Maybe he’s trying to be compassionate. Maybe I would even care if I weren’t trapped inside that square, watching those arrows, seeing those dying eyes.
“What did they...” I clutch my fingers together and draw deep within me, pushing away those horrifying memories. “What did they want?”
“Who?”
“Gabriel, please. I just watched Kyanites being executed. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m asking.”
Several breaths pass during which he doesn’t speak. I even think he might not. Then, he finally finds his voice. “They were trying to infiltrate the palace. So, I surmise they want what most Kyanites want. To remove our chieftain’s head.”
My lungs burn, and my skin tingles as I widen my eyes in feigned surprise. “Why? I don’t understand?”
“Don’t you?” he asks, showing the same bitterness as the night before. “In the last thirty summers, we have lost four tribal leaders. And in the past two summers, we have stopped many assassination attempts.”
I clench my fingers tighter and adopt an even tone. “I am a simple healer, Gabriel. I don’t know everything that happens between our people.”
Sunlight weaves around his face and lightens his eyes as he studies me. “I don’t believe you.” A flock of geese flies overhead as Gabriel turns away. “I’ll see you tonight.”
No words pass my lips as he walks back down the sandstone streets. Though, they burn my tongue. Everything I cannot say. Their weight follows me as I step into the cottage.
I consider Gabriel’s words, his admittance that four tribal leaders have died in the last thirty summers. Perhaps if his people weren’t so evil.
Roland and his men plundered many Kyanite villages ten summers ago. Blood ran like a river through the streets. Fires destroyed every building. The people who survived the terror grew thick callouses on their heart and hatred in their bellies.
I step into the stone cottage and exhale. It looks the same as it did the night before. Sparse. Inhospitable. It doesn’t even look lived in. There are no personal items. Nothing that hints that Gabriel lived here before.
Maybe he didn’t.
As I move into the bedchamber, I think about those five Kyanite men. They met with their end in a horrifying manner. Maybe their deaths should deter me. Maybe it would if I feared journeying to the afterlife.
I prepare tea and think of my passage to success. It’s clear that being a Kyanite among the Bloodstone won’t benefit me. There’s only one way I succeed—by diving so deep into their world I look like them. Act like them. Talk like them.
I must shed my Kyanite ways and become Bloodstone.
ChapterTwenty
Men like women who try to please them. The best way to please Gabriel, besides sharing his bed, of course, is becoming like the women inhistribe. It took me only a day in Astarobane to notice the women often wear flowers in their braids. I pick some and pin them in my hair. They also wear gray and black surcoats. I ask Kassandra for a new surcoat, and she obliges me.
My attempts seem pointless. Gabriel doesn’t notice.
So, I focus on what I can control. A clean house. Fresh-baked treats for when he’s at home. Tending the barn and all the animals every morning and night.
On my fourth morning after arriving in Astarobane, I decide to increase my efforts. I remove the items from my satchel and study the herbs. Each one differs from Bloodstone herbs. They’re more potent, magical, and they were all grown on Kyanite land.
These herbs can help the Bloodstone people. I have seen the people with painful looking boils. I have the seeds needed to cure their infliction, to give them relief. First, I’ll need to grow the long, narrow leaves, and then create a poultice with them.
I tuck away a tiny bundle of herbs beneath my nightdresses in the armoire. I’ll need those particular herbs if Gabriel ever beds me. They will keep me from conceiving.
A garden space sits idle next to the home I share with Gabriel. I’ll use it to grow Kyanite herbs. After all, it can’t hurt to try.
Gabriel probably won’t care. He rises with the sun, and I rarely see him before bed.
Outside, a brisk breeze beats against my back as I grab a spade and turn the dirt. Over and over, I dig into the soil, turning and blending.
Kassandra grabs a spade and joins me when the sun is high in the sky. She hums the entire time.
Everything seems calm, the way the birds chirp in the nearby olive trees, and the way swans float over the narrow stream next to Gabriel’s cottage.
“What are we planting?” Kassandra asks as she stops to take a drink from the terracotta jar she brought with her.
