It hit the rough fabric of the apron I wore to protect my threadbare dress with a small, dull thud. I hated how desperately I scrambled to catch it before it rolled away. When I looked back up, he was already turning toward the road beyond.
I shouted after him, “Most people use words for ‘thank you,’ but I suppose pelting someone with money works too!”
By the gods, I’d said too much, but something about that man made me irrational. A powerful, rich mage like him could end me and my family for the small slight without facing any consequences.
He’d obviously heard me, because he turned his head in my direction, that same smirk playing on his scarred face. I hated the flutter it set off in my belly.
The wind tugged at his cloak as he disappeared, leaving me frowning and clutching a gold coin—a fortune compared to my usual earnings. It was a clear reminder of what I was: beneath him.
I tucked the coin away and returned to my quiet world of herbs and tinctures, telling myself it was better this way. Tonight, I could buy meat—evenbutter, if I didn’t worry about stretching this coin for too long. Along with yesterday’s purchases for my brother, these would be welcome luxuries for my family.
I told myself to forget the executioner. To leave his contempt behind and lose myself in work. But empaths never got the luxury of indifference. And that man’s soul had screamed like it didn’t want salve or salvation—it had begged to bleed.
He’d shouldered the kind of weight I’d only sensed in men and women very near the end of a long, bitter life. His body was young, hardened by battle, but his soul was tormented by multiple lifetimes’ worth of agony.
I wouldn’t see him again. And yet the wild scent he’d trailed in his wake had somehow overwhelmed the lingering metallic smell of blood, making me think of nothing but him for the rest of the day. Worst of all, his sorrow still pressed like a dull, aching bruise beneath my ribs, a throbbing pain around my heart I couldn’t ignore.
As I packed up my wares that evening, I kept glancing at the road he’d vanished down. I told myself I wasn’t watching for him. But some foolish, stubborn part of me still expected him to come back, asking for another bottle of hope.
The chill spring wind that day had carried more than just the echoes of winter and old memories. It had carried change. I didn’t know it yet, but a stranger’s sorrow had already begun to rewrite my future.
Chapter 5
Isca
Two days of being constantly on edge had gotten to me. My mind, even my magic, was aflutter like a starstruck girl, not a composed woman of twenty-four years. The lingering traces of the mage executioner’s magic seemed to be stuck to my skin as I finished my shopping, each tingle making my mind repeat the image of his small smile when I’d dared refute him.
It took effort but I forced the thought away, grounding myself in the walk home instead of in the echo he’d left behind. What a waste of thought. It had meant nothing. He’d only come by my stall to sneer, nothing more.
Flush after my spending spree, I pushed open the door to the cramped three-room space I’d called home since birth.
“Did you steal that?”
That was my welcome home. Accusation first, hello later. Not even a thank you as I entered holding a fresh chicken, soft loaf of bread, and brick of butter.
My father tried to rise, but his walking stick was across the room, leaving him struggling to stand on one leg. His voice held the same bark he’d used on recruits, sharp enough to make me flinch like a child even though I’d done nothing wrong.
Ever since Tegil had swiped an apple from a merchant’s barrel last month, every word from him came weighted with suspicion. I’d paid the merchant enough to feed his family for a week, but that hadn’t stopped Papa from looking at me like I might be next.
“No, Papa, I didn’t steal it,” I finally responded, striving to sound unconcerned. I placed the bread and butter on the table scuffed from years of too many knobby elbows resting on it.
As the sun dipped low outside, long, dusky shadows stretched across our tiny house, the last rays of sunlight casting an orange glow on the stone walls. In the main room, Mama settled onto the chair next to my father with a soft sigh, repositioning herself to catch the last of the light to finish her day’s sewing. Figurines my brothers had whittled from scraps of wood and small crafts my sisters had made throughout the years decorated small shelves on the walls behind her.
Apparently, it was Mama’s turn to start in on me. She speared me with a questioning look as I plopped the chicken onto the cutting board. That, combined with the thorny concern radiating off her, told me she meant business.
“Then how’d you manage this much meat and butter, Isca?” It was the same tone that had whispered a hundred warnings about men with lingering eyes and heavy purses.
I bit my tongue. Even though her question made me squirm, I couldn’t ignore the truth hidden within her anxieties. I’d been propositioned by wealthy men countless times already.
Grinning despite her tone, I let the silver and copper coins, newly exchanged for the gold one the executioner had tossed at me, clatter onto the wooden table.
My joy refused to stay quiet. It was louder than my mother’s disapproving silence, louder than her worry. We hadn’t eaten meat in a month, and the butter was three days gone.
“I made a profitable sale today,” I answered cautiously through my smile. “A lord wanted my stress-reduction tincture and left a generous tip.”
“Thisafterreturning home yesterday with cloth and shoes for Tegil?” she accused. “Isca, has this man come by repeatedly?”
“No,” I lied, a habit I’d picked up since money grew even tighter after my father’s near-fatal injury last year. All the practice had made me adeptat either hiding my feelings or altering them so much that Mama couldn’t understand them. “You already know yesterday was because Assembly business ruined my sales. Today was different.”
