I Died in His Arms, Now I'll Marry Another novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Wooden Horse

I found him that night on the floor of his study with his back against the desk and the little wooden horse in his hands.

The lamp was low.

The key hung at his belt, and he looked like a man who had been sitting there for some time.

I shut the door and sat down on the boards beside him.

"The first term was no questions about the past," I said. "We've both broken it. I'd like to ask one."

He turned the horse over.

"Ask."

"Who carved it?"

"My brother." His thumb found the chipped ear. "The youngest of us. He was nine, and he made it with a bread knife the winter the flour ran out."

"What happened to him?"

"The same thing that was going to happen to the boy who touched the sack." He said it without any weight, which was how I knew it had all the weight in the world. "He didn't get a second winter. I carry this to every Moot I go to beg at."

I looked at the horse for a while.

"You don't have to beg anymore."

"No."

"And I'm not going to be the reason you do."

He lifted his head and looked at me.

There was no suspicion in his face at all.

There was only a man who had been told the worst thing about me, and had decided to stay in the room.

I took the horse out of his hands and set it on the desk, carefully, with its good ear toward the lamp.

Then I put my hand against his jaw and kissed him.

He made a low sound against my mouth.

His hand closed on my waist, and then he pulled back an inch.

"Bronwyn. Two days ago you told me you meant to kill me."

"I did."

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