That wasn’t nearly enough.
Ōbhin would be . . .
“I just need to sleep,” she told Fingers. “Would you walk me to my room?”
“Of course,” he said with gentleness, pain in his voice.
He’s thinking of his wife again. How could this tender man have hurt her?
Avena didn’t know. But she was grateful for his presence. He had a solid aura about him. Stout and dependable. How had she never noticed this quality about the man? She’d thought him crass. Lazy. A man whining about an unfaithful wife and running away from responsibility. A coward.
Yet he had this core. A foundation. Something good could have been built upon him. How had it gone wrong? The thought stayed with her after she bade him a blessed night, closed her door, and sunk onto her bed in her dressing gown.
How could good lives go wrong?
Chapter Twelve
Eighth Day of Patience, 755 EU
After two more days of watching Avena drift like a ghost, Ōbhin had to do something to help her.
He hadn’t been protecting her. He’d crushed her. Fingers joked about a wife who cuckolded him because he hated himself for hurting her. Ōbhin understood. Each time he saw Avena’s pale form, he despised himself a little more. He thought he loathed himself for killing Taim, but this was worse.
He loved her and caused her this misery.
He lounged at the main gate, taking his turn at watch. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead despite being in the shade provided by the arch. The sun sizzled. No rain had come for a week. The gardeners carried wooden pails full of lake water. Its shores had retreated, exposing drying mud dotted with pools. Those swarmed with tadpoles trapped in dwindling life. The gardeners poured the water to keep alive the rhododendron bushes while the lawn yellowed.
Avena emerged from the front door, left open to move air through the house in an attempt to cool it. She wore a lighter dress than normal, pale pink without her usual layers of petticoats to give volume to her skirt. She drifted down the path towards the stables.
You have to do it, Ōbhin told himself. You have to let her know you made the second biggest mistake of your life. Invite her to train. Remind her that she’s got passion. She’ll hate you, but you deserve it.
“You got the gate, Bran?” he asked the youth leaning on the other wall.
The boy grunted, his face a mask of sweat, lank hair matted to his forehead.
Ōbhin stepped into the sunlight. Summers grew warm in Qoth, but they were short affairs, a few weeks of heat between a cool spring and autumn. Winter ruled the mountains. He kept his back straight against the sun as more sweat trickled down his face.
Avena emerged from the stables with Miguil. He nodded to her and headed back inside. She glanced at Ōbhin then jerked her gaze away. Her pace quickened on the way back to the house. He broke into a jog, leather jerkin clinging to his sweaty chest.
“Avena, may we talk?”
She stiffened. She turned to face him, no color in her cheeks. A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. Her light dress clung to her in several damp spots, perspiration bleeding through beneath her armpits. She wasn’t wearing any of the cosmetics she’d normally applied, subtle rogue and a brightening to her lips.
Even so, she made his heart beat faster.
Her eyes wouldn’t rise to meet his.
“What do you need?” she said politely.
“We have to talk,” Ōbhin said again, his tongue growing leaden. His throat tight.
“You said that. About?”
A loud clatter and jangle drew his attention as Miguil led out one of the draft horses pulling the small cart he used to fetch supplies from town. The groom gave Ōbhin a supportive look. Everyone was worried about her. Fingers fretted while the thing pretending to be Smiles spoke endlessly about Jilly and the maid’s concerns. Only Dualayn, still locked up in his lab with the two sick patients, had failed to notice Avena’s transformation.
A shadow hung over her. Thick, obscuring her brightness.
“Listen, I wish to apologize,” he said, his words stiff. “I was . . . harsh when you recovered. Too harsh.”
She shook her head. “I let you down on the raid.”
Confusion rippled over him. “Let me down?”
“I can’t remember what I did wrong.” She looked up. “I try, but my memories aren’t clear, so I can’t fix it. Besides, I can’t trust myself anyways. So you have nothing to apologize for. I do not belong in your world. Women shouldn’t fight. We don’t have the temperament for it.”
Ōbhin’s jaw dropped.
She started to turn, but he grabbed her shoulders in his black-gloved hands. “You didn’t do anything wrong on the raid. You didn’t make a single mistake; I did.”
“What?”
“And if anyone has the temperament for fighting, it’s you. I’ve seen men with far less of a backbone than you possess. Plenty of cowards slink through the world. I don’t think your sex is a hindrance. Niszeh’s Black Tone, you invented a jewel machine to give you more strength than a man. I saw the aftermath. You took on two dozen ruffians and left them bound and with broken bones. They’ll be nursing their injuries for weeks more. Some of them pissed their britches in terror of you. I could smell the stink of it.”
“But . . .” She stared at him. “How did I get hurt? I took a sword to my head. I must have done something wrong. You were disappointed in me. Like you were after I got Smiles
