Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Tabitha bent down, picked up the thermos and unscrewed its cap to pour a stream of black coffee into the travel cup, and passed it to me. Splendid heat warmed my cold fingers. I moaned again at the rich smell wafting in thin wisps from the cup. I swallowed down a mouthful and the hot bitter notes comforted my throat and belly.
Finishing the coffee, I handed back the cup to her, letting my fingers brush against hers and enjoying that zing once more as it arrowed down my spine. Enjoying it even more when her pupils dilated the moment we'd touched.
"What are you doing out here?" I glanced around at the thicket enclosing us, and at the sinister shadows beyond, and frowned. "You're further in the forest than you should be."
She casually shrugged, her braid swaying, as if to dismiss what I'd just said. "I've gone deeper and this far in isn't dangerous. Besides, out here I can find the best mushrooms," she answered while fitting the travel cup back on the thermos.
"Mushrooms?"
She gestured to a small pile of fawn-colored fungi beside her open rucksack. "Mr. Chen stews them in cream with shallots and rosemary and has them for breakfast on toast. I thought I'd take them back to him. He's not doing so well after..." she blinked rapidly and the words trailed away.
"After?" I softly urged. Wiping droplets of water from my face I slowly moved further under the shelter of the oak. Ruthless ivy strangling its branches and provided additional cover from the chilly rain.
Tabitha's lips curled downward along with her gaze to the thermos in her hands as sorrow deepened the lines around her mouth. Her gumboots crushed blades of grass as she nervously shifted her weight. She angled her head and looked back up at me. "Jurgana... His brother died."
Oh...
"That's really thoughtful." Sweet. Adorable. Kind-hearted. Even more so because of the way she'd said it gently, worried that it would stir up my own grief over my brother's death.
"It's the least I can do." She stared up at the boughs above with their dying leaves and released a soft sigh. "It's so weird, you know, that life carries on in small everyday ways after something so tragic and wrong."
It was the same after Gratian. I thought the world should have ended. For months afterward it had been hard to suck in a single breath of air without it hurting.
And then small things needed to be dealt with. Decisions had to be made on behalf of my mother, then our House, and leading the warband against the crime syndicates revolting against our reign forced me back to the living once more. Not fully, my guilt wouldn't allow it.
However, the past week and my encounters with Tabitha and her craziness had awoken me from a slumber I hadn't realized I'd been in. I felt like the forest on mornings such as this one, the shower of rainfall spilling through boughs and along leaves, soaking into the earth to bring life to sleepy seeds; crisp icy air licking my skin and suffusing my lungs to jolt me awake and bring me to life.
