I exhale slowly, letting the tension ease just enough that I can move again. Stay invisible. I’ve been doing that my whole life.
And yet?—
My gaze drifts, unbidden, toward the main path.He’sthere.
Of course he is.
Verr moves through the garden like it belongs to him—which it does—but there’s something else in it, something sharper than the other nobles who pass through these paths like they’redecorations instead of space. He doesn’t just walk. He stalks. Like a carnivore searching for fresh meat to sink his teeth into. .
His gaze moves before he does, sweeping across the garden, catching on things I wouldn’t expect him to notice—the positioning of workers, the spacing between rows, the guards at the edges. Nothing about it is casual.
Nothing about him is.
I lower my head immediately, forcing my attention back to the plants in front of me.
Don’t look.
Don’t—
I feel it anyway. That shift. That awareness. Like something has turned in my direction without moving. My shoulders go still. Just for a second.
Then I force myself to keep working, fingers steady as I adjust a stem that doesn’t need adjusting, brush dirt from leaves that are already clean.
He’s not looking at me.
He can’t be.
There’s no reason for him to?—
Footsteps, getting closer. My pulse ticks once, hard. Then?—
They pass.
The air shifts as he moves by, the faint scent of metal and something darker trailing behind him. Not blood. Not quite. Power? Not that, either. Something I cannot name. I don’t look up. I don’t dare. But I know. I know he noticed.
Even if he pretends he didn’t.
Even if I pretend I didn’t.
The space he leaves behind feels different. Sharper. Like something has been marked. I exhale slowly, forcing my hands back into motion.
This is nothing.
It has to be nothing.
I press my fingers harder into the soil, grounding myself in the weight of it, the texture, the reality of something that doesn’t change just because someone powerful decided to look.
I could leave. The thought comes suddenly. I could just leave. I’m not an indenture, or a slave, or a prisoner. I’m paid weekly--and can technically leave whenever I wish.
Slip through the gap near the outer wall when the patrol shifts. Follow the road back toward the villages. Find my way home before the next quota collection?—
And then what?
They’d starve. My mother and father, and anyone else they help in the community with the meager silver I send home. The coin I send barely keeps them from starvation as it is. Without it?—
I exhale slowly, the thought collapsing in on itself. There is no leaving. Not really. Not for me.
“Cutter!”
