Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 81 - Chapitre 85

Before the third hour Marcus discovered me at the well.Not by accident. And he looked like a man who had reached some point in determining to come and had come to the end of deliberating on the matter. He made his way acutely quietly across the yard, as he always walked, and I kept an eye on him as he came, and it told me nothing because the first was in a certain action when he approached within ten paces of me, and I had learned it.On the other side of the well, he halted."I would like to speak to you," he said. "Without Rollins.""He is with Liam," said I. You have some time.Something dawned on his face. Not relief. The outcry of a man who had petitioned for a thing and obtained it and was now obliged to employ it.He gazed awhile at the well. Then at me."The letter," said he.You need not tell me about it."I know," he said. "I want to."I waited. The yard was moving around us, Ironclaw and Shadowcrest, and harkening to the business of the day that was going on; no one was ne

The east hold reeks of wet stone and old rushes.It always has. I had it the first time I ever visited this place, months ago, on other business, and I have it now. There are things that never change no matter what occurs in the air that they are in.Maren is sitting on the low bench against the far wall. Not huddled. Upright. She has long been held in custody, and the fear has long since settled down into something staler, and all that lies under it is a woman who has done a reckoning and who is about to bring forth its fruit.I can see her looking at me as I enter. Does not look away."Luna," she says."Maren."I take the stool across from her. The guard outside pulls the door to, not shut. I do not request him to seal it altogether. Whatever Maren tells me tonight, I want something within earshot.Her hands are clasped in her lap. She looks at them once, then back at me."There is something I have not said," she tells me."I know. Tell me."She does not hurry with it. I have found

Rollins is on the outer wall when I find him.Not pacing. Standing the way he stands when the weight of command gets too large for a closed room, facing the tree line with his shoulders set and the mate bond running steady and deep between us the way it always runs when he is carrying something he has not yet decided how to put into words. I know the posture. I have long enough been reading it that I do not need the bond to have its meaning, though the bond will still tell me. It always does.I come up beside him. Do not touch him yet. Stand close enough that our shoulders are nearly level and look at the same tree line he is looking at.Down in the yard is silent below us. One torch on the eastern gate. Two guards at the western passage, their breath visible in the cold. The sky above the treeline is as black as the second hour, with no moon, such darkness as makes the keep seem to be smaller than it is and the world outside the wall seem bigger. The wind is off the tree line in low,