It took several attempts before Yesenia’s eyes accepted her command. With each blink, something new materialized, crafting fresh confusion that clung to her nausea, then deepening it. A plain bureau. A cracked window, caked in filth. The light, at first bright, had faded to the dim ochers of candlelight and evening.
There were sounds too. Footsteps traversing uneven boards. The soft settling of mugs and bowls. The slosh water made when wrung from rags. Whispers too, though these only started near her. They always traveled beyond her hearing, which of course meant whatever was being said was being said about her.
In the midst of the murkiness lingered a sense of safety. Her last memories were violent, terrifying, but she had nothing to bridge all of that to all of this. It was this sense, she supposed, that quelled the fight in her, letting it rest a while longer.
“Yesenia?”
She knew this voice. This man.
No sooner than these thoughts left her did she appreciate their absurdity. Of course she knew this voice, this man.
There was more recognition beckoning, still beyond her reach.
She rolled her head toward the sound and opened her eyes, this time without the struggles of past attempts. Corin’s expression shifted from wonder to worry and back again. He rocked in his seat, chewing at the bottom inner corner of his lip in anticipation.
“Where am I?” she grumbled.
“The Misty Merchant.”
“Where?”
“The inn, on Slattery Row. Remember, that night...”
“Aye.” Yesenia tried to pull herself forward, but the expulsion of energy only drained what little she’d had. “How did I get here?”
“Well, I... I brought you. When I saw the smoke, and I followed it to the chalet, I thought...” Corin lowered his eyes toward his sooty palms. “And then I found you.”
“You?” Yesenia struggled to piece together the order of things. She recalled wiggling out of the window, collecting more gashes than she could count, and landing, and then...
Then nothing. It ended there. It should have ended there, if Aiden had had his way.
Corin nodded. “I’m so sorry I didn’t know. That I didn’t come sooner.” He again looked up, and the details in his face stitched the moment together. Uneven lines cut through the soot on his cheeks, the aftermath of tears. His brilliant-blue eyes sparkled brighter than ever behind the mask of his efforts.
“It was Aiden,” she said. She turned her head to the other side, searching for something to wet her throat, which still burned with the same intensity as earlier. Corin picked up on her need quickly, handing her a mug of cider that she promptly emptied. The relief was delicious, but the taste of ash in her mouth made her gag.
“I know,” Corin said when she was done. He returned to his chair. “I should have known sooner.”
“What I was trying to say,” Yesenia answered, finally able to push more than a few words out at a time, “was that it wasnae your doing, Corin. Ye cannae keep living in his shadows, for you’ll only catch his foul leavings. You’re better than that.”
Corin’s attention shifted at the arrival of Mara. She blocked the glow from the tavern as she leaned against the doorframe.
“You poor thing. How are you feeling? Would it be too much to feed you?”
“I’m not hungry,” Yesenia said, trying to smile, to show the gratitude she was only beginning to comprehend. “Thank you, Mara.”
Mara tapped the rag in her hand against the door, nodding. “You’ll regain your appetite soon enough. Are you all right otherwise? I haven’t practiced my healing on anything so dire in years. Most come to me with scrapes, bruises, illness. If Corin had come any later...” Mara shook her head at the unsaid words.
“I ken...” Yesenia winced, shifting. “I know the sacrifice you made to help me. I willnae forget it. I will repay it.”
Mara batted her hand at the air. “I don’t want repayment, Lady Yesenia.”
“Just Yesenia. Please.”
“I did it for Corin. Not for all the gold he brings to our poor quarter, but for his heart, his companionship. He doesn’t leave his coins on posts to be collected. He drops them into our hands, sups with us, celebrates our joys, and mourns our losses. He is one of us.”
Yesenia absorbed the light sting about the post and the coin, but the warmth in Mara’s rosy cheeks softened the reproach. “What an honor that must be.”
“The honor is ours,” Mara said. “And he was in poor form himself when he arrived, damn near hanging off his horse, holding tight to you. I tended to you both, and now I’m in need of my own rest.” She met Yesenia’s eyes. “It’s clear to me the love and fondness he bears you. You are welcome here, Yesenia. You need not wait for your mother-in-law’s dutiful but meaningless rides. Nor even Corin’s visits. Come on your own. I’d like to know the young woman who has snared our Laoch.”
