to my throat." Aesylt could hardly breathe. They know. They know. They know, and the whole dirty secret could come crashing down on us at any moment.

"No, you always have a choice, cub." Drazhan rapped his knuckles on the table. "And I... I was wrong, for not listening to you when you told me what you wanted. I can't protect you forever, and you don't need it, do you? If you want to be a wife, then I will no longer stand stubbornly in your way." He smiled—a phenomenon so rare, Aesylt knew whatever he said next would be the best or worst thing that had ever happened to her. "When Lord Dereham sent word to me, I was surprised. Not that he's fond of you, because who could know my sister and not be?" His smile faded. He seemed himself again. "Lord Dereham has proposed a match between you and Pieter. You will be the next Lady Dereham, Aesylt. You."

Aesylt slapped both hands onto the table. "I'm sorry, what?"

"He's your childhood friend. He shares your interests. He's a good, respectable man, and your children will inherit one of the greatest legacies in the kingdom. He can help you achieve what you want the most, to continue your research." Drazhan bowed his head over his folded hands. "If you're still thinking about Val?—"

"I never wanted to marry Valerian!" Aesylt swung her gaze along the table, looking for an ally but finding only pity. "I made him a promise I never expected I'd be held to, because I wanted to keep him safe. That's all! Yes, I wanted to marry, but that was before... before the scholar showed up, and everything changed."

"Cub, you're not seeing the full picture here. You can wed a man who shares your passions and, at least until he becomes Lord Dereham in his own right, can study at the Reliquary, where they have every resource imaginable."

"Because they're crown sycophants. It's all crown gold," Aesylt replied. Her spittle landed on the table, and she sat back down. "You, you, the man who sacrificed a decade of his life to bring them down, are the last person I would ever expect to be licking their boots."

Drazhan's mouth drew into a tight pinch. He scoffed and snapped his head back. "Aesylt, from the moment—from the very moment—the Reliquary took over my wife's work and invited her to ‘participate,' I was ready to raze the cursed institution to the ground. But it wasn't what she wanted. I have battled my own anger, set it grudgingly aside, because Imryll is one of the most brilliant women in this kingdom, and a hundred of their men couldn't hold a candle to our one of her." He inhaled an unsteady breath. "All of that, I could say about my little sister as well. If... If studying kindles your spirit, Aesylt, then I want that for you, even if it means holding my nose while you consort with their tainted ilk."

Aesylt sank lower on her chair, lost for words. Drazhan truly believed he was doing right by her, and she couldn't even argue with his reasoning. Pieter was an ideal mate in most ways. Highborn. A scholar like herself. A friend from childhood. And despite the way he'd played both sides, in his own way, he'd protected her and Rahn. He'd kept their secret, when he had no reason to.

Except he did have a reason. It wouldn't do at all if everyone knew his future wife had been rutting around with other men.

Especially if my moon flow continues to evade me.

She whipped her head upward to see how Rahn was reacting to the shocking betrothal, but his eyes were fixed firmly on his own lap.

Pieter was doing the same.

Cowards. Both of them.

"What your brother isn't saying, sweet cub, is that this arrangement would put an immediate end to the insurrection in Witchwood Cross. The moment you become a Dereham, it's no longer up to Drazhan whether Wulfsgate gets involved." Rustan clamped a hand atop hers with a quick, firm squeeze. "He won't say any of this because it's not why he did it. He wouldn't sell you out to save your village, even to his ruin. He wouldn't broker any marriage he didn't think would improve your life. But I don't need to tell you that, do I?"

Aesylt could only shake her head. Tears threatened, but she had no idea if they'd fall. The past few days had thrown everything into question, and she could be sure of nothing anymore. "Then prove it, Drazhan, and let this be my choice to make."

"It is your choice," Drazhan affirmed. "You don't want this? Then we're done here." He held out his hands. "The only thing I will ask of you, Aesylt, is to sleep on it, so you can be sure you're answering with a clear mind. Whatever your decision in the morning, we'll consider it final."

"Thank you," she said, though she didn't feel grateful.

"This is not some coup to corner you into something you don't want, Aes." Pieter finally spoke again. "I had no designs on marriage myself, which is why my poor mother had to bring another child along in her middle years. But a partner, one I could share passions with? An equal? A friend? That's something I could look forward to."

"Friends don't... They don't lie to each other." Aesylt closed her mouth when an involuntary sob crept up. "They don't deceive."

"I thought I was helping you by acting as a mediator. I swear."

"Quite helpful, Pieter, seeing as you got us thrown out of our own work!"

"I hope we haven't misread the situation." Rustan frowned. "I had spoken with Duke Tindahl before sending word to the Cross, to ascertain whether this would be an acceptable match."

