Page 5 of Severe Husband Warning

Neither word means anything to me, yet I find myself repeating it once in silence, committing it to memory with the same care I would give the name of a minor lord or a distant province. The realization is irritating enough that I fold the report more sharply than intended.

Vhoros waits, no doubt expecting further instruction, but none comes.

“You are dismissed.”

He bows once before withdrawing, leaving me alone with the storm once more. Beyond the balcony, lightning walks across the heavens in branching veins of white.

I tell myself that the matter is finished.

Yet the name remains, precise and uninvited, lingering with a persistence that no political maneuver or report has managed to command.

Calla Alder.

3

CALLA

Our quarter lies beyond the grand obsidian spires, where the stone has long surrendered its polish.

Centuries of wind have worn their corners smooth, carrying red dust into every crack the city leaves unattended. Houses crowd close together here, leaning shoulder to shoulder against the storms that circle Galmoleth without end.

Ours sits near the end of a narrow lane, tucked between a cooper’s workshop and an abandoned storehouse whose roof has sagged beneath years of neglect.

I ease open the door and step inside.

“Father?” I call, already shrugging the strap of my lute from my shoulder.

A familiar cough answers before he can, muffled by the faded curtain separating the kitchen from our sleeping room. It begins as a quiet rasp before deepening into the fit I’ve come to dread, each breath sounding harder won than the last.

“I’m here,” he calls once it finally loosens its grip on him. “No need to shout.”

Despite myself, I smile as I unfasten the strap from my shoulder. “I’ll try.”

The kitchen is scarcely larger than a pantry, though Father spent years making every corner useful. Shelves crowd the walls above chipped crockery and Mother’s old kettle, holding the few possessions we haven’t yet traded away. I set my lute onto the wooden bracket Father built high on the wall, away from the damp, then pull back the curtain.

Morning never fully reaches our room. The storms steal most of the daylight before it reaches the window, leaving everything washed in muted grey.

Father sits propped against the headboard beneath a patched blanket. His shirt hangs looser across his shoulders than I remember, and the strength that once seemed as permanent as the stone he quarried has retreated another step.

He catches me studying him and sighs with exaggerated patience.

“You’ve that expression again.”

I smooth the worry from my face, though I’m certain I do a poor job of it. “What expression?”

“The one where you’ve decided I’m dying before I’ve had the chance.”

“I’ve decided no such thing.”

“Good,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I’d rather hear about it first.”

I laugh despite myself, but another cough steals the moment.

I retrieve the medicine bottle from the cabinet beneath the window and measure the amber liquid into a wooden spoon with careful precision.

“Here.”

Father swallows the medicine without complaint, washes away its bitterness with a sip of water, and sets the cup aside after taking a steadying breath.