5
By the fire, nobody talked to me, but as I said, their tone was not unkind. I think they knew I was hungry and might just want to attend to eating, and they may also have thought I had a kind of magic after seeing the queen. I knew from old time stories that being “chosen” wasn’t always good. You were special, but you also had a kind of shadow over you, and that shadow was the fate. People with the fate sometimes did extraordinary things, but they also sometimes didn’t live very long. Like Saint Agnes and Saint Sebastian. I wasn’t sure yet that I wanted to be chosen. I knew I had a task, but mostly I wanted to stay alive.
I shivered because it was wicked cold outside and because the good food warmed my insides. It’s the difference between two very different feelings that gives you the
