Amon sat up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Why don’t you try it in the daylight?”

Raisa snorted. “If I can’t do it when you’re fast asleep, how could I expect to do it when you’re awake?”

“I’m just saying it would be more convenient in the daylight.” He yawned.

Oh. Right. Raisa stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s just I can’t sleep.” She stared down at her feet in the heavy wool socks that were scarcely needed in this strange southern climate.

“Hmmm.” He raked his hand through his tousled hair. “Here. Sit,” he said, patting a stone bench next to the door. Raisa sat. He slid out of his blankets, wearing only his breeches, and sat next to her.

She took his hand between her two and leaned her head on his shoulder. She traced the veins on the back of his hand with her forefinger. His hands were large, blunt-fingered, capable. She loved his hands.

A voice whispered in her head. I will lean on Amon Byrne for the rest of my life.

After a brief silence, he said, “If it means anything, I think you made the right decision. Leaving the Fells, I mean.”

Raisa blinked up at him. “How did you know that’s what was bothering me?”

“Lucky guess,” Amon said, looking away and shrugging his shoulders. “You’re not one to run from a fight, and you can hold your own with most anyone in a fair go. But how could you hope to fight your mother and the High Wizard both?”

“But my mother’s the queen,” Raisa said. “How can I expect others to bend their knees to me if I rebel against my liege ruler? How can my people trust me if I run away?”

Amon gazed down at their joined hands. For once he didn’t pull away. “You pick a battle you can win, and choose the time and place of it. Don’t let the enemy choose.”

“Is that what they teach you at Wien House?”

“It’s what my da says. The Bayars wouldn’t have risked pushing this marriage and enraging the clans if they weren’t sure of the outcome.”

Raisa sighed. Somehow, out here in the lonely dark of this peculiar autumn, what had happened back in Fellsmarch Castle on her name day seemed like an overwritten melodrama starring somebody else.

“They could be wrong. The Bayars, I mean.”

“Aye, they could be,” Amon said, his voice measured. Meaning he doubted it.

“She does resist Lord Bayar sometimes,” Raisa persisted, somehow compelled to defend her mother. “Maybe it’s more a matter of influence than control.”

“Maybe. Still, you’d be married to Micah Bayar if you’d stayed.”