I skip a glance his way. “I wasn’t planning to steal anything.”
He grunts and murmurs, “Damn Rivertoads.”
Leather saddlebags catch my eye on an upper shelf. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set. Leaving the castle with Eloise is looking more a possibility by the minute, and if that happens, we’ll need to travel light.
I take them down and blow the dust off them. Carrying them to the counter, I ask, “How much?”
The man pulls a pair of glasses out of the pocket of his tunic, perching them on his nose. Through the curved glass, he studies my face. “You’re not a Rivertoad.”
“No.”
This causes him to scrutinize me even more intensely, his fingers twitching where they rest on the counter. The way he hesitates, swallowing repeatedly, I get the sense that he’s nervous, maybe afraid of me. But why? I’ve never met this young man. Does he even know who I am?
“You can trade me a stag for it,” he whispers, his eyes shifting right, then left. “But you must bring it here without being seen. If the umbrae stop you, the deal is off, and I will not acknowledge this offer.”
“You don’t want money?”
Now he looks truly confused. “No one in the west villages needs money, outsider. We’ve nothing to buy with it here, other than what’s left when someone dies.” He points his chin at the saddlebags.
“You can’t leave?” I ask. “You can’t hunt yourself?”
He stiffens and takes a step back. “Where are you from?”
“I’ve been away a long time, maybe longer than you’ve been alive.”
He slides the saddlebags off the counter, gripping them in one hand. “You have my price.”
“Dad?” A small child pokes her head out from the back room, her eyes overlarge in her small face. I have limited experience with shade children, but this one appears to be underfed.
He makes a sound like a hiss and shoos her away, closing the door so I can’t see her anymore. When he turns back to me, he looks desperate and exhausted. “The stag,” he says, lifting the bags. “These were made before the war. You can’t get this quality anymore. You won’t find them anywhere else.”
A deep sense of dread settles in the pit of my stomach as I turn and exit the store. Why can’t these people leave? Why can’t they hunt?
Whatever is going on in this village, it’s dark. And I still don’t know if it is disease, social conflict, the politics of New Stygarde, or a combination at work here. I am not keen to blame this all on my brother and his mate…yet. Doing so would open a Pandora’s box that I could never close again. But I have questions—so many questions. And I know down deep, I’ll have to face them eventually.
I need to find Eloise. The faster we can finish our business here, the better.
ELOISE
“Eloise? Ariadne?” Damien calls. I didn’t hear the door open, but his heavy footsteps land on the other side of the curtain, interrupting the revelation Ariadne just tossed in my direction that Nevina has somehow been starving the people of Bolvet.
“I’ll have it ready in two minutes,” Ariadne calls, her lashes fluttering. She moves for the back room.
“Wait,” I mutter, my hand still throbbing where she bit me to drink my blood. Fuck, I can’t let Damien see this. He hasn’t even tasted my vampire blood yet. Seeing the bite, the blood could trigger him to do something impulsive. That’s the last thing Ariadne needs. The woman clearly has enough problems.
“Eloise?”
“We’re just finishing up,” I call through the curtain.
I rub the remnants of blood from my palm, thankful the bite wound has already healed, and pace the dressing room. If there is no wasting disease, then how exactly did Damien’s father, mother, and sister die? The implications are grim.
But the more I think about it, the more I question everything. Brahm is still in power. If Damien’s family did not die of a wasting disease, what killed them? Would Damien’s own brother have watched his mother, father, and sister starve to death? Assuming he was heartless enough to perform the act, something I find hard to believe considering his warm welcome of Damien, it seems an implausibly slow way to perform regicide.
What if I misunderstood? I’m understanding Ariadne through Nevina’s translation spell. Is it possible that what Ariadne meant is that whatever is happening now, in Bolvet Village, is not due to the wasting disease? Maybe the disease happened during the war and she only meant it’s not still at work here, now? It’s possible that nuance was lost in translation. I need Damien to talk to her. As a native speaker, he has the best chance of clarifying her meaning.
I whirl when, true to her word, Ariadne returns to me with the dress. In silence, she helps me into it. I want to ask her a million questions, but I can’t find the words. Why are she and the others starving when the fields are overflowing with grain and Damien had no trouble finding stag to eat the other night? But I don’t trust my words. Not when I have only a week in this world for context.
I glance in the mirror as she finishes buckling me into the gown. The dress falls exactly to the floor, long enough to cover my toes but short enough to walk in. The effect is stunning. I look like a princess or a pageant queen.
