CHAPTER 7
The storm winds howled, shaking the cottage and rattling the shutters as Brygida stared at Roksana’s pale hand. The look in his eyes had been—it had been—
There were cruelties in nature. Sometimes a swallow would return to her nest and find her eggs gone; she’d tilt her head and blink, this way and that, and look at the empty nest, that look, the one that could touch a soul’s furthest reaches and leave a black ripple in its wake. That had been the look in his eyes. Kaspian’s.
From the far corner, Mama’s whispers were a soothing shawl, woolen and soft, comforting and whole. With her arm around Mamusia, she smiled gently and spoke, earning hesitant nods and at last a faint smile in reply. The howling storm winds waned, and the rumbling and thunderbolts, and the patter of rain fa
