“I suppose,” said Blaive, her tone overbright, “we’ll just have to wait and ask him when he comes back.”
Talia went riding after breakfast, ostensibly to exercise Ahdairon—she was really just hoping to find Caiden. The air was freezing despite her warm cloak, but at least it wasn’t snowing.
He was nowhere to be seen. His absence and Blaive’s flippancy gnawed at her. She rode along the empty shoreline for a while, music whispering to her from the waves, and she felt incredibly guilty. Her mother was waiting for her, tortured endlessly by a malicious goddess, while she worried about a boy.
And yet, she couldn’t shake him from her head.
Two hours later, she shut Ahdairon back into the stable, Avial’s stall still empty. Where had Caiden gone? What was Blaive not telling her?
She had a cup of tea in the parlor and tried to read a book titled The Words of the Gods, but she couldn’t concentrate, sentences blurring uselessly before her eyes. Her thoughts jumped from her mother to Caiden and back again, and at last she snapped the book shut in frustration. She stood outside the music room, listening as Wen pounded out a haunted counterpoint on his raina, wondering what he would say if he knew what she was planning. She paced around the cold garden, peering through the wrought iron gate at the uneasy sea, its unearthly music tangling with Wen’s melodies.
But Caiden still didn’t come back.
The fire jumped and sparked in the dining hall, the wind howling just beyond the glass. The lamp on the table burned low, the supplemental candles in their silver holders dripping wax on freshly ironed linen.
Talia and Wen were dining alone, both Caiden and Blaive failing to appear. Wen hadn’t brought his music with him this time. He looked tired and far away, but vaguely contented.
“Did you finish it?” she asked him, looking across the wavering candle flames. “Your symphony?”
“Not yet.” A smile tugged at his lips. “But I have the first movement mostly down.”
His happiness was infectious, and she smiled back. “I’m glad for you.” She cut off a piece of roast venison and chewed it slowly.
“Are you doing all right?” he asked, his eyes growing serious. “I didn’t know if you wanted to be left alone, or if you wanted to talk about … about the mirror room. I know it … changed some things for me, the first time I went in there.”
She swallowed her meat, grasping awkwardly for a lie. “I’m fine. Really.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t do anything crazy.”
She pushed down her guilt. “I won’t.”
And then they both heard hoofbeats ringing distantly on the stones in front of the house. She felt herself go rigid.
Wen’s face closed a little.
“Wen—”
“You don’t have to hide it from me,” he said. “I know you care for him. I don’t blame you.”
She sat there, staring at Wen, as the fire popped and the wind shrieked outside the Ruen-Dahr. Bright spots of snow showed white against the window. Yes, she did care for Caiden, but she cared about Wen, too. And now she’d hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, entirely miserable.
“Don’t be.” He shrugged, affecting carelessness. Then added gently, “Go and see him, then.”
She chewed on her lip and got up from the table, wishing she could erase the pain from his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
Out on the flagstone drive the snow was falling thick and fast. It clung to her hair and gown, and she hugged her chest, shuddering in the freezing wind. She’d hurt Wen, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
But wasn’t it better this way? She was leaving soon. It would hurt him more, if he knew she considered him her friend and wasn’t planning on telling him her secret. Or even saying goodbye.
And then she saw them coming back from the stables and she forgot about everything else.
Caiden and Blaive, walking close together, her arm around his waist, her face radiant. His face, dazed.
They stopped short when they saw her, perched on the steps like a ghost, her skirt whirling about her knees.
“Caiden?” said Talia hesitantly.
His glance was fierce and cold in the orange light spilling out of the Ruen-Dahr’s windows.
And then Blaive stepped forward, lifting her right hand so Talia was sure to see the ring gleaming on her first finger: an amethyst bound intricately in gold.
Talia stared, too shocked to quite understand.
“Caiden has asked me to marry him!” Blaive’s face split in a brilliant smile, and her expression held no malice—only joy. “He rode into the village today to set my ring. Isn’t it beautiful?”
But Talia was staring at Caiden. What did he mean, asking Blaive to marry him? He’d kissed her. He’d practically promised her the world. She’d thought—she’d thought—
He stood rigid, the muscles jumping in his jaw. “It was my mother’s ring,” he said, not taking his eyes from Talia’s. “Rather, my mother’s stone. It took time to find the proper setting.”
Somewhere in his distant face Talia thought she saw something else—that under different circumstances the ring would have been given to her.
“We’re to be married before the month is out,” Blaive went on. “In three weeks, if everything can be arranged.”
She was suddenly aware of Caiden’s arm, resting easily on Blaive’s shoulders. Of Blaive’s perfume, which smelled of honey and blackberries.
Snow fell wet against her face, the cold numbing her skin.
Caiden’s eyes numbed every other part of her.
Chapter Thirty
TALIA?”
She didn’t know how Wen had found her up here, tucked into a corner of the dead Baronesses’ forgotten suite, her knees hugged to her chin. It was freezing and dark—she hadn’t brought a lamp.
“Talia?” His voice was softer this time.
She saw his silhouette against the door, hair tousled and cravat flapping loose around his neck. She hated this—the feeling of helpless, weightless falling, when she’d thought the ground underneath her stood firm. But it was almost a relief to see Wen.
“I’m in here.”
He stepped into the room, and she heard the scrape of a match against metal. Light flared in the dark as Wen lit a lamp.
She’d squeezed into the tightest space she could find, between a sheet-shrouded armchair and the Baronesses’ empty wardrobe, the wall cold and hard against her back.
Wen sat across from her, studying her with his deep-seeing eyes. The lamp flame wavered on the table, and shadows played across his face.
“My father threatened to disinherit him.”
She stared past his shoulder at the flowered wallpaper. It was faded, stripped away in places.
“Talia. Listen to me. He would have lost everything—the Ruen-Dahr, the land, the title.”
She forced her glance back to Wen, trying to focus on his words. She felt tight and strange and empty. “What do you mean?”
Wen swallowed, lacing his hands together. “Blaive told my father that she’d seen you and my brother … together.” He flushed in the lamplight, but didn’t look away.
She wished the earth would open and swallow her up.
“My father was—my father was angry.”