![]() ![]() The pen suddenly feels clumsy in her fingers, and she lowers it. The echo of her horror rings through her, and she remembers Nimalia’s eyes, wide with shock. Ink smudges black up the side of her hand, the mark almost soothing in its familiarity. She’d kept a mental tally of things to write, at first, so the words come quickly. She curls up on the floor against the wall: a habit from the orphanage that neither the tutors Lord Denarius employed nor the army had ever managed to break her of. ![]() On unsteady legs, she moves to put her bag on the furthest bed, pulls her journal from her belt and her pen from her pocket. Whatever else has happened, no matter how stupid or trivial it suddenly seems, she has notes to take. A sort of hollow buzzing fills her chest, her mind at once sharp and scattered, empty and overwhelmed. Now, though, her feelings are nowhere to be found, even as she reaches for them. Even at the door of the tavern, she’d felt so fragile that she couldn’t bear another moment of Borakov’s obvious concern- even as the weight of what she needs to tell him, soon, is its own burden. When she’d seen Ivan on the church steps, she’d pushed the feelings down along with her tears, and the whole way to the tavern, they’d threatened to surge back up and overwhelm her. She pulls off the eyepatch, blinking to adjust. The pattern of it seems to swim in her vision as Theodora slumps back against the door, knees suddenly weak. She finds the door to their room unlocked, and shuts it behind her quickly, the laughter and clamor of the tavern dulling to a murmur.Ī lantern on a small table by the door is the only light in the room, illuminating four small beds and peeling damask wallpaper. ![]() The confusion and anguish tangled between her and Borakov and the old half-elf woman at Anamaria’s house is too much for Theodora to touch, to even think about, not yet. Theodora doesn’t have it in her to speak to Nimalia, so it’s a mercy that the she-elf doesn’t stop her as she passes. ![]()
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