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"She's not coming back." Tomas cuts me off, his voice sharp with certainty. "Not with you still turning up here like some cursed shadow."
Something hot and uncomfortable twists in my chest. "You don't know that."
"I do know that." His eyes narrow, something knowing in their depths. "She ran from this place. From you."
The twist in my chest becomes a stab. Ronnie ran from me? The fierce, unflinching woman who stood her ground against everything? Who faced me down that first day with fire in her eyes and a dagger in her hand?
"That's ridiculous," I scoff, though doubt creeps through me like poison. "She had no reason to?—"
"No reason?" Tomas barks a harsh laugh. "You xaphan truly are arrogant bastards. You think you can just swoop in, take what you want, and leave nothing broken behind?"
My wings flare slightly, an involuntary response to the insult. "I never took anything that wasn't freely given."
"And what did you give in return, hmm?" His voice drops lower, accusatory. "Besides a few pretty trinkets and empty promises?"
The bracelet I bought her in New Solas feels suddenly heavy in my pocket. I've carried it with me for weeks now, unable to leave it behind, unable to give it to anyone else. The delicate metalwork catches the sunlight as I pull it out, the amber and blue beads shifting color as they pass between my fingers.
"I never made her any promises," I say quietly, and it's the truth. We had an arrangement, nothing more. A moment of pleasure when my courier duties brought me to her village. A brief escape from the loneliness that clings to us both.
"That's exactly the problem." Tomas shakes his head, disgust evident in every line of his face. "Now get out of here before I call the village guard."
I almost laugh at that. What could their pathetic human guards do against me? But I swallow the bitter amusement, tucking the bracelet back into my pocket.
"Just tell me one thing," I say, and I hate how something like pleading has crept into my voice. "Did she say where she was going?" If anyone knows, it's him.
For a brief moment, something like pity flashes in his eyes. "No. She just packed what she could carry and left. Didn't say goodbye to anyone."
The information settles like a stone in my stomach. That sounds like Ronnie—practical to a fault, cutting ties with surgical precision.
"I see."
A crowd has gathered now, villagers watching our exchange with wary fascination. Among them, a burly man with a smith's apron steps forward, a heavy hammer clutched in his fist. Behind him, two others—farmers by the look of them—grasp pitchforks with white-knuckled intensity.
"You heard the boy," the smith growls. "We don't want your kind here."
I let my gaze sweep over them, slow and deliberate. These humans with their pathetic weapons, thinking they could stand against me. I could call the wind to scatter them like leaves, whisper words that would turn them against each other, snap their necks before they could blink.
But what would be the point?
"Mykind," I repeat softly, letting cold disdain drip from the words. "And what kind is that, exactly? The kind your Rosalind invited into her bed month after month? The kind she?—"
The smith lunges forward, hammer raised. I sidestep easily, the weapon whistling past my ear.
"Don't you dare speak about her that way," he snarls.
I laugh, the sound hollow and sharp as broken glass. "What way? Truthfully?"
"Get out!" A woman shouts from the back of the crowd. Others take up the call, their voices rising in an ugly chorus. "Get out! Get out!"
Something ugly and heated rises in my chest—a mixture of frustration, anger, and beneath it all, a desperate confusion I refuse to acknowledge.
"Where is she?" I demand, my voice rising over theirs. "Someone here must know. I just want to talk to her."
"Talk to her?" Tomas scoffs. "After what you did?"
"I didnothing," I snarl, my control slipping. The wind around us picks up, responding to my agitation. Dust swirlsat my feet, loose thatch rustling ominously on nearby roofs. "Nothing she didn't want."
The villagers fall silent, eyeing the unnatural wind with growing terror. The smith backs up a step, but keeps his hammer raised.