"You spoke to the scholar about this?" Aesylt was stunned.

Rahn tilted his head, shaking it. "My lord, I never said?—"

"And you said nothing to me?"

He sighed and turned his eyes downward. "It wasn't my place, Aesylt."

"It doesn't matter," Imryll stated, cutting in. "As my husband said, this is Aesylt's choice. She has the information before her now, and she can decide for herself." She pushed back from the table. "I need some time with everything. Excuse me."

Aesylt watched her leave and spun on her brother. "What Lord Dereham said, about saving the village..."

"I've refused his men every time he's offered them," Drazhan said evenly. "That should tell you where I stand on it."

"And if I turn down this betrothal?"

"Then we will do what we have always done. Handle our own business."

Aesylt threw her head back with a laugh. "All hail the end of days then. No pressure whatsoever. No, this definitely will not haunt me to my very last step. Save the village or think only of myself and what I want? What kind of choice is that?" She staggered back from the table, tripping over her chair as she tried to stand. "I need..." Her hands flew to her mouth. "Some air. Don't follow me!"

Aesylt emptiedher belly into a crop of bushes at the south entrance to the Wintergarden. Shaking, she rose to her feet and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, staring into the lush escape beckoning only a few steps away.

But she didn't crave the comfort of beauty.

Aesylt turned her back on the Wintergarden and moved instead toward the livestock pens.

For the second time in her life, she was at a crossroads.

She couldn't fathom how everything had slipped away from her so fast. The mess with Val and Marek, the tangled web of lies she'd spun with Rahn, her broken heart... a complete miscalculation of the risks in the celestial realm and never considering the possibility she could become impregnated there and carry that affliction into her own world and life.

But it all had started with Val, she thought as she traced her hands along the thin wires of the chicken coops. It had started with Val and the empty promise she'd made, which had launched her village into the verge of a civil war.

Aesylt wrapped her cloak tight and slipped into a nearby barn. She settled onto a pile of hay in a dark corner and drew her knees to her chest.

If she was the one who had gotten them all into the mess they were in... then she was the one who had to guide them safely out of it.

Pieter waitedin the library for the scholar. He readied himself for the inevitable skewering, which he deserved but was still not looking forward to.

He hadn't always been so secretive, but one of the crueler lessons he'd learned was that it was a dangerous gambit to put one's faith in one person or belief system. Always keep your feet in both ponds, an old friend had said, and it had stuck with Pieter, even before he'd really understood the meaning.

He believed in the work the Reliquary was doing, and they were the only institution in the realm with the funds and sponsorship to do it properly. But he abhorred the way they'd pilfered the stewardess's ideas and then slowly, and wrongly, had edged her out of it altogether.

And while he had been sending regular reports to the archminister about Rahn and Aesylt's doings, he'd arrogantly believed his endorsement of their commitment was enough to protect them from being extricated.

His old friend had failed to mention that if one straddled two ponds for too long, they tended not to notice they were drowning in both.

The library doors whooshed open. Rahn appeared within the opening, his face as red as the apple Pieter had eaten at breakfast. With his shoulders lifting in hard breaths, the scholar released the doors, and they slammed closed.

Here we go.

"Scholar." Pieter held his smile, his only visible defense. "I know what Aesylt means to you, but let me assure you?—"

"You are not fit to even speak her name!" Rahn stormed in, his voice thundering. He wore a look bordering on confused, like even he couldn't discern where all the fire inside of him was being stoked. "You know nothing except treachery, Pieter. Save your hollow truths for those more susceptible to your lies."

Pieter inhaled slowly, tempering his own reaction. He hadn't expected anyone to be happy after the revelations in the Great Hall—including himself, though no one would waste their tears of pity on him—but he was surprised Tindahl had it in him. The man was absurdly intelligent but woefully disconnected from his emotions. It seemed unlikely he'd ever acknowledge his feelings for Aesylt, but maybe Pieter had been wrong. "Hollow truths? You said nothing at all in the Great Hall, so what good are your words now?"

"It wasn't my place to speak. And this isn't about an arranged marriage. It's about your role in stealing the most meaningful thing Imryll and Aesylt have ever been a part of."

"Not about me marrying Aesylt, is it?" Pieter raised both of his brows and moved to the drink cart to pour them both a tumbler of mead. "So you're fine with that? You don't have any particularly strong personal feelings on the matter?"

"Personal feelings?" Rahn sputtered. "My only concern is that she is allowed to choose for herself, and Drazhan has... had made that clear enough. She'll choose what's right for her."

Pieter spun around, holding both drinks. "Oh, and what choice is that?"

