8
Toran
“You can’t devour drinks so now you devour books?”
Toran looked up from the page he’d been reading to find Quint watching him. He should have known it wouldn’t take Quint long to find him.
Toran sat at a desk in a castle bedroom that didn’t belong to him. Actually, the bedroom didn’t belong to anyone. It was a guest room made up to please Orlonea’s visitors. But to him, the room would always belong to Loriana.
Loriana Kodigno, daughter of one of the most prominent families on the Kono Islands, had been an important guest for all of Orlonea. She’d come to Gadore as an emissary, seeking to establish trade relations between the two countries. Or so he’d thought.
For decades, the leaders of the Kono Islands had refused contact with the continental countries, instead choosing to remain self-sufficient and isolated. And then Loriana had shown up on their docks. Calculating, stubborn, and full of pride. A trade agreement might have been drawn up and signed, a new relationship established, had Loriana not gotten on that ship back to the islands.
He blamed the Witch. Loriana shouldn’t have been hunting her. If it weren’t for the Witch, the love of his life would still be alive.
The sight of Loriana’s face in the square today—real or not—had shaken something loose inside him.
She would have hated who he’d become. Hated how he drank away his pain. Hated how he neglected his duties. Hated how far he’d fallen. And, most of all, she would have hated how he did it all because of her.
Funny, how some things came full circle. Because he was fairly certain Loriana had hated him the first time they met.
It had all been accidental. He, running from the harried librarian after taking a book without permission, and she, a girl with dark hair cropped close to her round face, just trying to find a quiet place to read. They had stumbled into the same hiding spot—he tripping over her legs and landing sprawled across her lap. She hadn’t laughed or chuckled as he had. She’d glared and shoved him hard enough to bruise his head when he hit it against the back of a bookcase. But he couldn’t blame her for being rude to him. Nor could he blame himself for the shameless flirting he’d done after they’d detangled their limbs. They both had forgotten the books they were reading that day.
“They say books are infinitely more satisfying,” Toran said, folding the cover over his hand so he didn’t lose his page. “Like mead for the mind.”
Quint stood tall inside the door, the top of his neatly trimmed hair skimming the frame. His friend had always been built like a ship—large and capable of ramming—but Quint’s sheer size was never as apparent as when he stood in a doorway.
“And what do you say?” Quint asked. Under his joking tone, his words rang deep with concern.
Toran flung open the book in front of him, riffling through the pages. “Did you know someone was arrested last year for stealing a single grain of rice?”
“Why steal a single grain?” Quint asked. “Why not a bag? What do you do with one piece of rice?”
Toran grinned. “I’m so glad you asked, my friend.” He read the words hastily scrawled in the page’s margin. “This girl stole the grain of rice to use it to pierce the trader’s eyeball.”
Quint blanched. “With a grain of rice?”
“With a single grain of uncooked rice.”
“The Ditch?”
“The Ditch.”
Quint eyed the stack of books on the floor beside Toran. A different stack of books had sat in that same spot when Loriana occupied the room. Older books with worn pages and frayed spines. Toran had credited those books for why Loriana had always smelled a little like dust to him. Dust in her fingertips, sea salt in her hair, and honey on her breath.
“Is this how you plan to spend your time? Laughing at the absurdity of the Ditch?” Quint asked.
“Oh, wait. You want absurd?” Toran reached for another book in the pile. “Then I have to tell you about this other arrest. Would you believe—”
“Toran.”
He froze, leaning half out of the chair, his hand around the spine of a book. “Quint?”
“What are you doing?”
“Reading. Or I was until you interrupted me.”
Quint shook his head. “No, I mean, what are you doing in here?”
