Chapter 6: What He Knew

"Say what you did," I said.

Torin stayed against the pine.

"I don't know what it was," he said. "I know what it felt like."

"Then say that."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

"My father died at forty, from the wasting," he said. "It starts in the hands. Mine started the winter before the wedding."

I hadn't known.

He saw that on my face and nodded.

"I told nobody."

"I'd lost weight and I couldn't hold a pen steady."

"I woke up soaked every night. I was thirty-one and I had maybe five years."

"And then you married me."

"The council wanted a Luna with an old bloodline."

"Your father wanted the lease and the protection."

He swallowed.

"I wanted a name on a paper that made the elders stop looking at my hands."

"That's the contract."

A branch cracked somewhere below us, and neither of us looked.

"The first night after the wedding, I slept eight hours," he said slowly.

"I hadn't slept eight hours in a year."

"My hands stopped shaking by the end of the week."

"So you thought it was the marriage."

"Saskia said the moon bond steadies an Alpha."

"Saskia said."

"She's the moon keeper. It's her job to know."

"Torin."

"I know."

"You watched me get paler every month."

He said nothing.

"You watched me stop eating, and stop sleeping, and fall off the stairs in March."

"I told myself you were unhappy."

"You told yourself."

"Yes."

I walked toward him across the clearing.

He didn't flinch.

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