Rahn's face was a portrait of pure hatred. Disgust. "You threw away any chance of her accepting your betrothal when you betrayed her."

"Betraying her would have been to tell my father and the steward what the two of you have really been doing in the tower."

"You want me to believe you had altruistic motives? That you aren't holding onto the information for another opportunity?"

The information was useful. But Pieter had no intention of using it. Nor did he expect Aesylt to accept the betrothal, even if it was the prudent choice. That didn't mean he had the stomach for indulging the scholar's delusions though. "You're entitled to your fears, Scholar, but it wouldn't do at all to have my wife's fidelity called into question before we're even wed."

Rahn narrowed his eyes in disgust. "You're mad if you think she'd ever marry you."

"If she's smart, she will."

"You cannot even fathom intelligence such as hers."

"If you truly cared for her, you'd convince her to accept, Scholar. She'll never get a better offer. She can save an untold number of lives by averting a war her brother is too proud to accept help for under any other condition. Aesylt knows, once she peels away the shock and anger, that I would make a suitable partner. I don't want someone to bear my children and make my home; I want someone who will challenge me, every day. She could live whatever life she wanted." Pieter emptied his drink and set the scholar's on a nearby table, preemptively grinning at the scholar's reaction to what he was about to say. "It isn't as if she has a heart match waiting for her."

Rahn pressed his fingers to his temples with a bracing sigh. "What, exactly, is your game, Pieter?"

"It was never a game." Pieter crossed his arms and leaned against his mother's abandoned pipe organ. The thing was older than all of them and was seldom used, but she refused to get rid of it. She held onto things long past their expiry; it was why it had taken her so long to come to terms with her own son's defection. "I'm not in love with her, but I've never been in love and can't say it holds much interest for me. It seems... distracting. Marriage was my father's idea, and I recognize the merit in it. I see a future where she and I could do great things together. Even love can't compare to that." Pieter propped his elbows on the smooth mahogany surface. "A value I assumed you and I shared. The research has to come first, no?"

"You know nothing of me and my values." Rahn scowled, scoffing, and turned toward a long shelf full of weathered journals. "And you know nothing of her."

"Not like you, you mean?" Pieter peeled away and started toward the scholar. "You could still have her, you know. My father doesn't know this, and he wouldn't hear it if I told him, but I won't be having any children. Aesylt can bed whoever she wants, and I'll never begrudge her for it because I intend to do the same."

"You," Rahn said, horror spreading over his face, "are disgusting. A foul excuse for a man. How can you look at yourself?"

"I seem to recall that Duke Rahn Tindahl had the Reliquary in mind as his own destination, before he was waylaid in the Cross for... research." Pieter laughed. "Or whatever excuse you're using now. You could have that again, Scholar. That is the future you've been offered. And she'll be there. You don't have to give up anything. The only person with the authority to care is me, and I don't."

Rahn continued to stare at him with the same aghast scowl, his head moving in one long endless shake. "You think you're describing freedom? What you offer her is just a cage of another metal."

"We're all caged, Scholar, if we're brave enough to admit it."

"I was only headed for the Reliquary before I knew who they were. How low they'd stoop to get what they want." Rahn straightened, his lip hitching. "I wouldn't join them now for all the gold and renown in the world. And you really don't know Aesylt if you think she feels any differently."

"So says the man who showed her the sun and then took it away." Pieter slowed as he neared Rahn, who was practically radiating with heat and fury. "Only her husband and her blood have the right to such a stirring defense on her behalf. You're just the man who saw an opportunity to have her without commitment and took it."

Rahn raised a hand, then clenched it. His head passed slowly back and forth. "Say whatever you want about me. Do whatever you want to me. But if you ever do another thing to harm her, say a single word that even slightly fades her smile..." His laugh was almost sinister. "I may not appear to you to be a violent man, but I only value the lives of those who value the lives of others."

Pieter flinched when the slamming door shook the furniture.

He chuckled to himself when it settled.

The problem with men like Rahn Tindahl was a surplus of vision but a lack of grit. All the threats in the world wouldn't resolve his anger or address the gap already forming where Aesylt had once fit.

Pieter might not be in love with her, but he did love her, in the same way he loved his family—enough to fight for her and even die for her, if matters called for it.

It was more than Rahn would ever allow himself to offer her, and Pieter could live with that.

Aesylt waitedfor Rahn in the tower for over an hour, plenty of time to devise all sorts of reasons he might be avoiding her. Every one made her feel worse.

