Then, as Elene stepped closer to the bed, she saw Vi’s other ear. She wore a single earring, mistarille and gold, sparkling in the morning light coming through the walls. It was half of the exact pair of beautiful wedding earrings Elene had pointed out to Kylar. The wash of emotions Elene had already been feeling suddenly had a boulder dropped in it. This was her competition? This . . .  creature had ringed Kylar? No wonder he’d chosen her. What man wouldn’t?

Unnoticed, Sister Ariel had come to stand beside Elene, and now she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. “When she’s asleep, I see what a beautiful woman Viridiana would have been.”

Elene shot a look at the Sister. Like she could be more beautiful?

“She is brittle and sick and hard and abused. Her character is as base as her body is beautiful. You’ll see, when she wakes. She is a walking tragedy. The trade she was taught would wreck anyone with a soul. You know that from Kylar’s experience. But Vi didn’t just learn a sick trade, she learned under Hu Gibbet—all too often literally under him, from the time she was a child. Whenever I—old and fat as I am—see her asleep, I still get jealous. I still forget that Vi’s beauty has been no friend to her.” Sister Ariel paused, as if captured by a thought. “In fact, the only friend she ever had—male or female—was Jarl, and the Godking compelled her to kill him.”

Elene didn’t want to hear it. “What’s wrong with her? I mean, why is she here?”