Yesenia nodded as the woman left. The door closed behind her, and it was then Yesenia noted the din of patrons filling the tavern beyond.
“I will repay this,” Yesenia told Corin. “No matter what she says.”
He shrugged with a light twitch of a smile. “She won’t accept. If you really want to show your gratitude, then you’ll take her invitation. Come to her on your own.”
“She was only being polite.”
“No,” Corin replied, insistent. “Mara has no use for politeness that doesn’t serve her.”
Corin rocked to his feet and moved to the corner, near the window. He breathed in, a stilted, shuddering breath full of the day’s events. When he spoke, he dropped his voice so low, Yesenia strained to hear. “It was Mads, at Aiden’s request. I had a feeling... It was strong, but I ignored it, like a damn fool. A feeling that Aiden was up to something. I ignored it because it was so nice, for once, to hear him speak to me like a person and not some dog he enjoys kicking to the corner.”
“Nay,” Yesenia said, cutting in. “I willnae listen to this from you anymore, Corin.”
“No?” He thrust his hand toward the door. “I can go.”
“Stop being a bairn. I’m not insulting you.” Yesenia pressed her palms to the straw mattress and pushed up so she was sitting. “Come here.”
“Why?”
“Will ye just do it?”
Corin approached the bed. She groaned and whipped back the thin cover, nodding at it.
“You want me in the bed?”
“Not if you cannae get your mind straight.”
With a wary stare, Corin slid in next to her, leaving one foot on the floor.
Yesenia strained to see him clearly in the dim flicker of candlelight. “You were very brave back there, Corin. I’d be dead if ye hadnae come. Do ye ken? I’d be dead, if not for you. You are not who they think you are.”
Corin’s head hung. He avoided looking at her directly. “I’ve decided I’ll go to my father. I’ll tell him what Aiden has done—”
“Absolutely not,” Yesenia retorted. She stretched her hand toward his and laid it over the top, wincing at the tug of flesh so recently healed. This, combined with the shock of his warmth melding with her own, gave her words the briefest pause. “No. You say nothing.”
“Why?” Corin snapped his incredulous gaze back to her. “So their crimes can again go unanswered? So they can try again and again, until they’re at last successful? Until they finally kill you?”
“They’ll know they’ve bested you.” She worked to calm her words, conscious of how they might incite him. This Corin sitting beside her was changed, but a man transforming was a man dangerous to himself. He would sacrifice himself if she let him follow his whims. “And you can never, never allow that. Never give them more than they’ve already taken.”
Corin swung his body toward her. “How are you so strong, Yesenia? How?” The corners of his mouth drew back as his expression crumbled. He bit down on his lower lip at the start of fresh tears. “You’re like a wall that I cannot climb.”
Yesenia rolled forward and kissed him. He released a sob against her mouth, and she grabbed for his face, drawing the kiss deeper until at last he relaxed.
“There’s no one here,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I never do anything I donnae want to do,” she replied. She leaned back against the wall and inhaled her first breath that didn’t taste of soot. “And walls keep you safe, Corin, but they’re not the whole of you.”
He passed the back of his hand across his eyes to dry his tears. “How I wish I had that gift. To shut out everyone and everything, and be hardened.”
Before she even said the words, she was astounded at her intention. Was she going to tell this man this story? A story she’d never even told Erran? The consequence of this falling into the wrong hands was catastrophic. Byrne would be at best ridiculed, at worst...
Even as she recited all the reasons telling Corin Quinlanden about Byrne and the birds was a terrible idea, she knew the words would come all the same.
“I do have weaknesses too, Corin.” Her voice quavered. She didn’t recognize it. “My little brother, Byrne, is one.”
“Love isn’t a weakness, Yesenia.”
“Isn’t it?” She dropped her hands back into her lap. “Byrne, he’s always been special. Different, I suppose ye could say. Definitely not what most men think of as salt and sand. Khallum thought we should harden him, and aye, I tried that, but some men... Well, they just are who they are. There’s no changing it.”
“Maybe it’s not about changing him.”
