She gathered her basket and Rowan helped her up. Linking arms, they walked together down the flat path that led directly to the door. The straight paths made it easy for her mother to get around on her own, but Rowan still always felt better holding her arm.
Just before they reached the house, the door opened and the witch hunter stepped outside. He’d found a change of clothes in his bags and was fully dressed down to his boots. The uniform made him look taller, somehow bigger than he’d been inside. His blond hair glinted in the sunlight. The gold captain’s braid sat proudly on his broad shoulder. He blinked in the light like he was coming out of a cave, which was good because it allowed Rowan to get a hold of herself after seeing him look exactly like the man that still haunted her nightmares.
His gaze swept dismissively over the small yard before focusing on her and her mother coming up the path. His mouth opened on a greeting that never came. Instead, his body went rigid as he stared at her mother, taking in the brand on her forehead before moving to study the rest of her. The blood drained from his face. For a moment, Rowan thought he might actually faint.
His memory had returned after all.
She felt her mouth twist in a bitter smile. “Admiring your handiwork?”
His gaze snapped to her and he studied her as well—her hair, her face, and finally her eyes.
“I know you.”
9
Casrian couldn’t stop staring at Rowan, though she refused to look at him.
He remembered her as a girl, the skinny, wide-eyed child who stood up to him so fiercely in the town hall at Jarn. The dirt-smudged, too-short dress. The dark hair coming loose from her braids. The way she begged him to prevent her mother’s trial.
She’d been—what? Twelve? Thirteen?
Too young for what happened to her.
He’d had no choice but to move forward with the trial. There’d been multiple accusations. Evidence of fae blood in her line. The trial had been inevitable, even if it had gone badly in the end. The mayor was a vindictive bastard. The crowd was ugly. Asher was injured in the fight, and they’d had to leave immediately afterward.
He’d returned to the capital feeling that his first patrol had been a failure. He’d intended to resign and only the counsel from his commander had convinced him to stay another year. He’d stayed. He’d gotten better at judging the mood of a town, atnavigating the social undercurrents that could muddy the waters of an investigation. He’d gotten better at mercy.
What happened in Jarn had changed him, made him a better captain, hopefully a better person.
But that day…
He remembered the girl’s accusatory eyes, the way she’d screamed at the end. The memory had haunted him ever since.
Not that any of that could possibly mean anything to the woman before him, especially when those events had landed her here—in this sad little village of outcasts and criminals on the edge of the kingdom. In the shadow of the Black Woods. Alone with her blind mother.
He couldn’t imagine that innocent girl growing up in a place like Toam.
He’d never been to this village before, but he knew others like it. The homes made out of scraps. Open sewage in the streets. Crawling with thieves, drunks, and whores.
Witches.
They found lots of witches holed up in villages like this one. Along with men like George who wouldn’t lift a finger to help anyone if it didn’t benefit them in some way.
But Rowan wasn’t a girl any longer.
He was uncomfortably aware of that fact as he sat shirtless on her bed while she changed his bandage. He tried to ignore the feel of her hands on his body, cool and competent as she unwound the cloth from his torso. Her head was bent, dark hair spilling forward to hide her face. She’d insisted this needed to be done now when he’d rather have run away from her.
Coward.
If she could stand to tend him, he could stand to be tended.
“Why are you doing this?”
She didn’t even look up from her work. “Doing what?”
“Stitching me up. Nursing me through the fever. It can’t matter to you whether I live or die.”
“It matters to my mother.” Her lips pressed together. “It matters to me too. I won’t be the kind of person who’d watch someone die when they could help.”
