“You use their transgressions as an excuse to guard your heart.” Again, she saw too clearly.
“I use their sins as a reminder of their callous disregard.” My left eye twitched. “Besides, I don’t want fate deciding my future.”
The woman’s horse moved closer, and the cold radiating from her made my teeth chatter. “You are Destiny’s champion. Perhaps those men are your reward.”
“I’d prefer safe homes for children, castrated rapists, and equality for women as my reward.”
“You don’t ask for much,” she said dryly.
“According to Gladys, I’ll face pain, suffering, and death. A better world seems like fair compensation.”
Her pale gaze drifted to Remy, who’d resumed singing softly to Grace.
“If I ever end up with anyone, it’ll be my choice. Thanks tofate’s intervention, I’ll always doubt their feelings,” I continued, my voice growing stronger. “Would any of them have chosen me?”
The woman muttered something about foolish, ungrateful girls, then her expression turned deadly serious. “You insist on protecting the baby, no matter the consequences? You won’t reconsider?”
“I do, and I won’t.”
“Your decision is final?” The air crackled with the force of her question, and Buttercup shied nervously.
“Yes.”
For an instant, the woman’s cold expression softened, and something like satisfaction crossed her pale features. “I figured as much. I’ll tell Gladys that I was right about you. You are worthy.”
“What does that mean?”
A branch cracked beneath the weight of the ice encasing it, and Buttercup danced at the sharp sound, requiring my entire focus.
When she calmed, I lifted my chin and checked on Zane and Remy and Grace.
As if he could feel my gaze, Zane looked over his shoulder.
I offered him a tight smile. I was fine. Even dandy. Having a conversation with a woman only I could see didn’t worry me in the slightest.
His brow creased with concern, and he slowed his horse. He intended to ride beside me.
“Worthy of what?” I asked quickly. “Right about me how?”
Silence answered me. The woman was gone.
Chapter
Fifty-Two
HAVEN
The town of Takir was charming in ways that made my chest ache with unexpected longing. In the center square, laughing children skated on a frozen pond, their knitted scarves streaming behind them like brightly colored ribbons. Their laughter echoed off the neat, half-timbered buildings that rose three, even four, stories tall.
Even the air felt different. Cleaner, lighter, touched with the scent of woodsmoke and baking bread. It was nothing like the perpetual stench of sewage and desperation I’d grown up with in Grimswood.
“This way.” Zane, who held Grace in his arms, rode toward a corner building.
I followed him, even as I watched couples walking hand in hand. A woman’s laughter caught my attention, and I turned my head to see her smiling at a young man who wore a besotted expression on his face.
We stopped beneath a hand-painted sign featuring a row of yellow ducklings. Above the baby ducks, an ornate script proclaimed the establishment’s name—the Waddling Duck.
Before I could even remove my feet from the stirrups, Remy had dismounted and taken Buttercup’s reins. His hand on my elbow steadied me when my feet hit the cobbled street.
