“When you were born…,” he encouraged.
Her freckles faded as she flushed. “Father said I smelled sweet and had soft skin, like sage leaves. Once he said so out loud, no other name would do. And sage is for wisdom and knowledge, which were important to him.” She bit her lip before continuing. “It has healing qualities as well. More than once Father said I was the only medicine that could ease the pain of Mother’s death.” She picked at her fingernails. “I like it.”
“I like it, too,” he assured her. “It has meaning.” She colored a deeper shade of pink, but he pretended not to notice, focusing down the road. “Sounds like your parents were well-matched. Is that what made you choose your apprenticeship?”
“No, I kind of fell into it. My parents matched themselves. She was a fletcher’s daughter.”
“Let me guess,” he said. “As a fowler his father sold feathers to her father for arrow making.”
“Close. Father was raised in an orphanage and never knew his parents. He sold the feathers as an apprentice.” A dreamy smile lit her face. “He would ration what he had to sell, so he could visit almost every day.”
He found it impossible to look away from her. “He must’ve had a rough childhood, with no parents.”
Sage shook her head. “Actually, the convent inspired his love of learning. Had he been raised outside it, he might never have been so well-schooled. He also had more choice in his apprenticeship, as he wasn’t born into one. When he was thirteen, he saw Mother for the first time, and since the fletcher already had an assistant, Father chose the next closest thing. Nine years later, they ran off together.”
“Nine years?” he said. “That’s a lot of dedication.”
“Says the career soldier,” she retorted cheerfully before growing serious again. “They might’ve married sooner if her parents had approved. They were so horrible, Father refused to send me to them after she died. So I stayed with him, always traveling.”
“What happened to him?”
“There was a bad fever in late summer. He nursed me through it before taking ill, so for a long time I blamed myself. When he looked at me near the end, he called me Astelyn. He thought I was Mother.” She stared at a point between her mount’s ears. “In a way I’m glad, because it gave him comfort.”
Everything she’d had in life, gone at twelve. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“True, but I’m sorry I made you relive it for my own curiosity.”
“No, you were right before.” She exhaled and closed her eyes. “I feel much better having drained the wound. Most of the bitterness is finally gone. Maybe now it can properly heal.”
She shook herself a little and looked at him brightly. “So tell me about your scar.”
Her shift threw him off. “My what?”
“Your scar.” She pointed above his left eye. “How did you get it? Looks recent.”
“Oh, this,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Kicked by a deer that wasn’t as dead as I’d thought.”
“Liar.” Her cheerful tone contained a trace of warning.
He supposed there was no real harm in telling her. “A collision with a Kimisar pike last month. But I do have a scar over here from a deer, like I said.” He pointed to a spot over his ear. “I was thirteen.”
She refused to be diverted. “You’ve been in many battles, then?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ve been with the army since I was nine. They were more like skirmishes than battles, though. Things are tense with Kimisara, but it’s not all-out war.” Yet, he added to himself.
They rode in silence for a stretch, but he knew what she was thinking.
“Yes,” he said abruptly.
She jumped. “What?”
“You want to know if I’ve killed anyone. The answer is yes. Quite a few actually.”
“Oh.”
“The first was the hardest.” He couldn’t understand his compulsion to tell her, but neither could he resist it. “Well, it wasn’t hard at the time, considering he was trying to kill me, but the way I felt after was a bit of a shock. It takes something away from you that you can never get back.” He swallowed. He remembered everything—the screaming, the smell of blood and fear, the feel of the other man’s flesh yielding, the light fading from his eyes. “I was fifteen. I used a spear.”
Pity shadowed Sage’s face. “So it’s gotten easier?”
He nodded. “On good days I tell myself it’s easier because I’m more skilled or they would’ve killed me if I’d let them, I’m avenging friends, or that it’s justified some other way. On bad days…” He stared down the road, unable to recall the face of the last man he’d killed, though it was barely weeks ago. How many other faces had he forgotten?
“You think it’s because you enjoy it,” she finished. “That you’re a monster.”
He met her eyes, terrified she saw him that way. “Yes.”
Her smile was soft, reassuring. “You’re not.”
“How do you know that?” That she’d read him so well gave him hope she was right.
“Because you still worry about it.”
38
THE THIRD MORNING of riding followed the comfortable pattern of the past two. Sage learned more about page and squire training, and Charlie told her about his grandparents who lived in Aristel. Ash’s mother also came from the far east, but he said nothing other than she’d recently married.
For her part, Sage talked about catching young birds and training them with her father. When Charlie wasn’t with them, she entertained Ash with stories of spying on suitors and how she and Darnessa figured out what men wanted in a wife.
“I would’ve expected your uncle to send you to Mistress Rodelle to find a husband, not to work for her,” he commented.
“He tried last fall,” she said. “He set up the interview and told me about it after. I was furious.”
He grinned. “So you sabotaged it?”
She didn’t answer right away. “No, I tried for my aunt’s sake, since she tried so hard for me.”
“Tried?” Ash said, drawing his brows down. “You say that like it was futile.”
“It was. I ruined everything in a matter of minutes. Darnessa provoked me, but I certainly didn’t display any maturity.”
“You sound like you wish it’d gone better.”
Sage puffed out her cheeks and slowly released the air before replying. “Yes and no. I could never be happy pretending to be something I’m not. I just wish being myself didn’t cause so much trouble. Uncle William and I never got along, but he took care of me when I was at my very worst, and I owed him my best effort. And my best effort was awful.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s one thing to not want to get married. It’s quite another to find out no one would ever want to marry you.”