48
CODY
Cody thought that she would save her sisters.
Now, Fares has. And Penn has, too.
Hayden and Emilia are all but painted gold.
She tells herself it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are saved. They will never want for anything again, or be bent over a bedframe for coin. Their stomachs will not wake the house in the middle of the night.
She wonders if she should call herself Cayda, now there is no reason to keep her secret. But maybe she’s spent too long in Cody’s skin; maybe she cannot shake him off. Maybe she’s a little bit of both, Cody and Cayda and something else too. Something other.
She buys a little cottage near Sandhorne. It stands alone on a hilly plane and gazes at the sea. From a distance, it looks a little like her father’s cottage in Ithil.
She s
