She repeated the motion with the next bite. And the next. I watched her do it three times. Four. Enough to be certain.
She wasn’t eating.
She was pretending to eat.
“Is the food not to your liking?”
She looked up. Those fathomless eyes, calm as still water. “It’s delicious. I’m simply not very hungry after the journey.”
“You haven’t swallowed a single bite.”
Something flickered in her expression. Gone too fast to name. “I have a small appetite.”
“You have no appetite at all.” I set down my own fork. Leaned back in my chair. Studied her the way I might study a puzzle box, looking for the seam, the hidden latch.
“You don’t eat. You don’t shiver in the cold. You cast no reflection that doesn’t shatter. The ravens call you sister.” I paused. “What are you?”
She held my gaze. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.
“Tired,” she said. “If my lord will excuse me, I’d like to retire.”
She stood before I could respond. Gathered her skirts, and the napkin full of unchewed food, and walked out of the dining hall without waiting for permission.
I let her go.
Sat alone at the long table with my feast cooling in front of me, surrounded by candles and shadows and the growing certainty that I had not purchased a bride at the market.
I had purchased something else entirely.
I should have been afraid. Should have called Morveth, called the guards, had the creature cast out before it could do whatever damage it had come here to do.
Instead, I reached for my wine.
Drank deep.
And smiled into the dark.
OLWEN
The castle slept.
I didn’t.
Sleep was another thing death had stolen from me, or perhaps gifted.
I didn’t need rest. Didn’t feel fatigue the way I had when I was alive. My body simply... continued.
Hour after hour, through the long dark nights, everyone else slipped into dreams I could no longer reach.
I’d tried, in the early weeks. Closed my eyes. Counted sheep. Done all the things my nurse had taught me when I was a child and couldn’t settle.
Nothing worked. My mind stayed sharp and cold and horribly aware, trapped in a body that refused to shut down.
So I wandered.
The east chamber they’d given me was cavernous and filled with elegant furniture draped in dust cloths.
The bed was massive, a four-poster monstrosity of black wood, its curtains rich velvet, its mattress soft and inviting.