She'd already decided what she needed to do, but she couldn't until she looked Rahn in the eye and asked him how he could just sit there while others talked about marrying her off to another man. How he could... how he could daresuggest to Lord Dereham that it was the right move. How he could whisk her away from Revelry like a protective lover and then abandon her like it had meant nothing at all.

When he finally opened the door—wearing a pathetic, defeated look that only made her angrier—she was so exasperated, she had to close her eyes and remind herself that he hadn't yet had the chance to explain himself.

"You're here," he said. Her heart added a tone of accusation to it.

"You sound disappointed," she retorted, not fast enough to quash her annoyance. I might never see him again. If I want answers, a fight isn't the way to get them.

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Rahn closed the door and went straight to his bed. It creaked when he dropped onto it.

I'm sorry you feel that way? Aesylt was astounded at how quickly his concern for her had shifted to apathy. She braced herself on the back of the chair. "Now I'm another man's problem is what you really mean."

"If that's what I meant, Aesylt, I would have said it."

"Well," she said, throwing up her hands. "Now I understand why you sat there and did nothing when they tried to sell me off to the man who betrayed us."

Rahn didn't speak for so long, she pulled back the curtain to see if he was still listening. "It was not my place to offer an opinion. And... Maybe this will be good for you. Your brother knows your needs better than I."

"Good for—" Aesylt inhaled a gulp of cool, musty air. Had the room always smelled that way? Had it always felt so... so small and cloying? "Are you punishing me for last night?"

"What a ludicrous suggestion. I already told you I wasn't upset." The disgust in his voice was callous and wounding.

She ripped back the curtain and found him sitting at the edge of his bed, bent over his lap. "What's ludicrous is you becoming someone else entirely without so much as an explanation. Is it so easy to shut me out of your life?"

"Like you did at Revelry?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're the one who declared our research ended."

Aesylt reared back. "That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it's not."

He shook his head at the floor, lifting his palms. "What should I have said to them, Aesylt?"

"The truth maybe?"

"What truth?"

Everything inside of her was screaming to just go. Just let things lie. Preserve some shred of dignity. But she couldn't. She needed to know, even if it shattered her. "That I cannot marry Pieter Dereham because someone else already holds my heart in their hands. That you're... that you're in love with me, and it would be impossible to watch me wed another man."

Rahn's back lifted in a hard breath. He bowed his head lower and dragged his hands through his hair and down to his neck, gripping it. "Oh, Aesylt... That would not have been an accurate claim for me to make."

She staggered back, her boot catching against a stone. If he'd screamed the words, said them in the heat of the moment, she'd know he hadn't meant them. But his calm delivery—his utter exhaustion of her—was evident in every tense of his muscles. "Well I don't believe you, Adrahn. I don't believe your actions, your words, add up to such careless disregard of me."

"I care about you... You know I do." He released a long exhale. "But everything you've weighed and estimated about me has been misread. Our research required a level of intimacy, so I may have enhanced the depth of my own emotions to achieve what we needed. Hurting you was never my intention, but I was clear, and we agreed, from the beginning, what it was, what it wasn't?—"

"Nothing is anything until it is! That's how all relationships begin, as nothing." Aesylt turned and paced, grappling for some semblance of control. But she was truly losing it. Inch by inch, she was slipping away. "No, I don't believe you."

"It's the truth."

"I don't believe you!" she screamed.

He pulled his hands down his face. "I can't do anything about that, can I? I have been nothing but who I said I was. I'm not a family man. I'm not made for that kind of life. And even if I was..."

She saw the strained flex of his jaw... the white of his knuckles as he tensed his hands over his face.

"I don't feel that way about you. I'm sorry."

"You cannot possibly—" Aesylt gripped her sides, fighting through the pain of her heart shattering. "You cannot possibly want to see me with another man."

"Well, I've already done that, haven't I?"

She shuddered in a breath, stunned he would go there. "That was cruel. And unfair."

"Life is cruel and unfair, Aesylt. You know it better than most."

"You're trying to wound me, so it will be easier to walk away?—"

"Stop. This is pointless."

Tears spilled from her eyes. She reached a shaking hand up to wipe them, but there'd be more. Rahn had awakened that in her, like so many other things, and she'd never be able to put her heart back in a box. It would never be safe again. "If you're going to lie to me, then look at me when you do it. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me."

"You're the one forcing my hand here?—"

"Look at me, Adrahn, and tell me you feel nothing for me!"

His hands clenched into fists before they slid away. He seemed to fortify himself before sitting up, but she could see, before he ever opened his mouth, that no matter how he felt, he would hold fast to his meaningless convictions. They were all he had.

His face and eyes were red, but he locked both on her, just as she'd asked, and said, "I do love you, Aesylt, but not like that. I'm deeply sorry if I inadvertently contributed to your belief otherwise."

