City of Dragons

“Then send word of that to the Bingtown Council. Renounce him. He broke his promises to you. The contract is void.”

She sighed. This was another conversation they’d had before. “You just chided me for wanting to pretend I was dead, saying it would hurt my family. Well, I don’t see a way to force Hest to release me without hurting an even wider circle of people. I can say he was unfaithful, but I don’t have witnesses who will stand up and confirm that. I can’t ask Sedric to come forward, not with the shame it would bring on his family! He is building something new here, just as I am. I don’t want to drag him away from Carson and back to Bingtown, to make him a source of scandal and cruel jokes. Hest would simply call him a liar, and I know that he could find plenty of his friends who would swear he spoke the truth, no matter what he said.”

She took a breath and added, “It would ruin my family socially. Not that we have much stature in Bingtown. And I would have to stand before the Bingtown Council and admit that I had been a fool, not just in marrying Hest but in staying with him all those wasted years . . .”

Her voice trailed away. Sick shame rose up and engulfed her. Every time she thought she had set it all behind her, the issue of how Hest still bound her would bring this back. For years she had wondered why he treated her so poorly. She had humiliated herself trying to gain his attention. All she had won was his contempt for her efforts. It was only when she had left Bingtown to pursue a brief interlude of study of her beloved dragons in the Rain Wilds that she had discovered the truth about her husband. He had never cared for her at all. The marriage had been a ruse to mask his true preferences. Sedric, her childhood friend and her husband’s assistant, had been far more than a secretary and valet to him.

And all Hest’s friends had known.

Her guts tightened and her throat closed up. How could she have been so blind, so stupid? So ignorant, so blissfully naive? How could she have gone for years without questioning his odd behavior in the marital bed, lived with his sharp little gibes and social neglect? She had no answers for those questions except that she had been stupid. Stupid, stupid, stu—

“Stop that!” Leftrin took her arm and gently shook it. He shook his head at her as well. “I hate to see you go off like that. Your eyes narrow and you grit your teeth, and I know just what is running through that head of yours. Stop blaming yourself. Someone deceived you and hurt you. You don’t need to take on the burden of that. That man who committed the offense is at fault, not the person he wronged.”

She sighed, but the weight inside her remained. “You know what they say, Leftrin. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well, he fooled me a thousand times, and I don’t doubt that many in his audience enjoyed it. I don’t ever want to go back to Bingtown. Never. I never want to look at anyone I knew there and wonder who knew I was a fool and didn’t tell me.”

“Enough,” Leftrin said abruptly, but his voice was gentle. “The light is going out of the day. And I feel a more serious storm rising. It’s time we went back to our side of the river.”

Alise glanced outside. “I don’t want to be caught on this side after dark,” she agreed. She looked at him directly and waited for him to add something, but he was silent. She said no more. There were times when she realized that as close as they were, he was still a Rain Wilder while she had grown up in Bingtown. There were some things he didn’t talk about. But this was something, she abruptly decided, that could not remain undiscussed. She cleared her throat and said, “The voices seem to get louder as we get closer to night.”

Leftrin met her gaze. “They do.” He went to the door and looked out as if scouting for danger. That simple measure sent a chill up her back. Had he expected to see something? Someone? He spoke quietly. “It’s the same in some parts of Trehaug and Cassarick. The buried ruins, I mean, not the treetop cities. But it’s not the dark that brings them out. I think it’s when you’re alone or feel alone. One becomes more susceptible. It’s stronger in Kelsingra than I’ve ever before sensed it. But it’s not as bad in this part of town where simple folk lived. In the parts of the city where the buildings are grand and the streets so wide, I hear the whispers almost all the time. Not loud, but constant. The best thing to do is ignore them. Don’t let your mind focus on them.”

He looked back over his shoulder at her, and she had the feeling she had learned as much as she wanted to know, for now. There was more he could tell her; she sensed that, but she would save her questions for when they were warming themselves by a cozy fire in a well-lit room. Not here, in a cold city with the shadows gathering.