With a squeak, she thrust the curtains closed and stumbled back, her breath frosting the air before her. She touched carpet then bumped into her bed. She threw herself upon it, pulled the sheets over her head, and trembled in fear.
He can’t be on the hill, gibbered through her mind as she curled into a ball. Her eyes squeezed shut. I’m just tired. It’s just my imagination. Why would he be here? Why would he be watching us?
The icy chill reached through the bed. She hugged her knees to her breasts, rocking in her bower, praying to Elohm to send the morning light, to banish the Black. Her heart thundered in her chest as she muttered her prayers. The night passed on and on and on.
When the house creaked, she whimpered.
When she heard footsteps moving through the house, she tensed, fearing the dark man came.
The wind gusted past her window.
A door creaked open. Boomed shut.
Whispers echoed down halls.
Her stomach curdled. Bile crept up her throat. The acrid taste permeated her mouth. Her skin grew tighter and tighter.
When the dawn came, her throat ached and her lips hurt, dried and cracked. When the first rays of light bled through her curtains, she dared peek out of her blankets. She crept to the window, wrapped up in her covers, her tousled hair falling about her pale face. Raw-red eyes darted to and fro. Her hand quivered as she pushed back the curtain.
The sun’s light spilled over the top of the hill, illuminating the trunk. No one stood there. No dark beasts. No baleful gaze. It looked the same as it should. An explosive breath burst from her. She staggered beneath the weight of her blankets. Her knees buckled, collapsed.
She fell beneath the window, cushioned by her sheets. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling at once foolish and relieved. Of course, there was no one on the hill. Her mind had conjured darklings and nightbeasts to scare her.
Exhaustion seized her. She closed her eyes and let sleep finally pull her down.
Chapter Eleven
Twenty-Sixth Day of Compassion, 755 EU
Ōbhin awoke to hammers beating his head and the faint ringing of a distant chime.
He groaned, his mouth tasting of sour filth. Bleary eyes flicked around the plain room. He pried his head from a down-stuffed pillow, linen sheets sliding off his clothed body. The pillowcase clung to his cheek, cemented in place by thick drool.
“Aliiva, deliver me a soothing Tone,” he muttered in his native Qothian.
He struggled to master his thoughts as he looked around the room. Plain, a single wardrobe in the corner filled with what meager belongings he’d possessed. His chainmail coat, a change of clothing. Hands flexed. He groaned at their stiffness. He hated sleeping in his gloves. He rubbed at the black-dyed leather.
Last night was a blur of emotions. Laughing, mourning, even singing. His new men didn’t resent what he’d done to Ni’mod. Bran was even impressed. Ōbhin had snatches of memory of the youth prying for the whole story, for the blows that had led to the bloodfire’s death.
Just chance, Ōbhin thought. Raleth’s Tone resonated with me and not him that day.
Bladder full, he relieved himself in a chamber pot of unglazed pink-brown, the rim chipped. He groaned as his water passed out of him, the hammers assaulting his brain diminishing for a moment. Then he pried off his gloves and attended to them. He worked the beeswax into the leather, massaging the minx hide to keep it supple.
Every man of Qoth, who wasn’t a snow-blinded idiot, knew to keep his gloves supple. It would be shameful for a woman to witness their hands uncovered, to see the instruments with which the men provided labor to sustain their community. No different from a woman taking off her mask before any save her lover or close family. It was an intimacy.
To touch another ungloved . . .
Foonauri flashed in his mind. The feel of her ripe body beneath his bare skin sent a heat flushing through him. The dagger appeared in his memory a moment later. It plunged, almost on its own, into Taim’s chest. The weight of those he’d failed, Taim included, pressed on Ōbhin.
He couldn’t stay here. He had guards to train. Ni’mod had cared little for the other men protecting the estate. Ōbhin didn’t need any more spirits disrupting the harmony of his life. He might never resonate with the pure Tones, but he could try. He could make something of himself.
He donned his sable gloves and slipped on his resonance blade, the heavy belt and weight of the sword feeling comfortable on his hips. He left the room, staring up and down the hallway. The sunlight streaming through his window announced he’d slept half the day away.
How late were we out? he wondered as he moved through the servants’ quarters. The hallways were plain, his boots thudding on the wood.
A door opened and a maid emerged from what looked like a storeroom carrying a bucket in one hand and a dried mop in the other, the strips of thick, absorbent cloth dangling from the end. She glanced at him, her youthful expression tight. Dark-brown hair fell in a long tail down her back, gathered with a leather band at the nape of her neck.
“Pardon, ma’am,” he said, giving her a slight bow, “the kitchens?”
“So you’re him?” asked the woman, arching a dark eyebrow. “Kept my Phelep out drinking until the wee hours, you did.” She planted the end of the mop on the floor. “That how you keeping the estate secure?”
“Phelep?” he asked. A recollection from last night percolated through his aching head. “You’re Smiles’s wife.”
“I’m Phelep’s wife.” She shook her head. “I didn’t marry an expression, did I?”
Ōbhin blinked. The picture painted