Aesylt nodded, at first slowly but then faster, her movements gaining speed and courage as she took one last look at the room where she'd returned to life. She could hardly breathe for all the effort it took, her thoughts a scattered tempest of where she'd been before and where she needed to go next.

She'd already packed a small bag, though she almost hadn't. A part of her had believed Rahn would, faced with the finality of it all, finally break down the walls keeping them apart. But it was not to be, and there was nothing left to the wreckage but more groveling... more pain.

"Well, uh... Thank you, I suppose, for your honesty," she said, blinking the spots from her eyes as she reached for her knapsack. "I won't trouble you about it again."

"Where are you going with that?" Rahn pointed at the bag.

"Do you care?" She swung it over her shoulder and took another look around the room to be sure she had missed nothing critical. But she didn't need much where she was going. Her gowns would be sent home with her trunks. "My brother's here now. Whatever promise you made to him has been fulfilled."

"I care." His voice broke, but she knew without looking that it meant nothing, beyond how tired he was. Of her. Of their research. Of all of it. "You don't have to go on my account."

"I'm going to sleep in the keep tonight, and I'll stay there until either Drazhan lets me go home or my new husband decides I belong somewhere else. With our research concluded, there's no reason we ever have to see each other again."

"Aesylt." He sighed. "I don't want to leave things like this."

"You were quite clear where you want to leave things." She paused at the door. Beautiful, painful memories flashed through her mind. Their first time. The way he'd taken to sleeping in her bed when he could see she felt unsafe. How he watched her at supper when he didn't think she was aware. The little ways he looked out for her. Maybe he was right, and she was the fool after all. The whole point had been to prove to herself she could separate emotion from her work, and she was the one who'd fallen in love anyway. "I should apologize for not respecting the rules, for falling for you against all my better judgment, but I find the words impossible to say." She closed her eyes and rolled her hand with the doorknob. "Pieter was right. You're a coward, Adrahn."

"Wait—"

Whatever else he said was lost with the slam of the door. She heard a crash in the room, but she was already running down the steps, shoving her memories of Rahn Tindahl into the past where they belonged.

Lord Dereham didn't questionher request to sleep in the keep that night. There was already a room made up, and they were more than happy to offer it to her. She saw relief in his eyes when she asked, the lord probably thinking about how it would look to others to have his future daughter-in-law shacking up with her scholar.

She had no intention of sleeping, however.

Not in Wulfsgate Keep.

Maybe not at all, depending on how the night went.

It was past midnight before she slipped out of the room, armed with the lies she would tell to slip from one place to another.

Another half tick of the moon passed before she made it to the stables, dressed in Rahn's clothing, hooded in his cloak. It was easier than it should have been to join a caravan leaving through the gates headed north. No one even looked twice at the smallish "man" huddled in the back of one of the wagons, holding tight to the stupid wooden squirrel she should have left in Wulfsgate.

Two hours later, she rode into the tiny village of Voyager's Rest, on the back of a horse she'd stolen from the caravan when they'd stopped to fill their waterskins.

It was a town for travelers, a row of inns lining the main road. She'd been there once before, when her father and Hraz had been alive. They'd taken her and Val along for a trip to Wulfsgate, but a storm had waylaid their arrival, so they'd been forced to take a room for the night.

Val would remember. He had to.

She paid double for the room and asked where she might find a ravener. The pubkeep directed her to a tower at the end of the road, and she made her way down there, her hood drawn and her dangerous letter in hand.

Sending a raven to Witchwood Cross came with significant risk, but even if her words fell into the wrong hands, no one would be able to read them—no one except Nik and Val, who had learned the language of Old Ilynglass same as she had, from Rahn. The rest of the cohort hadn't been interested in such a daunting endeavor, but Nik and Val had relished the idea of knowing something no one else in the village did.

If she sent the message straight to Val, it would be burned before he even knew of it. But it might reach him if it made it safely to Niklaus first.

Aesylt pulled Nik's handkerchief from her satchel and handed it to the ravener. "This has his scent on it. But here are the coordinates that will get your bird close. Is that enough?"

"It's enough," the ravener replied and accepted her coin.

She stayed to watch the raven fly away and didn't leave until he disappeared into the stormy night sky.

The final words of her appeal played in her head, over and over, as she stared at the clouds settling over the village.

Tell him it was where my ota, Hraz, and the two of us spent a frosty night. Val will know the place. If he's inclined to come, he needs to come now, before they find me. You're the only one I can trust with this.

Don't forget the grimizhna tea.

"Please," she said, wiping away the last of her tears as she walked back to the inn to wait.