CHAPTER 7: THE SCENT

"What do you mean by that?" Elara asked.

Darius picked up the pen and set it down again.

"What I'm about to say might sound unkind."

"Try me."

"Whenever I saw her, at the rite, at feasts, the midwinter council. She wore the same face at all times." His eyes stayed on the map. "I do not think I ever met her without it."

Inside her ribs, Vesper made a small sound.

"She's lying in a bed right now as we speak," Elara said. It came out sharper than she meant. "The best you could do is wait for her to wake before you criticize her facial expressions."

"I know where she is. It was my patrol that carried her out of the slide." He turned the pen between his fingers. "I said it so you would know what I do not want. If you are angry, be angry. I would rather have that than a spineless copy."

"You'd prefer I shouted?"

"Yes. If you meant it."

She had rehearsed several insults on the ride here, but of course, they had all decided to flee at the right moment. What she had left was the one thing she had really come to say.

"My first term is about Rowan."

"I'm listening."

"His care continues, and I want it confirmed. Not the council's word, yours. In writing."

"I have it ready." He drew a folded sheet from under the map and held it out. "I wrote it the night your council's letter came."

She moved closer and read it. His handwriting was small and tight.

The care of Rowan Vale at the Blackthorn healing house would continue in full for as long as the marriage stood.

She read the last line twice.

"For as long as the marriage stands."

"Yes."

"So if it ends, he does too."

"If I had written it without the clause, my council would not seal it." He said it flatly. "I will argue for the rest. I cannot promise I will win."

"That's not a guarantee. That's just hope."

"Yes," Darius said again.

She wanted him to defend it, but he didn't, so there was nothing to bite at.

"Both parties sign." He dipped the pen and held it out.

Her fingers had been numb since they got here. She took the pen, bent over the page, and wrote her name beneath his.

The E came out round. The l had a loop she had never put in it. The whole name stood upright on the line, every letter the same height as its neighbor, like children waiting to be inspected.

It was not her handwriting.

Elara stared at it. She thought it was probably the cold and numbness that made her wrist stiff.

"Give me a fresh sheet," she said. "Let me try again."

"Okay."

She wrote her name slowly, gripping the pen like a knife. The loops came anyway. She wrote it a second time and a third, and by the third, the letters came out smooth.

Darius watched all three and said nothing.

Then he took the page. He looked at the name for a long time. He opened the drawer of the table and laid a small bundle of letters beside it, tied with string. He slid one free and set it next to her signature.

They had the same loops. The same upright march.

"I have eleven of these," he said.

Elara looked at the bundle, then back at him.

"That's a strange thing to collect."

"Is it?"

"Uhm… we had the same tutor. People mix our hands up all the time."

"Do they?" It was not a question.

He tucked the letter back into the bundle and kept it in his hand. His fingers did not hurry.

"There is silt in your hair from the water north of the ford. You washed hard this morning."

"I'd been riding for a day."

He came around the table and stopped an arm's length away. Up close, the gray of his eyes was ringed with something darker.

"You smell of her," Darius said.

Elara did not move.

"I expected that, since you both shared a house for twenty-two years. Scents linger on cloaks and bedding. But they fade in a day or two. Yours has even been scrubbed, but it has not faded."

"It's a twin thing."

"Of course it is." He lifted a brow.

He doesn't believe me, she thought.

"We were born under the Silver Eclipse," Elara began. "Sometimes twins can..."

Something tugged at her. She thought it was the urge to leave, until she realized she was moving. She had walked to the edge of the table without deciding to.

Her throat was working. She thought it was the next word coming up, but it wasn't happening of her own will.

Don't.

I know him, said Vesper, quite softly.

"Darius," said a voice.

It was clear and low and beautifully trained, and Elara knew it from every hall she had ever sat at the back of. She looked around the room for its owner before she understood where it had come from.

Her mouth.

Her own mouth.

She clapped a hand over it. Her elbow knocked the cold cup, and tea ran across the map and dripped off the table's edge onto the boards. She stood and watched it go, not knowing what else to do.

Darius did not look at the tea. He did not look at the chart darkening around its edges.

The bundle of letters had crumpled in his fist. He did not seem to notice.

"Serena?" he said.