“Death does not intervene. That’s why we exist.”
She nodded, but her fingers knotted tight in her lap.
“And if I’m not ready,” she said, voice smaller now, “when the time comes… ”
“You will be.”
“And if I’m not?”
He looked at her then. A long look. The firelight caught in his eyes.
“I’ll go with you.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Your first march. I’ll ride with you. See it done,” he hummed, turning back to his book. “I’ll see to it.”
She studied him, searching for a smile. But tenderness in Grim took the shape of certainty. There lived his love; unsensational and immovable.
Grim turned another page. When his voice came, it creaked like armor easing open.
“The path that is not drawn may yet be taken, if the soul hopes and yearns for more.” His dry cadence recited the record instead of weaving a tale. But the words were doughy, and soon he shifted without realizing, his tone smoothing, deepening, finding a rhythm that wrapped around her like an embrace. “The boy, nameless and known by none, passed beneath the pale sky. The stars made no sound, yet he listened still, for even in silence there is song.”
Her eyes fluttered. Grim read on, voice an invariable thread in the dark. Time slowed. The fire crackled. His cloak rustled faintly as he turned another page.
“And the boy wept, not from sorrow, but from knowing he could not turn back.”
She drifted, comforted by the familiar timbre of his voice and a story so unlikeThe Book of the Veil. The chair’s wood pressed cool against her cheek, but she didn’t mind. She could still hear him. Still feel the echo of his promise in the room. She barely stirred as he moved. The heavy wool of a blanket fell across her shoulders, smelling faintly of ash and cedar. Then the brush of fingers, just at her temple, tucking her veil.
A breath. A moment. A kiss, pressed light to her veiled forehead, so light she might have dreamed it. And though she didn’t open her eyes, her lips curved the smallest bit.
Because she was safe.
Because he was there.
Chapter 6
Eighteenth year in the life of Ilys of the Veil
“Hello, Jorrin.”
Ilys let the words drip from her tongue, mimicking the sultry tone of a lady who had once visited the castle, a woman wrapped in silks and whispers, who had drawn men toward her like moths to a lantern. She stepped carefully over a fresh pile of muck in the stables, tilting her veiled head just so, as she had seen noblewomen do.
“Veilwalker,” he greeted, dipping his head. No hesitation or awe in his tone.
She waved a hand dismissively, the gesture more hurried than she intended. “Enough of that,” she said, her voice softening at the edges. “I tire of titles.”
Once, the castle’s inhabitants had treated her as something other, something divine. Now, many still treated her with quiet respect, but others, like Jorrin, had ceased to flinch. They hadadjusted to her. It left her unsure of where she stood in their world, an eternal shadow, too distant to be understood but too near to be ignored.
She had grown up here, among them, living in a space between untouchable and inescapable. And in that close proximity, some had come to see the cracks in the divine image she was meant to uphold. The human parts of her. Her fallibility.
And youth. Above all, they gawked at her youth.
Jorrin had been one of those who had grown alongside her, had seen her at her smallest, her most uncertain, her most mortal. Perhaps that was why instead of fear there was only quiet amusement in his face now.
“Ilys.” He said her name plainly, without hesitation, and she found she rather liked it.
He had grown into his adult body well, broad shoulders, solid frame. The softness of youth had receded, leaving sharp lines and a trace of boyish warmth that refused to vanish. He wasn’t much older than her, yet he bore himself as if time had favored him first.
