Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  He broke apart the bread in his palms and scattered the crumbs on the ground. A blackbird came to snag a bite, then flew away before his hand could reach it, should he have been so foolish as to try. More crumbs. Another bird. By the time the woman had crossed half the distance between them, he’d fed half his loaf to the flock.

  Again, she paused, perhaps taking his measure. And what, exactly, did she see? A man wearing the rough garb of a woodsman, no axe but a worn leather bag at his side. His hair worn too short for fashion. What might she make of his features, the length of his legs and breadth of his shoulders? Would she find him a threat now she could see him closer, or would she take the confidence of her privileged life and continue past him?

  She answered his question in the next few moments when she again lifted her chin and strode forward with steps swift enough to flutter the edges of her cloak.

  Ah. A bit of a fool, then.

  She slowed as she approached, at least showing that bit of caution. Cassian paid her no mind, concentrating instead on uncorking his flask and sipping from it. He didn’t need to see her to know when she came closer. The breeze brought the scent of her, and he muttered something like a curse at the foolishness of a woman who’d travel on her own and tart herself up before doing so. Did she wish to be raped on the roadside?

  “Good day.” Her voice, low and sweet, was tempting enough without the added seduction of her perfume.

  Cassian set his jaw and looked at her. “Good day, mistress.”

  The woman kept her distance as she flicked her gaze over him. Now that she was closer he could see the sheen of sweat on her brow and upper lip, and no wonder, since her cloak, though fine, was sewn of heavy wool and not a fabric more suited for the weather. This interested him. Cassian knew from experience the fluctuation of wealth and how those whose pockets once hung heavy with coin could keep the appearance of all they’d gained even as their coffers gathered dust.

  “It’s warm,” she said.

  Her tongue slipped out to lick at her lips, a gesture a lesser man might’ve taken as invitation. Cassian was no lesser man. He knew the blatant attempts at seduction, and this miss meant none.

  “I’ve been walking a fair distance. Longer than I’d been advised,” the woman said.

  She had pale eyes, the color startling against her dusky skin, beneath dark, shapely brows. He’d wager the hair beneath the hood was dark, too. It would be long and silken. It would be beautiful.

  “The carriageman who left me off told me the Motherhouse was this way,” the woman said when Cassian again made no answer. “A half day’s walk, he said. Yet I’ve been walking since early this morn and seem to grow no closer.”

  “It would seem, then, the length of your stride was overestimated.”

  She seemed as though she meant to laugh but held it back at the last moment. “It would seem so.”

  He watched her gaze follow the path of his flask to his mouth, watched her lips part and her throat work as his did when he swallowed. She would be thirsty, trekking in that heavy cloak, even in the shadows. The distance from the main road to this point was indeed a half day’s journey, made simple when provisioned appropriately. She didn’t seem to have been so.

  A gentleman would have offered her a sip from his flask, but Cassian had long ago been denied the opportunity to become one. He eyed her, wondering if she’d ask him for a taste. Wondering if he’d allow it.

  “I hadn’t expected the day to be so overwarm,” she said.

  “I would guess that, by your cloak. Perhaps you should take it off.”

  Her gaze flashed, but she didn’t retreat. Her jaw tightened for a moment, only. “I can’t.”

  Cassian drank again, slowly and on purpose. Yes, it was a dig, but what person of intellect ever set out on a path of unknown length without appropriate provisions, without the right clothes? The right footwear? She hadn’t been limping, but he bet she wore a pair of pretty silken slippers beneath that gown, not sturdy walking boots. He’d seen enough young women staggering into the yard in half a delirium because the last leg of their journey to the Motherhouse had been so unexpectedly difficult.

  To his surprise, however, the woman in front of him reached into her cloak and pulled out a small linen traveling bag. From within she drew a leather bottle closed tight with a cork. He watched her tip back her head. Watched her throat work as she swallowed. He had to turn his gaze, his mouth tight at the corners.

  He didn’t like that.

  “I’m on my way to the Motherhouse,” she said with lips still glistening.

  Cassian said nothing. He tucked away his flask and stood to brush the now imaginary crumbs from his hands. He no longer felt like walking in the forest.

  “The Order of Solace?” Her voice tipped up on the end of her sentence, quizzical.

  She hadn’t moved out of his way, and unless he pushed past her he’d have to go around the rock to get to the path. He glanced over his shoulder to the thick pad of needles on the ground, the spikes of shadow flowers pushing through. A few measures beyond were the trees growing close together, with just enough distance for a man to slip between.

  “Do you know it?” she persisted.

  He felt the tug of her hand upon his sleeve, and Cassian looked at her, finally. He stared hard at her fingers plucking at his elbow until she took away her hand. Then he looked at her face, her open eyes, her parted lips.

  “I know it,” he said.

  The woman’s expression tightened, her mouth pursing, brows furrowing. She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. Oh yes, this one was used to having her way.

  “Could you tell me which direction I should choose?” She pointed ahead to the place where the path split.

  “I could.”

  The forest would never be silent. Always, the wind would rustle branches, birds would sing, and animals would rattle in the undergrowth. The waterfall hidden in the trees behind him would rush and pound the stones below. But now, with this woman staring at him, a wave of silence swelled between them. It broke upon the hiss of her indrawn breath, and he imagined the sound of her lashes fluttering—surely he couldn’t hear such a noise, though they be long and lush, seeming even to brush her cheeks as she looked down.

  When she spoke, her voice was light but low. She looked him in the eyes, then, no shy cutting of the glance or false demureness. “Will you tell me the direction?”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked such a question, and it was not the first time he’d given such an answer. “Certainly, mistress. The path you seek is just ahead, to the left. Follow, and it will take you where you need to go.”

  She narrowed her eyes and looked him over. Cassian had been observed, watched, spied upon, and giggled over. He’d never been so studied.

  At last, she inclined her head. “I thank you.”

  He watched her set off down the path with a sure and steady step. She looked neither to the right nor left, but straight ahead. She didn’t even look back at him, and Cassian, for the first time, found himself wishing he’d given a different answer.

  For the first time in the many he’d been asked, he wished he’d told the truth.

  Damn him to the Void.” Annalise muttered the invective as she plucked yet another piece of straw from her hair. “Damn him and all his spawn.”

  It was uncharitable, to say the least. Certainly not in keeping with the image she was set on portraying, that of the demure and spiritual Seeker. A Handmaiden.

  Did Handmaidens curse?

  He’d lied to her, the bastard. May the Invisible Mother turn her back on him. May the Holy Family bar him from the Land Above. May he rot in the Void for eternity—

  “Mistress?”

  Annalise, scowling, turned to face the small, round woman who’d lent her a place on the stable floor. That the stalls hadn’t seen a horse for a long time hadn’t made her night any more palatable. The wood had been hard, the straw musty and not thick enough to cushion her, yet invasive enough to penet