Page 180 of Keeper of the Word

But she was right. All at once, Elanna experienced fatigue.

“What is that you hold?” Casta pointed to the copper map.

“The blacksmith gave it to me. ’Tis a map.” She paused, straining to comprehend what she could remember. The wholeordeal was like a faraway illusion. “He did not know where Asalle was. Did not even believe in its existence.”

“What is it for?”

Elanna surveyed the farmland in front of them. The blue of the horizon stretched into the distant beyond—like a fortune she would never experience.

“We bury it.” She pointed to the field. “There.”

Chapter

Sixty-Five

TOLVAR

For the last hour, Tolvar had concentrated on his split lip. It crusted over, then if he stretched his mouth, it opened again, leaking blood down his chin. With his hands in chains behind him, he tongued it every so often, causing the cut to sting.

He did this so he did not focus on his swollen blackened eyes, or his cracked ribs, or his botched ear, or his three broken fingers, or his four toenails that had been ripped off, or the dozens of burns that lined his limbs from a fire poker. Or the countless bruises that covered his body.

Tracking time had been lost long ago. He knew not where he was being held—he’d been blindfolded on the journey here—but ’twas somewhere dank and without windows. The darkness that surrounded him didn’t matter at this point. He’d lost consciousness enough times that everything was a blur wrapped around him.

The first few times Tolvar had been tortured, he’d girded his courage and remained quiet as he’d been restrained by four men. Crevan screamed in his face, spittle flying, telling him that everything could end if he would tell Crevan theword.

But Tolvar’s stamina waned.

The last time Crevan had entered, he’d brought with him the balding witch—Jordain, she’d been called—her milky eye scoring him. Whereas Tolvar had become conditioned to being seared with a red-hot iron poker, Crevan held no such instrument this time. He’d merely nodded to the witch. She touched Tolvar’s forehead.

The burning sensation scourged through him. The howl of agony that escaped was immediate and uncontrollable. He saw only the white-hot pain before his eyes.

Jordain lifted her finger. The pain lingered. His eyes bugged from his head as he twisted his face in an attempt to gain control of the suffering.

Crevan simpered down at him. “What is theword?”

From the fragments of conversation that Tolvar had caught, he understood that saying thewordwithout breaking the moonstone would release the infused Shroud spell from the Edan Stone, and the witch would be able to imbue it with a cursed spell of her own.

That would not happen with the Wolf as its keeper.

Tolvar’s mouth was too parched to spit in his brother’s face, so he had gritted his teeth and sucked in large inhales through his nose. Jordain glanced to Crevan for permission to touch Tolvar again, but Crevan had said he’d allow Tolvar time to think.

When the thick, wooden door had closed behind them, leaving Tolvar alone again, he leaned his head back and moaned.

Jabs and stabs and cuts, he could deal with. This new torture tested something else entirely in him. How long could he undergo this without breaking?

Tolvar stopped trifling with his split lip, stood from the rickety wooden bench, and hobbled back and forth in the small cell, considering how long he had before Crevan and Jordain returned.

Think, damn you! Think.

But that had always been Tolvar’s downfall, had it not? He rarely gave thought before he assaulted his way through matters. He coughed, tensing at the tenderness in his ribs.

You shall require forbearance in your future.

These long-ago words from Tara struck him.

Mayhap what Tara had meant was that he needed endurance. Fortitude to see this through until someone came.

He shook his head. Of course that is not what she’d meant. She’d meant self-control and patience. Two qualities of which Tolvar had failed miserably. How many events might have been changed or spared had Tolvar only practiced those traits? The slaughter at Thorin Court, certainly. Had he been patient and not so arrogant, he would ne’er have left his home open for the taking. And what about being banished from Dara Keep? Although Tolvar had to admit, he would never have met Sloane without being sent to Kestriel. But certainly, the mess he was in now was all due to the lack of forbearance the Wolf would never seem to master. He’d gone mad seeking to track Crevan, using that as an excuse to go to Greenwood, abandoning his oath.