Josiah
They had set the bride’s private room near the eastern niche: a place of calm, draped in pale linens and quiet oil lamps. My scout nodded. He moved like a shadow to the latch and found it loose, a guard had tied the door but, in a ceremony of etiquette, had left it with a token of respect. That was all the courtesy that would cost me a hundred men’s honor. I took it.
No force there was impressed upon the lock. We merely opened and entered as guests misplaced. The room smelled of lavender and the faint metallic tang of silver. There she sat, a small figure on a cushioned chair, hands clasped in her lap. Even across a house, even before the world knew, she was luminous.
I felt the old hunger then… not the hunger of a man for presence but for absolution. I convinced myself the taki
