Shuahn turned a narrowed eye on Saeldian. “And you are all too willing to make him look bad for doing it, so people will be more sympathetic to you. But you really did hurt him. He has a right to be angry.”
“I do,” Kell said.
Saeldian spoke over him. “He does. But—”
Shuahn didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Saeldian shut their mouth.
When Shuahn had silence, she said, “You’ll never make it if you don’t honestly wish to unravel the tangle of your feelings for each other.”
Saeldian said “I can’t” at the same moment Kell said it. But Saeldian went on while he glared at them. “I mean, we can’t. What if we can’t?”
Shuahn shrugged. “Then you, at least, will fail your vowstone bond. Are you going to give up?”
“No,” Saeldian said. “I can’t give up.”
Kell went quiet. Why? This was an easy choice. He could refuse, and nothing would happen to him. He was free. He could just stay here, and then they wouldn’t have to unravel anything!
But again Kell didn’t do what he should have, and Saeldian didn’t know why.
“I don’t know if it will work,” Kell said. “But I’ll try. What do we do?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Saeldian said.
“I’m not doing it for you,” Kell said. “Lorzok is still bound, and so is Jubilee.”
Saeldian knew better than to think that he would do anything for them, so that didn’t hurt.
“Well, at least you both agreed,” Shuahn said, sighing. “Come with me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Bonds and Stones
Where Kell and Saeldian Need a Maze to Unwind the Truth
Shuahn had lived near water when Kell was a child, and her house in the Brewmistress’s domain stood astride the banks of a stream, with a footbridge traveling over her roof. The ceilings were low enough that Lorzok would have to stoop if he were inside, and Saeldian had to duck when passing through doorways to get to the room in the center of the long, narrow house. The damp wooden walls were plush with ferns and moss that spread across the floors to cushion their slippered feet.
Saeldian inspected everything tucked in the alcoves in the walls. They clasped their hands behind their back to keep from touching anything. Shuahn left them to it while she brewed tea.
“You’re both so quiet, someone would think you were going to your deaths,” Shuahn said. “A little chitchat, if you please?”
Kell had to show some goodwill so Shuahn would be satisfied. “I behaved badly this evening, Saeldian. I deliberately made your eggs the way you hate them when I knew I had been making them for you. That was childish.”
“Very prettily said,” Shuahn interrupted, “and every word of it true. So it’s amazing how insincere it is, Kell Redsong.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“But you don’t feel remorse.”
“It’s all right,” Saeldian said. “I can’t change his mind now that it’s made up.”
“Said with all the wounded courage anyone could ask for,” Shuahn remarked, “and you didn’t mean a word of it in the way you intended me to understand it.”
Saeldian shrugged. “It’s true, though. And if I were in his shoes, I would have come to the same conclusion. What should we talk about that would be more pleasant?”
“I don’t have experience with going to the gallows with a sense of cheer,” Kell said, “since I managed to escape Wyrm’s Rock and all.”
“Lucky. What happened to your fiddle?”
