“Oh?”
“I was the perfect disguise while I didn’t care about him at all, I just wanted something to fill my emptiness. I settled for him.”
“Well, how can love grow in such rocky soil? You just need to find fertile depths.” Deffona stroked Avena’s arms through her dress’s sleeve. “Just remember that your heart brims with love. Maybe what you’re feeling is just dissatisfaction.”
“In what?”
“Not sure. Maybe you haven’t found what you were truly meant to do. Maybe you need more than being an assistant to Dualayn. Maybe you need to be free of Chames’s shadow.”
Avena blinked.
“He haunts you,” Deffona said. “You didn’t kill him. It was an accident. You don’t control the weather or when people get sick.” She looked behind her. “Now, the eldest is probably ripping her wimple to pieces wondering where I am. So, what are you?”
“A blackberry bush full of love,” Avena said.
Deffona smiled, pure and radiant. “Yes, you are. Do not forget it.”
Avena wanted to hold onto it as she slipped out of the office door and back outside. She ached to, but that emptiness still lurked, swallowing her up whole. She drifted towards the corner, puzzling over that numbness in her.
When had it formed? When Chames died? Evane? Before? Was Deffona right? Avena wanted that desperately. She wanted to be whole, to believe that she’d loved Chames. She closed her eyes, remembering the way he’d laughed, how his lips had curled back to flash his teeth. How he’d bitten the fingernail of his thumb when thinking and denied it when confronted.
I begged him to take me on that picnic. Did he even want to go? Would I have cared if he hadn’t? Did I love him, or the fact he was the son of a rich man? She leaned against the wall and found her eyes drifting to Ōbhin. Was I like that woman he loved who found something better in a prince?
She didn’t want to think that. She wanted to believe she’d loved Chames as much as he’d loved her. If he hadn’t died, they could have grown a mighty oak that would have spread branches wide to shade their family.
Ōbhin moved towards the gate. She frowned as he walked out of it, leaving Fingers and the other guards lounging by the wagon. Dualayn had gone inside. She should be with him, but . . .
What was Ōbhin up to?
The man baffled her. Friends with a crime lord. A bandit with a heart. Had he spotted Ust lurking about? Was that bandit causing problems, or was it something else? The way he’d spoken to Fingers, how he’d deflected her question, hung a worrying weight from her heart.
She found herself following, wiping sweaty palms on her stomach.
*
The panic in Whiner Creg’s face brought a smile to Ōbhin’s lips. The skinny guy backed away from the building corner from where he watched the hospital. He cast a gaze around, scared. Creg was good in a fight, but not the bravest of men when the odds weren’t in his favor.
Creg knew he couldn’t beat Ōbhin in a fair fight.
With a squeak, the bandit darted around the corner and out of sight. Are you going to be a badger and flee to your den? The pests infested the Vobreth Mountains in his home of Qoth. They’d break into food stores. When interrupted, they’d always fled back to their dens. Killing one was something boys did. The bold ones, at least. It was dangerous following a badger into its den, but if you did, you could end a threat to your family’s survival during the long winter.
It was time to move on. To kill Ust and vanish. Ōbhin had made up for killing Ni’mod. He’d tried to save Carstin. Best he could do was find what happened to his body before he took off Ust’s head. Maybe he’d kill that dark sorcerer, too. Dje’awsa . . . The world would be better without him causing disharmony to the Tones.
And me?
He reached the corner of the building and peered around it. The skinny Creg was easy to spot. His blue vest and brown shirt beneath contrasted nicely. His lanky form stood out from the men in this district. He was scrawny, underfed, and wearing a scruffy coat patched at the elbows.
Just as Creg vanished down a street, Ōbhin stepped out and rushed after, his chainmail rattling. Shocked gasps from women in dresses cut in a similar fashion to Avena’s—high necks, long sleeves, and hems almost brushing cobblestones—melted out of his path. The men shook their heads and muttered, “Dirt-stained Tethyrians.”
He reached the intersection and peered down it. Creg slouched down the middle of the street, not in as much of a hurry. He looked more relaxed. Ōbhin smiled and waited until the slovenly man had gone another block down the street before stepping out after him.
*
“What is he up to?” muttered Avena as Ōbhin paused at the corner of the next intersection and peered around it. The way he moved felt so . . . secretive. Clandestine.
Avena chewed on her lower lip as she waited, afraid to get too close to him. Her eyes fell on his sword. He had fought to protect her, but he had also attacked her once. He’d killed Ni’mod on the Brotherhood’s orders. Now he skulked through the streets. This had nothing to do with protecting Dualayn.
She wanted to trust Ōbhin. He hadn’t looked down on her for being a woman when she’d first picked up the binder. He’d trained her, seeing she needed to learn it so she couldn’t be helpless. He’d even protected her from embarrassment by keeping secret what they’d seen that night.
So what are you doing?
Ōbhin slipped around the corner. Avena hurried
