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“Because I knew before any of this happened, I knew killing you would be wrong. It always felt wrong, but how could I speak up? Turn away from the priests, the only people who had ever fed me or sheltered me? But I knew, deep down. Don’t you see? This shows I was right.”

“Jav, slow down. We need to think this through.”

“I have given it a lot of thought already. You might have accepted it without struggle, but he ordered me to kill you, Iseris. You.” There was a break in his voice at the last moment, his hand tightening around her arm, that made her frown. Something intense that she didn’t quite understand.

“I want to believe you,” she said, “but anyone could have painted these paintings. How do we know?—”

He took her other arm and pulled her closer to him. Even with her cloak, the cold had been seeping into her, so his warmth was more than welcome. “Why would Nefrana plant a seed if she didn’t want it to grow?” he whispered.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe something tainted me after the seed was planted.” She tried to shrug, but he was holding her a little too tightly.

“Maybe. Or maybe you’re exactly the way Nefrana wanted you to be, for this exact moment.”

She opened her mouth to try to answer, groping for an answer. But no words came.

She had spent so many years in despair, taking quiet comfort in the company of her tiny animal friends who didn’t care about her own imperfections. The possibility that she could simply be perfect—or at least, somewhat good? Acceptable? As intended? Sort of okay? It was so foreign that she didn’t even have words to refute it.

He twitched, looking off to the side. “Wait—quiet. What’s that sound?”

She listened harder too. Thundering pounds, in regular intervals, not so far away. “Horses,” she whispered.

They both looked at each other, eyes wide, knowing what it meant. Who it meant.

“Alekur,” he whispered.

“But Selis is down there. In the cottage. Gods…”

“Nothing we can do for her now,” he shot back. “We need to hide. Maybe they won’t look up here. Why would they?”

“Because we left two sets of footprints going up the hillside?”

He swore. “Okay, well, we’re not leaving as many prints inside. And it’s dark.”

“Unless they brought torches or lanterns.”

“Which they probably did—and we don’t have.”

“We’re doomed.”

“No. We’ll do our best. Let’s go deeper. Get out of any natural light if we can.”

She hesitated. “Did you bring the Devoted Stone?”

“Yes, why?”

“You could use it to light the way. It can guide us farther into the dark for a while.”

He frowned even as he hurried to draw it from his pocket. “That’s… almost convenient.”

“Yes, I could imagine it’d make it nice to go anywhere, always having a light with you. If only it weren’t a death sentence, maybe I’d be convinced to carry one.”

“Where did these come from anyway?” He glared down at the stone in his hand.

“Didn’t an order of Devoted Knights mine deep into the mountains to find the special ore that could detect magic?”

“I’ve never met a knight that was a miner,” he grumbled, almost to himself. “Or read about one. Something doesn’t add up. This way.”

The cave had its slopes, bends, and alcoves, but overall, it’d been quite smoothed and hollowed out over the years. There were very few nooks and crannies left to hide in, at least at this point in the cave system.