Silence coalesced around them. Raisa sat up in bed, her back against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Finally, Amon fetched the chair from Raisa’s desk and set it next to the bed. He sat down in it. “I’m glad you got back safely,” he said. “I should have come after you straight away, as soon as I saw you’d crossed the bridge.”

“Well. That would have been awkward,” Raisa said, resting her chin on her knees. “This isn’t going to be about me crossing the bridge, is it?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s not going to be about that.” He toyed with a heavy gold ring on his left hand. The ring with the circling wolves.

Raisa almost wished it would be. She’d rather fight with him than have this conversation. “Who is she?”

Amon looked up. “Her name is Annamaya Dubai,” he said. “Her family is from the Southern Islands, as you could probably tell. Her father is military—he’s a mercenary in the Fells. He’s one of the few stripers in the regular army that my father trusts.”

“How did you meet her?” Raisa asked.

“My father and her father set it up. They thought we would be well matched.”

It sounded like they were a pair of carriage horses.

“Well,” Raisa said, nodding, “she is tall.”

“Stop it, Rai,” Amon said. “I’m not apologizing for seeing her. I’m apologizing for keeping it a secret from you. You can beat on me all you want, but leave her out of it. She’s sweet, and hard-working, and well-read. She’s an excellent harpist—very talented. And she’s great with horses. She’s lived in a military family all her life, so she’ll understand what that’s like—that my first duty is to the guard.”

Then it hit Raisa like a fist in the face. Her heart began to pound so hard that it seemed Amon must be able to hear it.

“You intend to marry her,” she whispered.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the floor. “Not till after I graduate from the academy. But the plan is we’ll announce our betrothal when we return to the Fells in the summer.”

“What?” Raisa’s voice rose. “You’re getting married, and you never told me?”

He looked up at her, his gray eyes swimming with guilt. “I have no defense. It was wrong, and I know it. I just didn’t have the courage to tell you.”

The conversation was like a series of body blows. She wanted to hurt him back.

Well, clearly she’s everything one could want in a wife—a horsey harpist, Raisa wanted to say. But when she looked up at Amon, his expression was so bleak and hopeless that the words dried up on her tongue.

“You don’t love her,” she whispered.

“I didn’t say that.”