“Fourteen hours each way for a single night together,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure why I agreed.”

“Was it not worth it?” Mari asked.

Clarissa blushed slightly.

“It might have been, but it’s still inappropriate for you to ask.”

A crack of the whip and the carriage rumbled into motion. Mari slumped down in her seat, getting comfortable for the many, many hours back.

“I agree, though. It’s a shame we couldn’t stay longer.”

Rayan stared out the window as the mansion receded into the distance. An image of Thorda standing before the fire, anger burning in his red eyes, haunted his memory.

“A shame indeed,” he said.

He told himself the young prince was in good hands, and Thorda would raise him well. He told himself the future was bright, and his faith strong enough to keep Lycaena alive in the hearts and minds of Vallessau’s people. He told himself lots of things, enough that he did not know what he believed, and what was a lie.

Rayan knocked to enter Alliya’s home his first morning back in Vallessau. No response. A refusal to believe the worst kept him from panicking. He hadn’t been gone long, he told himself. Not long at all. He put his ear to the door. Not a sound within.

“No,” he whispered. “Please no.”

He broke the door open with his shoulder, splintering the simple wood lock. The smell hit him immediately. Tears built in his eyes as he approached the bed. He need not examine Alliya when he found her underneath her blankets. Her eyes were open and dry. Her mouth was slightly ajar. No movements to her chest. No soft, uneven flow of air in and out of her sickly lungs.

“I’m sorry, Alliya,” he said as he crumpled to his knees beside the bed. He stared at her wrinkled hands. Her fingers linked together with the strength of death, clutched as if she’d died in the midst of prayer. Three months of weekly morning rituals, and he’d not rid her of the illness that plagued her. Three months, and his faith had meant nothing. Rayan placed his hands over hers, skin against wrinkled skin, and wondered how much longer until his own body shriveled.

“Is this the reward awaiting us?” he asked the dead silence. “Futile prayers met with death in isolation? Did the knives of the imperials cut deeper than I believed?”