Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
And when searching for a missing horse in any unfamiliar area, the first person to consult was a blacksmith. So Sarya had gone to the village smithy, which belonged to Bannin’s sister—except this had been in the initial months following the end of the stone curse. So Bannin had been looking after his nephew and the smithy while Helana and her husband reunited after the five long years Aven had spent as a statue.
When she didn’t respond, Bannin continued, “You barely saw me, though I told you quick enough that I was with Warrick when he found Anhera’s jewels, and that I was there when the curse was broken. Trying to impress you. But the only thing that mattered to you was finding your stallion. So I was left standing there, thunderstruck and thinking that I’d give just about anything to have a woman who was even half as loyal to her man as you were to that horse.”
Sarya stared at him, her mind reeling. She had seen Bannin that day, far better than he realized—but her heart had been nothing but a raw and gaping wound in those months. Finding Foggy had been her first step toward healing. And Bannin telling her that he’d recently shoed a dapple gray stallion had been her first glimmer of hope in the wasteland that had become her life.
“I saw you,” she finally said in a thick voice. “But I was…”
“Grieving the coward who didn’t wait for you. He sold your horse, too?”
“No.” It was a strained whisper. “I might have killed him if he had.”
As if surprised by that answer, Bannin rocked back, brows furrowed. “Then who?”
“My parents.”
He blinked. “You couldn’t kill them?”
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. “No.”
“Is that why you didn’t go back home after finding him?”
It would be so easy to say yes, though untrue. But Sarya suspected she and Bannin might soon be fighting a demon together. If she couldn’t trust him with this, she couldn’t trust him at her side in a battle…and neither lies nor evasions built trust.
“After I found Foggy, I went back home for my belongings and told my parents that I’d be living here,” she told him quietly. “They said I didn’t need to leave. But it was a relief all around when I did.”
Bannin scowled. “A relief to have you gone? I can’t imagine that.”
“Then imagine that in their shared grief with the man who they’d thought would become their son, they began to treat him as one. Imagine they encouraged and supported him when he found his new love. Imagine them welcoming his wife as a new daughter and his children as their grandchildren, and all of them living near to each other as a happy family…and then imagine that their true daughter comes back from the dead, without any knowledge of the ten years that had passed.”
“They abandoned you in favor of a fickle coward?”
His fierce defense flooded away the bitterness and hurt that had crept in around Sarya’s heart during her recitation. She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “They truly thought I was dead. They’d put me in the family crypt, you know. That’s where I awakened when the curse lifted.”
“Oick,” he muttered.
“Afterward, all I could feel was their guilt. I told them that I understood—and I do—but…they were happier when I was gone. They weren’t glad I was dead—never would I say that—but during my death they’d gained a son, which they’d always wanted, and grandchildren. Everyone was awkward and unhappy when I was there. So I went and it was a relief to all.”
His gaze pierced her. “A relief to you, too?”
“Especially to me.”
“Good.” He held up a medal from the small wooden chest. “Now tell me what this one is for.”
“My team and I saved a village from a lorewyrm.”
Bannin’s mouth pulled into a grimace and he rubbed a rounded scar on his shoulder, as if in painful memory. “Did anyone get stung with its venom?”
“Yes.” Crase had been stung. It had almost broken her heart, believing she would lose him. But Sarya didn’t want to talk about that. She preferred to know more about Bannin’s scar.
Before she could ask him, he selected another medal. “And this one?”
She wrinkled her nose. “A night hound.”
“Oick.” Bannin made a face. “How long did it take to get the stink out?”
“A full month.” Their skin had still reeked of the night hound’s shit when Crase asked her to marry him. “You?”
“We came across ours in the middle of winter. Every stream and pond frozen, and not a single blasted inn would allow us in for a bath because that reek clung to everything we touched. We stank until spring. This one?”
It took her a moment to recognize the last medal she’d received before the curse had transformed her into a statue. “An ogre. But it was Foggy who truly earned that one.” Because she’d ridden into battle with her right foot and lower leg already turned to stone, and without Foggy, Sarya couldn’t have moved quickly enough to survive. “He saved my life.”