“Aye, but it is, if it means keeping him safe. Safe from himself.”
“And you’ve had to do that, I take it?”
“I have, aye, but...” There was still time to rescind her words. She didn’t have to say them. She sighed. “One day, we came upon Byrne in a small thatch of woodland off the coast, Khallum and I. He was alone, cowered over a semicircle of what I first thought were rocks. We didnae know...” She inhaled. “We didnae know, and would we have gone up to him at all, had we?” She lifted her shoulders. “I donnae know. But we did. It was Khallum who saw it first, who realized what we were dealing with. He called back something incoherent, but it was in his eyes, ye ken, that I saw we had a big problem.”
“They weren’t rocks,” Corin guessed aloud.
“Nay,” Yesenia said. “They were not rocks. They were birds. All dead. Hundreds of them. More, perhaps? I didnae count. I was scared to. I could hardly breathe. I hated myself for it, but I couldnae help but wonder, did Byrne do this? Did he kill them? I knew it wasnae possible. But was it?”
Yesenia rolled her lips inward, wetting them as she searched for her next words. There were none existing to pull from. She’d discussed it with Khallum exactly once and then they’d let it die. “Khallum, he was tugging on Byrne’s collar, screaming at him, not in anger but fear. Just screaming, and Byrne, I didnae ken he had such strength in him, but he didnae budge, not an inch. He was so fixated on the dead birds. It was like... like he’d joined them, as little sense as that makes. But it’s how I felt, watching him, his lips moving without words, his eyes flitting around from bird to bird to bird.”
“What happened to the birds?”
“How did they die, you mean?”
Corin nodded.
“Dinnae know,” Yesenia said with a shrug. “Predator. Illness. Poisonous flora. But it’s what happened after that matters.”
She cleared her throat, fixing her eyes on a small picture hanging on the far wall. It looked to have been drawn by the boy, Tristan. “He wouldnae leave them, no matter how we fought. And ah, we fought. Khallum especially. He couldnae handle things he couldnae explain, and aye, he went wild. I dragged him away, had no choice. We left Byrne with the birds and returned home. When he didnae make it for supper, we told my father and the Widow he was practicing his swordcraft in the armory, and I’ve never felt so sick about a lie. Not for the lie itself, ye ken, but what we were protecting. For all we didnae know. For all we might never know. No one else had seen him, but...” She remembered Lem and Garrick bullying Byrne, and wondered, for the first time, if she and Khallum had been the first.
“We went out after supper to try to convince him once more, but then there he was, walking along the path with an armful of these dead birds. He towed a wheelbarrow behind him, full of the same. When he reached the keep, he collapsed. All these dead birds just rolled to the ground, and he rolled with them. He curled into a ball, in the middle of them, and sobbed.”
Yesenia’s eyes stung, but this time it wasn’t from the lingering smoke. She dabbed at them with the back of her hand, blinking to keep the rest where they belonged. “By this point, we were more afraid of what our father would do if he came upon this strange scene. We tried to clean up the birds, but Byrne wasnae himself at all. He wouldnae let us near them. That night, Khallum and I took shifts inside the door of the keep, staying awake to be sure no one happened upon Byrne and his birds. But then in the morning...” Yesenia swallowed. “In the morning, when we went outside, we found him out there, still with the birds. But the birds... the birds... the birds were alive.”
“What? How?”
“All of them, swirling around Byrne like he was their master, like he commanded them. All I could do was gape like a dumbstruck bairn, my eyes on the birds, on him. I kept thinking of all the eyes of the courtyard. Not real people, mind, but the shrubs and the cobblestones and the sand, all of it witnessing this, knowing more about what it was than I ever would...” She trapped a sob as her voice broke. “How? How did he do it? I donnae know, Corin, and I never will. Byrne never explained it. He never spoke of it. And so, neither did we, not after that day. But it could only be magic, aye? And if it could only be magic, then Byrne practicing it without approval from the Sepulchre was as good as a death warrant.”
“That’s... I honestly don’t know what to say,” Corin whispered. “Did anything like that ever happen again?”
“No. Never again. Not before, not since.”
“Why would you tell me?” Corin asked, clearly still making sense of her confession. “To use your own words, why share anything with me that could be perceived as a weakness?”
