POV: Maren
I had been telling this story for seventeen years. Not aloud, Not often, and never to anyone who did not already know the shape of it. But I had told it to myself, in the quiet hours before sleep, in the long drives between territories, in the particular silence that came after a decision was made and before its consequences arrived. I had rehearsed it the way you rehearsed something you were afraid of forgetting, turning each detail over carefully, making sure nothing wore smooth with time.
Now I sat in the chair by the fire in the Thornline's safe house and looked at Edric's daughter sitting across from me and understood that all of that rehearsal had been for this.
She was watching me with his eyes. Green and still and taking in more than they showed. Edric had looked at p
