Page 13 of These Immortal Truths
He hesitates long enough for her to feel suspicious, but answers before she can ask again. “It helps to ensure your safety.”
It feels like only a partial truth. Anna fidgets, turning the ring around her finger thoughtfully. “I wasn’t aware I was in danger.”
“You won’t be, so long as you keep it on.” His brows rise. “Do we have an understanding?”
There’s more questions burning in her chest, but his patience seems to be thinner than the strength of her resolve. She nods.
“Good.” He tips his chin toward the cottage. “If there’s anything of value to you, I suggest you grab it now. It’s unlikely you’ll find this place again.”
It sounds like both a promise and a threat.
Anna doesn’t ask where they’re going. She’s not sure she cares.
She follows him regardless.
He is as quiet as she remembers him. There’s an anxious humming in her bones, a crawling under her skin, at the thought ofstarting a new life when the one she just left behind felt so safe. It was lonely, but it was comfortable in ways she knew would continue to feed and warm her for years to come.
By the second day, she’s so eager to break the silence even if she isn’t entirely sure she wants the answer. “Where are we going?”
His pace doesn’t falter. Anna wonders how long he must have been waiting for her to ask. “The other side of the country.” His gaze slides to meet hers. “Sometimes a change of scenery is helpful.”
Anna frowns, thinking of the old maps Eira kept stashed beneath the bed before she left. She never bothered to study them closely, so preoccupied with other things, but now she wishes she had. She doesn’t have the knowledge to discern how long a journey he’s suggesting. “How long?”
His shoulders shrug. “I haven’t the slightest idea. Traveling by foot is a relatively new experience for me. It’s much slower than I anticipated.”
Anna eyes the expensive looking fabric donning his sleeves, the rings glittering on his fingers. She’s not entirely surprised by his confession.
“There’s a small town I’ve visited recently—they’re lacking a midwife.” He pauses, head tilting as if considering. “There may also be a position for a cook’s servant. But between us, I believe that may not be worthy of your skills. Eira doesn’t particularly like confiding anything to me, but she was impressed with your abilities.”
The pain in her chest is lancing. “I asked for her to take me with her.”
For the first time since setting out that morning, his steps pause and he turns to her fully. Brow furrowed, he seems to stare into her—weighing her expression. “You’re hurt that she didn’t.”
A statement, not a question. Anna flushes, embarrassed to have been read so easily. “I could have helped.”
“I’m sure you could have.” He says it softly, with mercy. “But Eira doesn’t need help.”
Anna knows this—of course she knows—but the truth of it still hurts. It’s a wound over her heart, open and raw, and the longer shecarries it the more it festers. “Ineeded it,” she snaps. “She was the first one since—”
Since before pale patterns began ghosting across her skin. Since before she was abandoned to the wilds and blamed for everyone else’s hunger.
Her arms cross over her stomach, hands clenching at her covered arms, and looks away. “They won’t accept me.”
He doesn’t understand. How can he? He is a god among men, changing the face he wears with little more than a thought and changing people’s perception with it. He is the seductress, the soldier, the nobleman. He can pose as anyone, lie with a look, and slip through the world without consequence. Just a twist of magic, and he’s someone else.
And Anna is stuck living as herself. Alone.
Khiran is staring down at her, a statue among a moving landscape. Wind is whispering through the trees, rustling the fields; sounds she hadn’t noticed until his answering silence amplified them.
There’s something growing in his eyes, blue breathing into the brown of his irises. Then his head tilts, and the tall, muscular form he wears shivers and fades until Anna is looking directly into a mirrored reflection of herself.
Gasping, she staggers back. Her pulse is drumming in her ears, chest so tight it feels like every beat is forced. Strangled. Khiran is wearing her face, her clothes, down to the stubborn piece of chestnut hair that’s escaped her braid and the ring encircling her finger.
Her copy’s eyebrows rise. “What do you see?”
It feels like a trick question. Anna stares back at him—at herself—and it’s so disconcerting to see her wild-eyed expression reflected in those cool hazel eyes that match her own. She swallows the lump in her throat, lets her eyes travel over the reflection of her face. “Myself,” she answers, a trembling whisper on her breath. It feels like the wrong answer even as she says it. “I see myself.”
Khiran steps toward her, a picture of a calm confidence Anna has never felt in her life. “What else?”
