“Word has gotten out already?”
Irrva laughs. “The favorite pastime in Steinheim is gossip. You had two humans dragged out of the council chamber screaming. Everyone from the Highhalls to the Narrowhalls knew about it in less than five seconds.”
I press my lips together, unsure of how I’m supposed to respond to that.
“Come,” she says, tilting her head down the corridor. “Jarrvik is at work. Let’s have a cup of tea. Or maybe something stronger.”
I hesitate. I’m raw and shaken, and I don’t know if company is what I need right now. But Irrva is already walking, and I find myself following.
Her balcony is carved into the mountainside, open to the sky, with treetops spread below. It’s a sight to behold, and I wonder why Korr doesn’t have a balcony. Maybe it’s something I should convince him to add to our chambers. Irrva pours tea from a clay pot into two cups and sets mine in front of me before easing into her chair across the table.
She gives me a few minutes of silence before she speaks.
“What got you so upset?”
I look at her and think about who she is to me. She’s Korr’s sister and my sister-in-law. I’ve always wanted a sister. I cut ties with my own family during my marriage to Bran, and my brothers left Tessana years before that. I spent a long time with nobody in my corner. Sitting here across from Irrva with tea in front of us and the sky as our witness, I decide to be honest with her.
“My ex-husband’s parents came to accuse me of murdering their son,” I say.
Irrva lifts the cup to her lips.
“Did you?”
I look down and fidget with my own cup, my lips pursed.
“I see,” she says, and drinks her tea.
She doesn’t ask for details. She doesn’t shift in her chair uncomfortably, nor does she look at me differently.
“Korr’s been acting strange since we left the council,” I say. “He’s saying things I don’t know how to respond to.”
“What things?”
“He told me I should poison him. If he ever hurts me by accident.”
Irrva sets her cup down. Her expression goes soft, and she reaches across and pats my hand.
“You got a good one,” she says. “Don’t run from him. He needs you as much as I think you need him.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighs and leans back in her chair.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s not my place, and he’ll be furious with me. But I’m going to, because my brother clearly doesn’t have the courage to tell you himself.”
My stomach tightens. All men have secrets, and more often than not, they’re ugly ones. Korr has been too kind, too patient, too careful, and now his sister is about to tell me why.
“Korr has been going through an advanced process of calcification,” Irrva says.
I stare at her. “What does that mean?”
“Our bodies are living stone,” she says. “The stone grows, moves, heals. That’s what makes us golems. But it needs something to keep it alive. A soulmate. The bond between a golem and their mate keeps the stone flexible and moving. Without that bond, the stone starts to die.”
She wraps both hands around her cup and looks out over the treetops.
“It happens slowly. The joints stiffen first, then the organs start to slow down. The heart beats less and less, the body hardens into dead rock, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but a statue.”
“The Stillhalls.” There’s a knot in my throat.
