The village was barely visible from here, just a smudge of brown and grey against the green of the forest. He couldn’t even see her cottage.
But he could still feel the ghost of her lips against his cheek. He could still smell her scent on his clothes. He could still hear the soft sound of her breathing as she’d slept in his arms.
Let me know when you decide how I should pay my debt.
He didn’t know what he wanted from her. Didn’t know what price could possibly balance the scales for what she’d given him—a single night of warmth, a few hours of companionship, a reminder that he was capable of gentleness as well as violence.
But he knew, with a certainty that settled into his bones like winter cold, that he wasn’t finished with Jessa Allenby.
CHAPTER 7
The fibers slipped through Jessa’s fingers like captured sunlight.
She sat at her mother’s spinning wheel, feeding the processed sunvine strands into the twist, watching them transform from raw material into something miraculous. The thread that emerged was finer than anything she’d ever produced—gossamer-thin but impossibly strong, with a luminous quality that seemed to glow even in the dim light of the cottage.
Soak them until they become supple. Coat them in oil to preserve the flexibility.
Tarek’s instructions played through her mind for the hundredth time. She’d followed them exactly, soaking the dried vines in a basin of cool water for the better part of a day, then rubbing them with the lightest oil she had—a precious bottle of pressed sunflower seeds that her mother had kept for special projects.
The transformation had been remarkable. What had been brittle and fragile became soft and pliable, the individual fibersseparating easily. The oil had improved the quality of the fibers far beyond that of her first batch.
Behind her, Dani dozed in her chair, her breathing easy, at least for the moment. She knew it wouldn’t last. Her hands tightened on the wheel, but she forced herself to focus. The thread was what mattered right now. If she could produce the cloth, she could obtain the medicine. She could buy them time to figure a way out of this trap.
She worked through the afternoon and into the evening, the rhythmic whir of the spinning wheel a familiar comfort. By the time full darkness fell, she had enough thread to fill three bobbins—more than enough for a small sample piece.
The loom waited in the corner. She rose from the spinning wheel, stretching muscles that ached from hours of concentrated work, and crossed to begin the process of warping. Setting up a loom was tedious work, requiring patience and precision. Each warp thread had to be measured exactly, wound onto the beam with consistent tension, and threaded through the heddles in the correct sequence. It was the kind of work that usually required multiple sessions spread across several days.
She did it in one night.
She worked by lamplight, her fingers sure and steady even though her mind drifted elsewhere. Back to the mountain and the warmth of strong arms holding her close. Back to emerald eyes that had looked at her with something that made her heart skip a beat before he’d turned away.
Stop it,she told herself firmly.He helped me. That’s all. He’ll name his price eventually, and that will be the end of it.
But she couldn’t quite make herself believe it.
By dawn, the loom was ready. She allowed herself a few hours of restless sleep, curled up next to Dani so she could hear if her sister’s breathing changed. When she woke, stiff and unrested, she moved directly to the loom and began to weave.
The cloth that emerged was extraordinary.
The sunvine thread wove smoothly, integrating with the cotton warp to create a fabric unlike anything she had ever produced, even finer than her previous effort. It had the softness of silk, the durability of linen, and that strange luminous quality that made it seem to capture and hold light. As she worked, she found herself experimenting with different patterns and tensions, discovering what the material could do.
It wanted to be woven loosely, she decided. It wanted room to breathe and let the light pass through its golden strands. When she accommodated that tendency, the fabric became almost translucent—a gossamer veil that shimmered with internal radiance.
But when she wove it tighter, compressing the threads together with firm beats of the beater bar, it became something else entirely. The golden glow shifted to a warm amber, and the fabric took on a weight and substance that belied its delicate appearance.
Both versions were beautiful. Both versions were valuable. And the profit from both versions, she knew with bitter certainty, would end up in Gerhard’s pocket. Her uncle’s last visit had made his terms clear.
“Keep your mouth shut when Halwick returns,”he’d said, standing in her doorway with that smooth, reasonable expression that she’d learned to despise.“Let me handle thenegotiations. Smile, nod, and don’t speak unless spoken to directly.”
“And if I don’t?”
He’d glanced towards the chair where Dani was napping, his expression unchanged.“Your sister has such a fragile constitution. It would be a shame if her medicine were… delayed.”
She had wanted to scream. She’d wanted to throw something at his placid, well-fed face. But Dani had stirred in her sleep, coughing softly, so she swallowed her rage and nodded.
What choice did she have?
She wove for two days straight, stopping only to feed Dani and force herself to eat a few bites of bread and cheese. On the morning of the fifth day, she cut the finished fabric from the loom and held it up to the light. She’d only created two small scarves, but the quality was unmistakable. The golden threads caught the sunlight streaming through the window, and for a moment the entire cottage seemed to glow.
