I looked away swiftly, reaching forward to take a chunk of cured meat from the tray, popping it into my mouth as I tore into the bread. When I chanced another glance up at him, he was lacing up his dark trews before pulling on a riding vest, one made of scales.
“I’m going to check on Samryn,” he informed me. “Eat. Rest. We’ll discuss this more in the morning.”
Before I could say anything else, he was gone.
Chapter 12
AMAIA
“There’s been some gossiping about you,” Syris informed me in a hushed tone as we wound our way through the village.
I frowned, casting a quick look over at her though I felt a dip in my belly, thinking I might know what it was. Still, I played dumb. “What about?”
We were on our way to get feed from the outer fields for Kyr. Another hatchling was expected to come this afternoon, and I was eager to get back so I could witness it. Hatchlings, I’d learned, ate a specific type of grain, soaked in animal fat and blood. It sounded disgusting, but Tarkosh assured me it was the only thing hatchlings ate without fuss. It was soft enough for digestion and high in nutrients, supporting their accelerating growth.
The outer boundaries of Grymia were apparently rich in cropland and grazing livestock, which were sometimes used for Elthika consumption. But Syris had told me that most Elthika liked the hunt and while they were large beasts, they didn’t need to consume food as often as one might think, replenishing much of their energy on heartstone magic, which the land was still seeped in.
And now that newthalaratrees, which grew heartstones, were being replanted throughout KarakandDakkar, they would need the livestock even less. There had apparently been worry over the growing demand, sometimes entire fields of them wiped out by a passing wild Elthika pack.
It was a long walk to the outer fields, and Syris was apparently waiting for some semblance of privacy away from Tarkosh to lay the news on me.
“You were seen leaving theKarath’s dwelling,” she told me. “Last night. When no one had seen you since the night of the feast. You’re lucky Tarkosh didn’t have your head. Kyr was unmanageable that day.”
I sighed. “I told Tarkosh the truth. I had been unwell. She said she’d verify it with theKarath, and she told me this morning that she had.”
“I’m just trying to look out for you. Grymia is small—people know everyone’s business here. It’s not like Grym, which is so vast you can at least walk down one of the roads and not know everyone’s name. And believe me, you don’t want to catch the attention of the gossips.”
“It’s not what it looked like,” I assured her.
“Then what happened? Because itlookedsalacious. They said you were still wearing your dress from the feast night.”
I let out a small groan. I thought I had been careful when I’d crept from Alaryk’s home that night. It had been late enough that I hadn’t seen anyone around, and I’d scurried back to the hatchery, already wondering how I would explain my absence to Syris and Tarkosh.
But someone had seen. And they’d drawn their own conclusions.
In my mind’s eye, I remembered a flash of Alaryk’s bared backside and the glint of metal piercings?—
I coughed, my cheeks heating, which didn’t make me lookany more innocent. The only thing that could prove it was the truth. Or perhaps a half-truth.
“I collapsed in the forest after the feast night,” I told her.
She gasped, stopping on the path. “Are you okay? I told you not to drink so much wine?—”
“It wasn’t that,” I said, trying and failing to meet her eyes. We’d just started to descend down a dirt path that hugged the line of the forest. We were already past the landing field, and at the base of the path, I could spy fields of tall grain. “I get these…episodes. Where I get sick. I don’t remember much. But he brought me back to his dwelling, and I woke up two days later.”
The story felt flimsy even to my own ears. “Why wouldn’t he just bring you back to the hatchery?”
“I don’t know,” I grumbled, a little frustrated that I’d done nothing wrong and yet I was getting all of the suspicion. “Maybe I’ll ask him that the next time I see him. But I swear…nothing happened.”
Syris inclined her head, and we resumed walking. “And these…episodes. How long have you had them?”
“All my life,” I said.
“Have you seen a healer?”
I almost scoffed out a laugh. If I’d gone to a healer for my heartstone magic back in Dothik, that would’ve been a sure ticket straight to theorala sa’kilan, the priestesses’ stronghold in the North Lands.
“Many,” I said, my only willful lie. “It’s always the same thing from them.”
