Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 91 - Chapitre 93

They reached Cairnwatch at dusk on the fourth day, and Elara was waiting at the gate.Aria had rehearsed what she would say all the way across the marshes. I signed it. I'm sorry. I should have read the second page. None of it survived the sight of her daughter standing in the snow with her coat unbuttoned and her braid coming loose, running toward the horses as if she were nine years old again and had heard them in the lane."Mama," Elara said, and stopped short, suddenly self-conscious, and then simply held out both arms.Aria slid from the saddle and walked into them.For a moment nothing was said. She felt Elara's heartbeat against her collar, fast and sure, and the arm of her husband settling around both of them, steadying, as he had steadied her through every hard hour of their lives. The snow drifted down. Somewhere behind them Garrick coughed pointedly and began to take an intense interest in his saddle strap."I'm sorry," Aria said into her daughter's hair. "I signed it. I ne

Elara did not let the question go.She waited until the watch-house had quieted and the last of the fire-watch had changed. Then she found her parents in the narrow upstairs room, Kade at the table with Merrow's offer and Aria by the shutters, watching the orange smudge of embers beyond the roofs."I'm sixteen," Elara said from the doorway. "You've told me his name, and that he died, and that he did terrible things. I've never asked for more because I thought you'd tell me when it mattered." Her chin lifted. "It matters."Aria turned. For a moment she looked, absurdly, as though she were being asked to give up a limb."Sit," Kade said quietly.Elara sat on the edge of the narrow bed. Aria came and sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched."Your great-uncle Damion," Aria began, "raised me after my father died. He taught me to read, to ride, to hold my tongue. I loved him." The word cost her something. "And for ten years he let me believe that Kade's father had killed m