Elloven smiled. “Not at all.”
“There’s a good table, my favorite, tucked behind the hearth, warm and private. You need anything, Felice is at your service. I’ll be outside peddling my tea to others stranded, like yourself.”
She thanked him again and settled into the spot he’d recommended. He was right; it was cozy and welcoming, and despite her hesitance, she saw see everything was fine. The weather delay was an inconvenience. It was an old habit, overthinking and assuming trouble where there was none. She’d let that go, long enough ago that it felt like the stranglehold it had always been.
And Elloven was exhausted. She hadn’t been sleeping well—or often. The only way she could be certain not to find herself in the Night Soul was to imbibe a draught so strong, not even the sun streaming through windows roused her. She relied on midday naps to sustain her.
The savory tea warmed her from the inside out, and soon her eyes glossed and her head tilted toward the stone wall as the day’s events slowly faded.
She dreamed of thunder, crashing thunder that came from all sides, followed by a silence so deafening, her eyes flew open. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Tobias’s daughter, Felice, wasn’t behind the bar anymore, and the few patrons had left. The tavern, however, was teeming.
With soldiers.
Soldiers bearing the Edevane livery.
And the man casting a long shadow? A much older but unmistakable Castien Edevane.
“May I sit?” His magnetic smile transported her to their first meeting at the Reliquary. Back then, she’d thought him to be strong but fair. Direct but kind. He had been so convincing in the role, she’d spent years wondering how she’d not seen the monster within until it was too late.
Running into him, and only him, might have been a coincidence, but he’d gone to some effort to get her alone. Two dozen armored guards commandeering an entire tavern wasn’t a choice made on a whim.
Elloven sat tall, wiping the spittle from her face. Her first thought was This can’t actually be happening. I must still be dreaming, but her next gave her the poise needed for a moment she was already too late to avoid.
He’s just a man. He doesn’t know who I am, and he can’t hurt me. Not anymore.
Her toes curled tight in her boots, and she prepared to offer him the same story she gave everyone who had known her before. “Do I know you, sir?”
Castien brandished a darker grin and pulled the chair opposite her away from the table. He slammed it down and fixed his attention on her while he opened his jacket and took his time sitting. “Is that how you want to do this?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Elloven said. Approaching the doomed situation with a rational mind didn’t mean the fear was gone, only resting. She could not, under any circumstances, allow him to see how easy it would be to wake it up. “Have we met?”
Castien spread his legs wide and tilted the chair back on two legs. She read her discomfort reflected in his smooth gaze and knew she had to do better. She had to get ahold of herself. He might have been thirty years older, but the determination rolling off him was no less malevolent.
“So you’ve taken a liking to games? I recall your distaste for them.” He reached for her cooled tea and finished it.
“Sir, I’m often mistaken for my mother, but?—”
“There’s no mistake, Elloven.” The chair slammed back onto all fours. “And I’m not so easily conned as others. I know it’s you, but what I don’t know is what witchery you’ve indulged to remain just as you were when you were mine.” One eye narrowed in sharp examination. “Or why. You were never vain.”
It was outrageous to claim he knew anything about her at all, and she felt herself getting heated, thirsting to spit her rebuttal in his face. But as long as she denied his accusation, it was only that. “I’m afraid you’ve really confused me, and more confusing is...” She nodded at the sea of men. “Why you feel the need to surround me with swords.”
“Do you know...” He chuckled to himself. “You were always the unfinished business, the only unfinished business I have ever had with my tower girls. Quinlanden took you and then that horse boy Considine disappeared with you. But I have a long, long memory. You owe a great debt, not just on your behalf but your brother’s, for taking what was mine. It’s why I had him killed, but I’m afraid his death doesn’t come close to satisfying the balance owed.”
It was a bald-faced lie, but he wouldn’t know about Jesstin’s confession, nor about Jesstin at all, based on Asterin’s revelations. “I have no brother,” she stated firmly. She’d never forget how it felt to be caged, sometimes for days. The way he’d fed her scraps through the bars, even tied her against them so he could still have her.
If she ran, she wouldn’t even make it to the door. If she called on her chaos, the potency she’d need for two dozen men would be enough to take out everyone else in the vicinity.
“And I don’t know you, sir, so I’ll say it again. You’re mistaking me for my mother, Elloven, who is gone. Whatever history you share, she took it with her to the next life.”
“Did she?” Castien laughed. “Show me your thigh.”
Elloven went icy cold. “Pardon me?”
“Your thigh. If you are not Elloven, then you won’t have the birthmark, the one that looked like a bruised star.”
“I will not show you my thigh!” Her offense didn’t require a performance. “Who are you, and what do you want? Speak plainly, sir, for like my mother, I’m not one for games.”
He waggled a finger at her, nodding. “I remembered your fire. I never could put it out.” He scoffed. “But I will, Elloven. That’s what I want, for you to know that when the light goes out, it will be me who extinguished it. It won’t be tonight or tomorrow. You won’t even see it coming.”
