He is sentimental. He is jealous. He won’t trust her, not one bit, but if she offers him something he would like . . .

Perhaps the gap, below the castle? Perhaps that would be enough to snare his attention. Then, down in the dark, she can offer him for her freedom instead of another piece of herself. A way out, when she has won the rest of the day.

Yes. Yes, that is the best option here, and she just needs to be strong enough to take it. She just needs her confidence back. Needs to remember that she isn’t prey.

She hears footsteps.

She is no longer alone.

Instinct makes her cower. It’s five years ago, and she’s huddled in the roots of a tree, a hollow that might have been an animal’s burrow, once, but is too shallow to truly conceal her. She’s being hauled out by her hair, desperate hands pawing at her, testing the meat left on her bones. No, no, she is in Aymar castle, she is hiding in the garden, and just like five years ago, she will not give in so easily.

Treila adjusts her grip on the knife. Shifts inside her hiding spot, peers through the gloom. She looks for flat white faces, those hideous paintings come to life with sharp teeth, and sees nothing. No flashes of light, no jerking limbs.

But she does see blood.

Blood on cloth and metal and skin. The other presence in the garden is keeping low to the ground, is stalking through the shadows. On the hunt. Treila shifts and makes out something gleaming and heavy in one of the hunter’s hands.

Then nothing. Rustling. Stems bending, snapping. The hunter is not coming straight toward Treila, but they are coming close enough. Treila debates staying still and quiet, or pushing farther into the green.

She is so tired of being still and quiet. Her blood is boiling in her veins. If it is another human, she can overpower them—if they’re actually a threat at all.

If it is a saint, she won’t hesitate to strike this time.

She takes the measure of the land around her, listens carefully to judge her hunter’s path. She turns to her left, eases herself from the tangle of yarrow and between stalks of some flower that looms overhead. Petals and thorns caress her cheeks as she edges forward and left and right, weaving through the forest. The shadows are a gift. A mantle. Something to strengthen her limbs and her heart.

But when, at last, Treila reaches a small clearing, it is around a familiar stone bench.

And Ser Voyne stands across from her, bloody and beautiful in gleaming armor.

Treila’s breath seizes in her throat, and she retreats a few feet back into the shadows.