All Chapters of I Rejected My Mate On Purpose: Chapter 71 - Chapter 77

Liora sat down on the warm stone, and nobody said a word until she did.She did it slowly, one hand on Ronan's arm, like a woman lowering herself into cold water. Her braid hung over one shoulder. Her hands, which I had last seen lit silver, were thin and spotted and shaking. For a moment she only looked at me, and I looked back, and I realized I was waiting to feel angry.I could not find it. I knew the shape of the place where it should be. It was a hollow, and when I reached for it, I only found a quiet, curious ache."You were at the ridge," I said."Yes.""You pressed a ring into wax, and you made a bargain with the men who burned my house.""I made a bargain with the men who were going to burn it anyway." Liora's voice was low and even. "I will not tell you it was kind, Wren. It was the only thing I had. The Circle had already decided. I could not stop the fire. I could only decide who walked out of it.""Who did you choose?""You, and your mother."The silence that came down th

We left Wickmere within the hour.Nobody argued about sleep. Kael's wagon was too slow, so Ronan borrowed horses from the village, and Adaeze stood in the road with her hands on her hips and told us we were all fools. Then she climbed up beside my mother and wrapped her in three blankets."Elin is not riding a horse," Adaeze said. "Her memories came home last night, and her head is not yet steady. She goes in the wagon, and I go with her.""I can ride," my mother said."You can also fall off."My mother looked at Adaeze, and then at me, and a small, bright flicker of the old Elin came into her face. "She is as bossy as you were at six," she said to me. "Where do you suppose you got it?"I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes.We rode all night. The road ran north along a ridge of black hills, and the stars wheeled slowly overhead, and nobody spoke much. Cassian rode beside the wagon with one hand resting on the side rail, and every so often my mother's scarred hand came out of the bl

We did not sleep that night.Nobody said we should. After the feast, after the lanterns were put out and the courtyard emptied, my family gathered in a small side room off the great hall. There was a fire, and a pot of tea nobody drank, and Pip asleep in my mother's lap with honey still drying on her chin.Adaeze had examined her twice. She sat now with her hands folded, tired and steady."There is nothing wrong with her," she said. "No fever, no strange pulse, no mark. She is a healthy, noisy eight year old who ate too much cake.""Then why did it speak through her?" Ronan asked."Because she was the nearest open door." Adaeze's voice was gentle. "I do not think she did anything. I think Orla knocked, and Pip did not know how to say no.""Then she must learn," said Nyra.We all looked at her. She sat by the fire with her grandmother's hand in hers, and she had not said much since the mountain. But there was a steadiness in her face now that had not been there at the salt grove."My m