Chapter 11: Her Father's Name

"You came back," Jude said.

"I told you to run," Marina said again.

"You didn't run, and you walked through that camp like a man who wants to die."

"I walked through it because you weren't going to be left there."

The pistol shook in her hands.

She did not lower it.

"Say what's in the trunk," Jude said.

"You already read it."

"I want to hear it from your mouth."

Her chin went up.

"Corwin Quillon is my father," she said.

The room was very still.

"My mother was a cook for his militia before I was born."

"She left him when I was nine, and she took me to Roanoke."

"She told me he died in a fire."

"She lied, because she was afraid of him."

"Then she died when I was seventeen, and I was a nurse by twenty."

"I thought he was a story."

Her voice cracked, and she pushed on through it.

"Then six years ago I read in the paper that the Black Banner's leader was dead."

"The man who killed him at the North Pass was named Jude Ardmore."

"I didn't even know who he was."

"I only knew the name."

"A week later, the first postcard came."

"*Mari, I'm alive.*"

"He found me through my mother's old church."

"I should have burned it."

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