Chapter 6: What Rang

I counted on my fingers under the table.

Fourteen days until the axes.

Twenty-two days until the frost.

"Fruit wood burns sweet," the peddler said again, happily, and reached for more bread.

Dulcie took the basket away from him.

When he'd gone off to sleep in the stable, nobody said anything for a while.

"It's winter wood we need," I said finally. "Dormant cuttings. It's late enough now. I could take them in a night."

"From a house that just accused you of theft," Dulcie said.

"From my father's trees."

"Your stepmother's trees, now," said the steward gently.

"Not for long," I said.

Cassian hadn't said a word. He was watching the fire.

Later, when the others had gone up, I stayed by the hearth in the hall. I couldn't sleep anyway.

He came and sat on the floor on the other side of it, with his back against the stone.

He was too big for the chairs.

The fire made his mane look red.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"You can ask."

"What did you do?"

He was quiet so long I thought he wouldn't answer.

"When I was twenty," he said, "my father wanted an alliance with a lord in the west."

"The lord had a daughter. She was kind. She liked me."

"And you didn't like her."

"I liked her fine. I didn't love her. But she asked me, the night before the wedding, if I did."

He looked at his hands.

"I said yes. It was easier. I thought love would come later and nobody would ever know."

"Did she find out?"

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