Hæra leaned forward and placed her chin on her hand. Jonathan had never elaborated on what had passed between him and Asgall. Perhaps that was because Hæra had never asked. As curious as she was about her brother’s failure, her time with Jonathan must be used efficiently. Better to focus on gaining necessary skills than revisiting a painful past.

Now that they were approaching the first year, the past was apparently calling.

“Will you tell me what happened between you and Asgall?” she asked.

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. His cheeks reddened a bit. “He never told you?”

This could be tricky. She couldn’t tell him what Asgall had really wanted to do, lest he suspect Hæra’s own plan. She hadn’t even told him about the existence of the herd. So far as Jonathan knew, Hæra and Asgall were the only ones of their kind.

“He knew better than to tell me,” she said. “I told you, I abhor what he did.”

“Oh. Well.” Jonathan took in a deep, shaking breath. When he exhaled, it blew away the steam over his teacup. “I was a young man, barely twenty-one. Climbing over the rocks by the cliff like a proper idiot, and all of a sudden I see a horse in the water. I think it’s lost, though I can’t imagine how it swam all the way out there, but then it lifts its head, and it…he…starts talking to me. A horse talking to me! I thought I’d lost my mind. But he said he knew me, he’d been watching me, figured I was a hale and hearty fellow. And I was, you know…then.”

Hæra tilted her head in acknowledgment. Once, she wouldn’t have believed the staggering drunk she’d met on the shore could have been an impressive specimen of humanity. Now that she’d gotten to know Jonathan better, she could imagine it.

“I was a young fool, and I thought, who the hell knows what’s going on, but why not talk back to him? He told me I was special….chosen. Like the heroes in stories or some bollocks. And we talked. It was dark by the time we finished talking, and I’d missed my work shift. He told me to come back next evening, and I did. And the evening after that, and after that, and so on.”

“How many evenings?” Hæra asked, half dreading the answer, because however many it was, Asgall had already surpassed her total with Sister Madeleine. Would it take so long to forge a lasting bond between them? How would she manage it?

To her dismay, he said, “All summer. I’d come to the rocks every night—my mates thought I had a girl hidden away. They didn’t know I had a friend.” Jonathan’s mouth twisted. “Or so I thought.”