A few days ago, I would have made a stinging remark. I wouldn’t have let myself care, or admit I cared, what followers of Fors thought of me. But I found myself strangely glad to have won a bit of their trust.
“How is your ankle?” Brother Gamut asked.
I shrugged. “Your tea is helping.”
“Good. Now, drink up. You’re to meet Arcus in the library for a chat.”
I groaned. “A lashing, you mean.”
“A tongue-lashing, perhaps. He will be calmer once he has an opportunity to vent.” He paused. “I believe he was worried about you.”
I scoffed. “Arcus is a block of ice. If he has any feelings, they certainly aren’t wasted on me.”
“It is not easy for a Frostblood to admit his feelings, or even allow that he has them. Logic and self-control are prized among the followers of Fors. But we must go now. You mustn’t keep him waiting.”
I heaved a sigh and followed him from the infirmary.
As we entered the library, a tall monk with a blade-thin nose sat at one of the tables, her long-fingered hand holding a brush. She wielded it with careful confidence, every movement small and precise. I noticed that the tapestry of Tempus, cleaned of smoke and soot, had been hung over the broken window.
A figure brooded behind her in the darkest corner of the room. Arcus. His presence pulsed in the air with an almost audible hum. He sat in the wooden armchair I had used to try to break the window only days before, his fingers drumming a rhythm on the armrest. “Sister Pastel, would you be so kind as to give us the room?” he asked.
Sister Pastel looked up and noticed me. She inclined her head solemnly, and I nodded back, relieved to see that she was recovered after the fire.
As she left, I examined the table. It appeared she’d been working on a parchment with colorful illuminations depicting the goddess Cirrus, dressed in pristine white robes and casting her benevolent gaze upon a field full of fat sheep. The goddess of the west wind was also the goddess of rain and farmers. Sailors, too. In fact, she was the goddess of many things that were favorable. Not like Fors, his icy sword vowing revenge on anyone who defied him.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Arcus gesturing for me to sit. I shook my head.
He stood and took a step closer. My whole body clenched.
“You left,” he finally said.
Heat crept up my neck. “If you plan to thrash me for violating your precious boundary, you could have picked a better spot. You wouldn’t want to stain any of the books.”
He said nothing, but he fairly vibrated with tension. His looming size, coupled with the waves of cold fury that came from his skin, were enough to set my heart into a rough canter.
I knew what he was doing. The guards had been experts at it. They had been too scared to come near me but had still found ways to torture me with discomfort and fear: a bucket of icy water, a heavy object thrown at me as I cowered in the farthest corner of my cell, a crash of steel sword against metal bars just as I was falling asleep. Stillness was a kind of violence in the hands of people who played at handing out pain.
Disappointment sheared through me. For some reason, I hadn’t thought Arcus was one of those people. I didn’t doubt he would punish me. I just hadn’t thought he’d make a game of it.
“Having fun?” I taunted, my lip curling.
“I told you the rules,” he said in a low voice.
“And I broke them.” When he still didn’t move, my voice rose. “Let me make it easier for you. I wish I had lit that fire in the church. I wish the whole abbey had burned to the ground!”
“I never wanted you here in the first place.”
It surprised me to find that his statement hurt. He had implied it before and said worse, that he would have let me die in the woods if it weren’t for Brother Thistle. But it had been said in anger then, and now he was calm and cold. I reminded myself that I didn’t care how he felt.
“Unfortunately, you’re a necessity,” he added grimly. “You’re the key to getting everything I need. And because of that, you can’t just wander away whenever you feel like it. Too much depends on you.”
“Funny how you still haven’t told me why you need me. It would be wiser to run.”
“I’d drag you back.”
“So your plans don’t involve my willing participation? I can just be forced into it?”
He was silent. A telling flare of his nostrils was an admission.
I crossed my arms. “You need me willing. And that means I need information.”
“And if you’re captured, you’ll tell the soldiers everything. I can’t take that chance.”
The silence lengthened and pulled thin until I could no longer bear it. I shook my head and turned away. “Next time I leave, I won’t come back.”
“I took you from the prison!” he said, his voice raised. “I saved your life.”
I spun back, my skin heating. “So what—I’m your slave now?”