“Why didn’t your mother take you with her?”
Arthur bares his teeth. “How should I know?”
Vaughn hums a single, low note of acknowledgment.
“She didn’t want me. She wanted a daughter.”
“It seemed to me that she wanted a child guaranteed to live.”
“Then of course she didn’t take me with her: I might’ve died a dozen ways outside the valley.”
“Yes. I’ve seen many terrible ways for a child to die out in the world. But if I had a daughter, I think I would do anything to keep her safe, and if that failed, anything to remain with her.”
“And if you’d had a son?” Arthur challenges.
Vaughn smiles again. “It would be an honor for him to be a saint.”
“Someday maybe you’ll find out if you’re right. You’ll have to marry and have an heir to take over this place.”
“I suppose so. Any suggestions for a willing lady?”
Arthur waves his hands, aggravated with the turn of conversation. “I want to run, sir. I need to. Give this to me. Let it be me, not Rhun.”
Vaughn’s gray and brown eyes flick up and down Arthur’s face. “You’ll have your turn to plead your case shortly.”
“Let me plead it now. I’m worthy—let me prove it. Show you. I can win this.”
“Win?” Vaughn’s eyebrows fly up, and he laughs softly. “Oh, Arthur Couch. There is no way to win. It is a sacrifice, not a game. It must be done for love.”
“I can do it,” he grinds out.
But the lord says, “No.”
Arthur strides away with a frustrated cry. He crouches and his hunting coat flares around him exactly the way he remembers skirts billowing out. Putting his fists to his forehead, he seethes, trying to breathe evenly, trying to find an argument that will earn him the right to run tonight. To prove he’s not more flawed than any other potential saint, including Rhun Sayer.
It occurs to him in a terrible flash that he could tell Sy Vaughn right now what he’s kept secret for three years: Rhun Sayer is in love with a boy.
And in the next instant, a worse truth reveals itself to Arthur: He will never be the best, because he’s not even good. No one good would ever, even momentarily, consider what he just considered.
He promised himself, ten years ago, to someday run into the forest and offer the devil his heart, but Arthur understands now that the devil ate his heart a long time ago.
•••
AN HOUR BEFORE THE SUNsets, all the potential runners, their fathers, and every man or boy in Three Graces older than thirteen gathers around the fire at Sy Vaughn’s manor. Rhun’s eyes are wide as he stares at the heavy blue sky overhead, taking in all he can. His father’s eyes shine with unshed tears, but he smiles proudly, his arm around his son.
“You don’t have to do this, son. Not for me, not for your mother. We’re proud of you already,” Rhun the Elder said, just before they returned to the manor.
But Rhun made this decision years ago.
“Where’s Arthur?” he asks Lord Vaughn when he and the others step forward for the final choosing.
Vaughn says, “He returned to the valley, I suppose to lick his wounds.”
Rhun glances toward Gethin Couch, who appears as surprised as everyone. He’s never liked Arthur’s father, which is as near to despising a person as Rhun can get. Rhun the Elder frowns apologetically at his son, for Rhun had asked if they might take Arthur with them on their afternoon fast and Rhun the Elder suggested it would be important for Arthur and Gethin to come to terms if Arthur was to have a chance at being the saint.
“I should get him,” Rhun says, starting for the path, but a grumble from the collected men halts him.
“Stay,” Lord Vaughn says. “Or forfeit your chance as Arthur Couch has.”
