As it stood, women did not live or train at Uaimh Reev. Whether it was an issue of permission, tradition, or coincidence was part of the three-day feud happening within the keep. The disputes, she was told, covered most of the subjects one might expect. Some arguments took on a medical or anatomical nature: women couldn’t keep up in sparring, a woman’s presence would slow down the pack on runs, women had special health needs the keep was not equipped to meet. Others bore a more misogynistic tone: women were too tender for the hardships of a reever’s lifestyle, women required coddling and there was no place for pussyfooting in the ring, a woman couldn’t be guaranteed safety in a castle filled with men. These were the rather unfortunate messages that had been relayed, anyway, when Odrin had visited Amaris in her rooms the first night.

“I’m to stay here by myself?” she had asked. Amaris didn’t fully understand her anxiety, but the idea of being shut in her chamber with nothing but a stack of old books and piles of clean linens of furs gripped her with icy fingers.

“You’re safe here. I’ll come visit and let you know what’s being said.”

“I wouldn’t be safe out there?” she asked. It was all she could do not to beg him to take her with him. Her fear of abandonment was a terrible, strangling thing.

Odrin frowned. “Let’s just say that a few more conversations need to happen before you should be roaming about the keep.”

“So they hate me,” she clarified.

“They don’t hate you. They might hate the idea of you, but they don’t hate you.”

“I’m sorry—is that better?”

It had taken her a full day to absorb the crushing isolation of being alone.

She had never had a bedchamber to herself. Her life had been spent in the dormitories, relying on the comfortable circadian rhythms of dozens of small bodies with their chests rising and falling in sleep. Her chores were with peers at the orphanage. Her free time was spent with Nox. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever spent more than ten minutes alone in her life. Now as she paced the granite stones of the room, examining its nooks, bric-a-brac, and secrets, she wasn’t sure if she enjoyed the solitude. This room was nicer than her dorm, and its bed far more comfortable than her cot, but a renewed desolation took her. The silence tempted her to open the box in which she’d tightly stored her unpleasant emotions. If she didn’t find a way to distract herself, the lid would slip to the side, and everything she’d delayed feeling would spill into her chest.