Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  Cassian knew his brother had never liked her, but he refused to say so aloud to his wife. “He’s said naught of his intentions. It’s likely he’ll not stay longer than a day, a week. He never has before.”

  But it was longer than a day, a week. Longer than a fortnight. In fact, Calvis woke every morning long after the rest of the household had risen and stayed awake long after they’d all gone to bed. He attended meals inconsistently and without apology for any absences.

  “It’s like living with a ghost,” Bertricia said at night when again Cassian sought sleep. “He comes and goes without a word to anyone. I came upon him in the garden and he looked right through me as though I didn’t exist.”

  “Again, love, what would you have me do? Demand he converse with us in the parlor of nights, play at snap me? What? Wherever my brother has been, whatever he’s seen or done, those are his burdens to bear.”

  “He’s your brother, Cassian. Have you spoken to him?”

  “I speak to him every day.”

  Bertricia scoffed. “About what? Mindless things.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know you,” she said, and for the first time since she’d softened to his courtship, Cassian heard disdain in her tone. “I know you won’t ask him what you’re afraid to know.”

  He didn’t tell her he already knew much about his brother’s life and the crimes he’d committed. For the first time in their marriage, Cassian turned his back on his wife, rolled to face away from her, went to bed with anger seething between them upon his part.

  “Mayhap if you’re so concerned,” he told her, “you should ask him yourself.”

  He would ever wonder if it had been his fault, what happened later. When everything had fallen down around them, when it all ended, broken, Cassian blamed himself. He still did.

  Yet he was the one who was still alive.

  Ah, Annalise. I’m pleased to have caught you.”

  Mayhap Serenity meant her smile to set Annalise at ease, but it only set her back a step.

  “Yes?”

  “I carry a message from Mother Deliberata as regards your current assignment to the afternoon Faith studies with Master Toquin.”

  Annalise narrowed her gaze. “Oh, and aye? What does Mother Deliberata say of them?”

  “You’re to be granted your wish and moved from his class to another more suited to your abilities.” Serenity’s smile thinned a little, her gaze not so serene.

  “I see.” Annalise had been on her way to that very class, her stomach already churning with thoughts of what she might say to him. Her teacher. Her lover. “At whose request?”

  Serenity’s gaze flashed, revealing herself not as puzzled by the question as she next pretended to be. “Your mercy, I’m uncertain as to your meaning.”

  “Who asked it? At whose request was I removed from Master Toquin’s instruction?” Annalise paused. “Yours?”

  “No, certainly not. I have no say in the manner of such things. At any rate, even if I did, I’d not have asked it.” Serenity wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Think otherwise of me, but I’ve no reason to interfere.”

  “His lady wife? Was it her?”

  Serenity blinked rapidly, her cheeks coloring. “His lady—oh, no. I daresay not hers, either. What exactly did Cassian tell you?”

  “Not enough. So it was him, then, yes? He asked for me to be removed from his class, no longer to be his assistant. He did it. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Serenity said quietly. “But judge him not overharshly, Annalise, unless you know his reasons.”

  “I can think of reasons aplenty for him to dismiss me from his class, and yet though I requested multiple times in the past to be so removed, no one listened to me. His claim was the Mothers knew best, and you tell me now he was able to petition them for my removal? How convenient!”

  “He must’ve had good enough reason, else they’d have kept you there the way they’d done before. Somewhat must’ve changed.”

  Annalise’s mouth twisted. “I wonder what that could’ve been?”

  Serenity sighed. “Sister—”

  “I’m no Sister of yours. Not yet.”

  “Annalise,” Serenity said with a bit of bite to her reply, “whatever Cassian’s reasons for dismissing you, it might be worth your consideration. I’ve known him a long time and never found him to be unfair.”

  “No? Unkind, perhaps? Unwilling, unyielding? But not unfair.” Annalise swallowed to keep her gorge from rising further. “Was it fair of him to go to the Mothers and ask for what I’d been denied already, and do so without the small, bare consideration of telling me himself ?”

  “I believe it was his thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Then he is also unwise.”

  Serenity looked ’round the empty hall and sighed. “She is not his lady wife. Not any longer, and hasn’t been for all the years he’s spent here.”

  “He called her his lady wife. He said naught of a dissolution.”

  “I believe Cassian carries a great weight within himself as regards the ending of his marriage. One might imagine someone who cared for him would seek to discover it and ease it rather than burden him further.”

  Annalise choked back a reply. Selfish is the heart, and yet again she thought first of herself. Serenity moved close enough to put a hand on Annalise’s arm, though only briefly.

  “I believe you are good for him, Annalise.”

  Annalise shook her head.

  “You have ever been his friend since you arrived here. Even when he refused to allow it. And believe me, I do know how fiercely he refuses friendship, for I’ve tried to provide it.”

  The women stared at each other. Serenity smiled, finally. Annalise wasn’t sure she could have, even if someone lifted the corners of her lips on her behalf.

  “I believe he’s gone walking,” Serenity said at last. “Into the forest, by the waterfall.”

  “Thank you.” Annalise was already moving.

  “Annalise!”

  She turned to look back. Serenity had clasped her hands in front of her. She unlinked her fingers now to give a small wave.

  “Good mazel to you.”

  Annalise nodded and continued, not toward the Motherhouse’s large double front doors, but to a small side door that led ’round to the back. She’d come through the forest on her journey here and hadn’t been through it again since then, but she was certain she could find her way.

  By the time she reached the forest path her stomach had eased in its twisting. Something in the air’s fresh scent, the pungent odor of the trees and earth, calmed her. Or mayhap it was knowing that no matter what happened, it was beyond her control. She could do naught to make him love her if he did not.

  Just as she could do nothing to make herself cease.

  She let the rushing sound of water lead her past the rock and fork in the path where she’d first met him. She paused only a moment to stare down the long trail he’d sent her on, then back at the way she’d walked. The difference between a few minutes, walk and a full day’s journey.

  She laughed, finding humor in it for the first time, and kept on. Her slippers were too thin to make this an easy trek. She slid in soft pine needles and snagged her gown on briars and claw-fingered tree branches. Her hair got loose from its braid and tangled about her face. By the time she pushed into the clearing where a small, bright waterfall fell into a tiny pool, her mouth had gone dry.

  He was there, as Serenity had said, but Annalise didn’t go to him right away. She went to the pond, hardly larger than a puddle, really, and dipped her fingers in the clear water. She drank. She bathed her cheeks and wrists and the back of her neck. She took the time to tidy her hair, though she’d lost the cord with which to bind it and settled for leaving it loose down her back.

  Then she turned to him.

  Cassian had never looked more severe than he did in his high neck and long sleeves, jacket black as despair. Not even the buttons flashed or glinted