Nothing more.
Nothing more.
This is a thing I want.
This is a thing I can never have.
Chapter 23
After Errik, the monk who’d greeted us on the hill, showed us to our rooms, I immediately bathed in the hottest water I could stand. I scrubbed until I felt some semblance of calm, then dressed in a thick woolen sweater and clean trousers and bound my hair into a tight braided bun. By the time I entered the dining hall for supper with Gareth beside me, my mind was quiet. I even managed to control my breathing, which always seemed to quicken around him.
But as we crossed the threshold into the great hall, where dozens of monks sat at two long tables, all the murmured conversations buzzing through the torchlit room fell silent.
I froze, my skin crawling with sudden foreboding as every eye in the room turned toward us. Instinctively I put out an arm to block Gareth’s path.
Errik gently touched shoulder. “Forgive them, Mara,” he said with a rueful smile. “With the weather so harsh of late, we haven’t had many visitors at all, let alone ones so distinguished. And I do hope you’ll pardon the Blessed Abbot’s absence from our supper tonight.”
“He’s busy?” I said sharply. “Doing what?”
Gareth’s eyebrows shot up, but Errik seemed wholly unbotheredby my rudeness. “Oh, I’m afraid not even I am privy to every detail of the Blessed Abbot’s schedule,” he said mildly. “Rest assured, he will join us later this evening.”
Then he glided toward the long table at the front of the room, which stood on a raised platform. The central chair, taller and grander than the others, sat empty. Errik clapped his hands once and gestured at the room as if shooing everyone away.
“Surely we haven’t lost all sense of decorum?” he called out. “Stop gawking, my friends, and return to your supper.”
The seated monks obeyed, digging back into their meals. A low rumble of voices returned to the room, and someone laughed. It was a perfectly ordinary laugh, and the scents of buttered bread and the Blessed Abbot’s famous beef stew filled the air, and the candles lining the tables and flickering in great iron chandeliers overhead cast a warm glow over everything—and yet I felt uneasy. The discomfiture I’d felt in the Warden’s office returned, along with my unanswered questions.
Why hadn’t the Falkeron monks shared their findings with the Order? Why weren’t we working with them to track down Zelphenia and protect her from Kilraith? Why had the Warden found out about their progress only through spy work?
And why did it bother me so immensely that the Blessed Abbot was absent? Surely there was nothing extraordinary about someone of his stature having a full docket of tasks.
Beside me, Gareth quietly cleared his throat. “Is everything all right?”
The sudden sound of his voice made me even more tense. I hadn’t realized he was so close to me. His arm was only a hair’s breadth from mine; the heat of his body pulled at me like a hook in my skin.
“Ignore me,” I muttered. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. I just need some food.”
I strode toward the high table before Gareth could say anything else, and before I could say the words that hovered on the tip of mytongue:Nothing is fine. It’s your fault I’m on edge for no good reason. You’ve left me undone.
Errik waited between two empty chairs, a pleasant smile on his face. If he sensed the tension between Gareth and me, he didn’t comment on it.
“Please sit, and enjoy your meal,” he said. “We hope it warms both your bodies and your spirits after such a long journey.”
I sat stiffly in the offered chair and dug into my steaming bowl of stew without another word. The broth burned my tongue, but even that was better than talking to Gareth—not that he was paying much attention to me anyway. He and Errik immediately launched into a conversation about a recent archaeological expedition to the Unmade Lands that had unearthed ruins of a city destroyed upon the gods’ Unmaking. I ate with furious relish, half listening to their annoyingly enthusiastic chatter, half listening to the noise of the dining hall, and trying desperately to ignore Gareth’s leg under the table, and how close it was to mine.
Other than the unsettling silence upon our arrival, the dinner proceeded without incident and was even rather boring, unless one was interested in discussing Olden arcana with Gareth and Errik, which I certainly was not. My sentinel hearing caught snatches of conversation from the monks nearest me—a debate over various interpretations of an obscure text about the goddess Zelphenia, someone bemoaning the chore assignments they’d drawn for the next week, laughter at a surprisingly vulgar joke.
And yet as I sat there, scarfing down stew I barely tasted, my skin prickled with a warning I couldn’t shake. Even the sight of the long tables bothered me; too many chairs were empty.
Suddenly I couldn’t see the value in waiting any longer to remind Errik of the reason for our visit. I cleared my throat, cutting Gareth off mid-sentence.
“I’m looking forward to learning more about your efforts to find Zelphenia, Brother Errik,” I said carefully, lifting a spoonful of broth to my lips.
A hush fell over our table—only a beat of quiet before conversation returned, but it was like something had dropped into a still pond, sending ripples blooming outward. Errik went very still. The other monks seated near us continued eating, but I sensed they were listening hard.
Beside me, Gareth tensed. I pressed my heel against his foot in warning.
“Professor Fontaine and I are among many who have recently been dedicating our time to finding the gods,” I continued, keeping my voice light, still eating my stew. “I assume you’ve heard from the Warden about our efforts in the Order? I know she and the Blessed Abbot have been corresponding frequently, especially during these unprecedented times.”