Yesenia bristled. “Should I not have? Ye gonna go tell your father?”
“Yesenia, no, that’s not what I meant.” He slid his hand over hers. “I shouldn’t have said it. It’s only... It feels like trust, from you, and you’ve never trusted me like this before.”
She glanced down at their joined hands. A strange thought hit her, that she didn’t even mind it. That his touch had become a comfort. “I told ye because... I wanted you to understand no one is born strong, Corin. I learned to be strong. For others. For those who donnae have their own strength.”
“Like me?”
Yesenia shook her head. “Have ye not heard me? You are not who they think you are. You are not weak. Weakness is what men like Aiden, men like Chasten, wedge behind their shields and spin to hatred. Ye donnae bully someone because they are less than you. Ye bully because they aren’t.”
Corin, too, stared at their hands, still pressed together. He wiped more tears on the back of his sleeve. “What now?”
“We go back. We pretend nothing is amiss.”
Corin scoffed, his head shaking. “I don’t have that skill, Yesenia. I can’t pretend that my brother didn’t try to kill my wife. That my father might have had a hand in it.”
“You can,” she urged. “And you will.” She twined their fingers together and brought the knot to her mouth for a brief kiss. After, she released him and swung her legs over the opposite side of the bed. She squeezed her eyes to fend the wave of dizziness that snuck up to remind her that only hours separated her from the terror at the chalet.
“You still want out of this marriage?”
The vulnerability in his soft, searching tone gave her pause. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Aye... I do. But not because of you, Corin.”
“Is there not... another place, another world...”
“If there is, I donnae know it. Do you?”
Corin appeared on the other side of the bed with clothing that was not hers. Her dress had been destroyed in the fire, of course, but these were garments more suited to her. Trousers, a blouse. No doubt he’d had some hand in picking them.
“If going home is what you most want,” he said, turning to let her dress in private. “I’ll find a way to help you do it.”
Yesenia’s eyes went to her arms, tracing the dozens of light, white scars lingering from her escape from the chalet. Healing only took things so far. Would they always be there, reminding her?
“You heard what I said?”
“Aye, I heard it,” she said, shimmying into the trousers that were slightly too big.
“And?”
She spun back around, her shirt half-buttoned. “I don’t need your help with this. I’d prefer you didnae get involved. Will only cause you more trouble, with the others.”
Corin’s eyes traveled to the swell of her bosom as she finished buttoning the shirt. Was it desire? Remorse?
Did it matter?
He cleared his head and looked up. “I don’t need you to save me from them. I’ll help you because it’s what I want. I don’t know what we are, Yesenia, or what we’re doing. Pretending, not pretending. Enemies, not enemies. Half in love or not at all. What I do know though...” He stepped toward her and reached to guide her hair to the back. “Is that if nothing else, you’re my friend. I failed the only other one I ever had. I won’t fail you, if I can help it.”
“Friend,” she mused to herself. She’d had friendships back in the Southerlands, though none had been remotely like this one. “Aye, that’ll do, I ken. Friends.”
“Friends, who kiss when other people are looking,” he said, grinning. “And sometimes when they’re not.”
“Donnae get ahead of yourself there, Laoch.” She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth as she exaggerated the name.
He narrowed his eyes with a playful twinkle. “I ken I was a hero today, aye?”
Yesenia’s jaw curled in horror. “Donnae ever do that again.”
“Donnae ever what?”
“Keep that up, you’ll wish you’d left me at the chalet.”
He laughed to himself. “You’re well enough to ride? One of the children found Kheerai roaming the woods and brought her here. But you can ride with me on mine if it’s easier.”
Yesenia cocked an eyebrow. “With you? On the same horse together, you panting in my ear? You’ll need to set fire to another building I’m in for me to agree to that.”
The moon was high when they passed through the gates of Arboriana. They made their way to the stables, where Corin helped Yesenia down, ignoring her prideful swat.
He indulged himself a good look at her. Mara had done well in healing her, but some wounds were beyond the touch of magic. He saw it in Yesenia’s eyes, in the slight draw of their corners. When she laughed or smiled, they took a moment to catch up. The hollows of her cheeks were more apparent now. Her loose dark hair waved around her jaw like waves framing the gentle arch of her mouth.
