The ground was soft beneath Virelya’s knees, a contrast to the lingering pain moving in waves up her arms. She stared at the dirt between her hands where her dagger lay discarded.

  The river still moved behind them, and birds sang in the distance. Dornath sat calmly on the stump where he had been, watching her with sadness.

  “You don’t have to finish what you were sent to do,” he whispered softly.

  Virelya’s breaths came in ragged, too-fast beats as the rune shot a new wave of burning pain up her arm. She gritted her teeth against it, digging her fingers into the dirt.

  She couldn’t meet the historian’s eyes. “You don’t understand,” she whispered to the ground. “I don’t get to choose. I made my choices years ago. I have to follow orders. I have to return.”

  He studied her the way a healer would study a patient. “That’s what they tell you. But, my dear, you always have a choice.”

  The pain eased slightly, and Virelya sat back on her heels. She wrapped her hand around her wrist, the pressure dulling the waves more.

  She looked up into Dornath’s soft eyes. “You speak like you know.”

  “I do,” he said plainly.

  Confusion crossed her face.

  “I could teach you with the stories your master fears so much. Oaths are not forever binding, they are like knots. Find the right loop, and you can pull them loose.” Dornath’s hands rested still in his lap, his breathing even and unworried, as if he were speaking to a friend about the weather.

  “Why would you tell me these things?” Her chest felt tight with anxiety.

  “Because you hesitated, my dear. If you were not already questioning, I would be dead, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. Somewhere deep inside, you know the oath is wrong.”

  The rune flared to life again at his words. Virelya forced herself to her feet, pulling her dagger from the soft mud on the way.

  “I have to return,” she said wearily. “If I don’t complete the task, if I stay…”

  “It will hurt, yes.” Dornath looked up at her, and the tightness in her chest coiled in on itself. “You have to choose your own freedom, and it will not be the easiest path.”

  Virelya stood with her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her fingers barely holding the dagger. “I don’t fail,” she said, disappointment heavy in her voice.

  “No,” Dornath replied. “Choosing for yourself isn’t a failure.”

  She looked away toward the river. The water picked up speed just past the clearing, moving around rocks and logs with ease. Aethryn had once told her water was weak because it yielded to what stood in its path, but watching it slip past every obstacle, she wasn’t so sure.

  “You have to leave the city,” she said quietly.

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  Dornath answered with the same calm. “I intend to.”

  She turned back to him with urgency. “Today. Now.”

  “I know, my dear. And you need to gather yourself, and your story, if returning is your intent.”

  “I have to.”

  He gave her one more sad look. “When you’re ready, I am easily found.” He gathered his bag and made his way out of the clearing.

  Virelya stood at the river’s edge until the sun drifted deeper into the western sky. When she finally started back along the path to the city, her hands were still trembling.

  She still did not have a story. She knew Aethryn would ask. He always asked, even though the rune somehow whispered her answers to him before she voiced them.

  He wasn’t there.

  Before the thought finished, a sharp sting pierced her wrist from the rune.

  He’s dead.

  An even more intense pain radiated out from the tattoo. She inhaled sharply through her teeth.

  He’s gone.

  The pain dulled…as if the rune was uncertain how to take the answer. A half truth. She hadn’t killed him, but he was gone in a way.

  The realization struck her. The rune detected disobedience and outright lies, but a half-truth…

  She entered the walls of the city, and everything was the same but different. The smells, the sounds, the people were unchanged, but something in her had shifted. She no longer saw the conversations and exchanges as chaos, but as life.

  Ordinary.

  The rune pulsed the closer she drew to the keep. Aethryn was becoming impatient. She had been gone too long.

  She kept her hood low and quickened her steps.

  The guards opened the gates the moment she appeared and closed them with a clang behind her. The smell of the evening meal drifted from the kitchens, and the sound of a hammer shaping metal rang in the distance. The towers pierced the sky.

  Home, Aethryn called it.

  Cage, her mind answered before she could stop it.

  The rune tightened in warning. She sighed. Home. Warmth returned to her wrist like comfort.

  She could see firelight dancing on the walls of Aethryn’s study from the end of the hall. She wiped her hands on her cloak. They were still unsteady, and she hated that her body betrayed her with fear of a man who claimed he cared.

  One sentence. A half-truth. He had no reason not to believe.

  She stepped through the door.

  Aethryn stood before the fire, swirling wine in slow circles. His robes were so dark his hair seemed to fade into them. The flames softened the lines of his face.

  He didn’t look at her when she entered, he never needed to. The rune warmed, sending out waves of comfort that made her stomach tighten.

  “You’re late, my little shadow.” His voice was soft, but not calm the way Dornath’s had been.

  “I walked.”

  “Did you?” He set his cup aside and turned. His gray eyes scanned her, loose curls, dirt at her knees, soil beneath her nails. “Our historian fought?”

  His voice sharpened.

  Virelya kept her shoulders square, her hands at her sides to hide their tremble. She had to remind herself to breathe when his gaze locked onto hers.

  “He’s gone.”

  The rune tingled, searching, then settled, accepting the half-truth.

  Aethryn stepped closer, invading her space as if it belonged to him. He lifted her wrist and pressed a soft, almost tender kiss to the rune. Her stomach tightened again.

  “You’re trembling, my little shadow.”

  “Just tired.” Her voice wavered despite her will.

  His gaze flicked from her wrist to her eyes, and he tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

  “Of course you are. Rest. We can speak more in the morning.”

  The rune almost purred in approval.

  He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek, a slow smile spreading. She resisted the urge to pull away. “Go now. Sleep well.”

  He turned back to her and picked up to his wine.

  Virelya somehow made it through the corridors to her room without her legs giving out. When the door closed, she slid down its wooden frame and buried her face in her dirty hands, dragging in ragged breaths.

  The rune stayed warm.

  She crossed the room and fell onto the bed without undressing. Sleep would not come easily. Tomorrow was already building in her chest. Aethryn’s questions, the weight of the half-truth.

  He’s gone.

  How much had the oath shown him? How much did he truly know? She stared at the ceiling, counting breaths.

  She had made a choice, her own for once in her adult life, and she wasn’t sure it felt like the relief she had imagined.