I had beaten Sable twice now, cleanly, and I made the oldest mistake there is. I let myself feel safe.
It was Torvald who taught me better, and he taught me by accident, which was the only way that weak and self-absorbed man ever taught anyone anything in his whole life.
He came to my chambers the night after the heir recovered. He had not come to my chambers once since the wedding. He spent his nights with Sable and thought I did not know, and I had been quietly grateful for the empty bed and the space it gave me to work. But that night he knocked, and let himself in, and stood a moment in the doorway looking troubled, and then sat heavily in the chair by my fire without being asked, and I understood with a small cold jolt that some animal part of Torvald had, for the very first time, g