He scolded himself for noting her beauty amidst the horrors of the day.
“Why ye gaping at me like that?”
“Just making sure you’re all right. Before we go in.”
He braced for some wisecrack, but she instead nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said to assure him. “Will be quite the challenge not taking my hands to his neck when I first see him, but I’ll manage.”
“I’ll be fighting the same battle.”
“Lady Yesenia.”
They both turned at the sound of a guard, but it was not one man centering the space between the barn doors, but a dozen. Beside the one who had spoken stood Chasten. They all glowed in the pale light of the moon lighting the path behind them.
“We were—”
Corin’s father raised his palm and the guards swarmed in, filling the barn.
“Lady Yesenia.” Chasten said it this time. “I regret to inform you that your father, Lord Khoulter, has fallen. He is dead.”
“He... what?” Yesenia pushed the words out, caught in her choked breath.
“Some illness,” Chasten said, adding a flippant tilt of his chin. “He went swiftly, I’m told, and your brother has already assumed the mantle of Lord of the Southerlands.”
“My father?” Yesenia whispered. She swayed, and Corin caught her in his arms before she could go down.
“Yes,” Chasten said evenly. “Where your father has no stomach for war, I’ve yet to learn the ways of your brother. Thus, I’ll be denying any requests for leave, for you to return for the dead-given rites. You can mourn him from here.”
Corin glared at his father as he held her. “Are there no limits to your cruelty? How can you deliver such a message, in such a way? How can you deny her the right to return and lay her own father to rest?”
“What’s more…” Chasten went on in the same light tone. “After the unfortunate events of the day, there are now secrets that can never leave the Easterlands.”
“You cannae keep me from my own home!” Yesenia howled.
Corin held tight to her.
“You cannae stop me!”
“I assumed as much,” Chasten said, “and have arranged a cell for you in the dungeon. It’s the nicest one, as these things go, reserved for just such an occasion. You won’t starve.”
“You did what?” Corin demanded.
“I cannot trust that Yesenia will obey my wishes. If she tells her brother what happened in the woods today, he might raise arms, and while I’d not deny myself such a pleasure as cutting down every last man boasting salt and sand, the king would not approve. Nor can I trust that in your mawkish coddling of each other, you haven’t spilled your own treasonous truths.”
Corin unraveled Yesenia and thrust himself in front of her. “You will not touch her. You would not dare.”
The guards shuffled in tense anticipation.
“Would you like to join her?”
“Father! This is madness. Even for you!”
“Guards.” Chasten clapped his hands once.
Corin turned and buried himself against Yesenia until they were ripped apart, half the guard on Yesenia, the other half keeping him from her.
“You cannot do this!” Corin screamed, stretching against his restraints. He watched Yesenia surrender without fight, and it was wrong, all wrong. Chasten couldn’t mean this, and Yesenia...
“YESENIA!”
She disappeared beyond the corner of the barn.
“Yesenia! I won’t let him do this!” He wrenched one arm free, but another guard was on him in an instant.
“You make one move. One step,” Chasten warned. “And you join her.”
“You think I’m scared of you?” Corin rasped as incredulous tears cut down his face. What a fool he’d been, thinking that anything he did had escaped his father’s notice. To believe anything was safe from Chasten’s machinations.
“I know you’re scared of me. But I don’t like the look in your eyes right now, Corin. I don’t like it one bit. If the threat of imprisonment doesn’t stir you, then here’s one that might.”
Corin spat at his father’s feet.
Chasten regarded it with casual amusement. “Are you done? Because you need to hear this, and you need to hear it clearly, as I never say anything I don’t mean.” Chasten’s head fell to the side. “You go after Yesenia? I kill her. I send her head back to her brother to be burned on the same pyre as her father. And when the king asks why?” He measured his words, speaking each one with a meaningful pause between. “I will make sure he, and all the kingdom, remember Yesenia Warwick as a traitor to the realm.”
Chasten spun and marched out of the barn.
The last thing Corin saw, before the hilt of a sword sent him to the darkness, was the red snap of his father’s cloak catching the wind.