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Saints, I hope she’d notice.

Castemont had forged a letter from Solise’s sister saying she needed her to come to Skystead immediately. His original plan was to have her killed — that was usually his plan for everyone with even the smallest chance of interfering withthe plan. But I’d convinced him to lead her away, instead, and spare her life. I’m not exactly sure why he agreed to it, but I didn’t question it.

My palms were slick inside my gloves and my stomach was in knots. I thought that maybe the horses that drew the cart waiting behind us could feel my nervous energy, because they were braying and pawing at the ground. Petra was just behind the thin wooden door. I was finally,finallygoing to be able to see her again.

“In and out,” Castemont murmured again, patting his breast pocket to reinforce once again that he had my blood and could erase me in an instant.

He knocked on the door. “Come in!” I heard Solise yell from the inside. Time slowed down as Castemont pushed inside. My eyes wildly scanned the interior of the cottage, looking for those autumn eyes.

I paused in the doorway for a moment, my eyes falling on someone I hadn’t been expecting. She was rail-thin, sinking into the rickety armchair. The clothing she wore was swallowing her whole. It looked like the sunlight hadn’t touched her skin in years. And though she had brown eyes like Petra, they weren’t the middle of autumn. They were the upturned dirt of a gravesite, the decomposed carcass of an animal in the forest. They were dead.

Then she looked at me, giving me a cursory glance before turning away again.

That wasn’t Petra. That couldn’t be Petra.

“Almost ready?” I heard Castemont ask Solise, but I was frozen, staring at a ghost.

“Just about,” Solise replied. “Everything that’s coming with me is there by the door.”

I could almost feel Castemont’s stare on me. Tearing my eyes from Petra, I began gathering Solise’s things, just as Castemont had ordered, while disguised as Tyrak. My hands reached for a crate and I carried it out to the waiting cart as quickly as I could. When I returned to gather more of Solise’s things, my eyes immediately found Petra again.

I did this to her. I turned her into a shell of who she was. Castemont may have killed Calomyr, and he may be trying to kill the Daughter of Katia, but I killed Petra.

Desperation surged through me. I wanted to pick her up like one of these crates — she couldn’t weigh much more — put her on the back of one of the horses waiting outside and take her far, far from here. I wanted to build a house for us in the middle of a meadow of the most beautiful wildflowers she’d ever see, with a slow moving creek running through the middle of it. I wanted to fill that house with our children and teach them how to treat others. I wanted to grow old by her side, surrounded by the family we created for ourselves.

I wanted to give her the life she deserved, even if it turned out that life wasn’t with me, even if she lived in that house in the meadow with someone else. It couldn’t be with me, anyway. She loved Calomyr. Not Belin Cal Myrin. Calomyr.

Snippets of Castemont’s words to Petra and Solise filtered through the noise of my armor-clad movements. He was telling them that he’d arranged an escort for Solise from Eserene to Skystead. That I —Tyrak— would transport her to the awaiting escorts at Eserene’s city gates. Every time I entered the house I stared, trying to permanently memorize the features that had begun to grow fuzzy in my memory. The way her hair fell over her shoulders, even if that hair was now thinner and those shoulders were sharper. The way her profile looked against the fire that burned low in the hearth.

I took the last crate to the cart, and it took everything in me not to double over and wretch in the street. Castemont slipped out the door and shot me a stern glance. “You’re welcome.”

“You want to kill the Daughter of Katia?” I spat under my breath from behind the helmet. “You’re going to get your wish, Castemont. She’s wasting away.”

“That’s not my doing,” he answered nonchalantly.

“If you’re going to kill her then do it,” I snarled. “Put her out of her Saints damned misery.”

He sniffed and wordlessly looked over the cart, as if what I was saying was meaningless to him. “Get ready to go.”

My jaw clenched at his order, but I once again had no choice but to obey. I forced myself to climb into the driver’s seat of the cart and took up the reins as Castemont settled in next to me, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Try something stupid, Cal. I implore you.” I closed my eyes and listened for the creak of Solise’s wooden door, when I knew I’d see Petra for the last time.

Sure enough, the healer slipped out and found her place among her crates and boxes on the back of the cart. Now that the time was here, I couldn’t make myself turn back to her. I couldn’t willingly look at her knowing it would be the last time I did. I snapped the reins of the horses and they began trudging forward, and the cart lurched as they pulled us away.

Dread rose in me as we neared the corner. This was my last chance to look back at her. I wished I could slay Castemont here and now. It’d be easy with any of the swords strapped to me. Then I’d turn the cart around and steal her away. Solise could come too. I knew that’d make Petra happy. I’d build the healer her own little house in the meadow with enough room for all her herbs and tinctures.

At the last moment, I made myself do it. I turned my head to see her standing in the street outside Solise’s cottage, bony arms wrapped around herself. She looked so weak, though I knew she wasn’t. I prayed to the Saints then that she’d find her fire soon and use it to incinerate Castemont. She had it in her, dormant and waiting to explode. I just hoped it’d be soon.

I managed nothing more than a quick nod. Had she even seen it? Was there any part of her that thought maybe it was me in here and not Tyrak?

The horses turned the corner, and as much as I wanted to stop them. I couldn’t.

I had no choice.

PART III

PETRA

FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE DEPTHS