Page 57 of Fate's Wicked Oath

Son?Bard mouthed at me.

Our father was a congenial man, but his amiability toward a Mighty Knight was…unexpected. What had they talked about in the barn last night?

Hoping to curb any additional teasing, I elbowed Bard in the ribs.

“It’s a great kindness, you taking them in,” Faren said, delivering breakfast to me and my brother, next.

The plates were piled with my mother’s bread and butter, overcooked bacon (my favorite), and roasted vegetables. As a touch magician, my favorite part of being home was the physical comfort—but the food was a close second. I immediately shoved a slice of bacon into my mouth, crunching down on the crisp fat.

“We are grateful to have the means to help other homesteaders,” my mother said, settling into the chair opposite my father’s.

“Besides,” my father added, “we rarely use the old house.”

Bypassing any proper seating, Faren lowered himself to the floor on the other side of Bard with a metallic clatter. “The old house?”

“It’s a guest cottage, now,” my mother explained, “but it used to be the main house, before we built this.”

Faren glanced over his shoulder, out the window, in the direction of my childhood home. Standing just on the other side of the herb garden, the two-room structure appeared shabbyand small. “And here I was imagining a young Mariana toddling across these floors,” Faren said.

“It’s because of Mariana that we were able to build this,” my mother said, not realizing what she’d just divulged to the Mighty Knight.

That the rug upon which we sat, the floorboards underneath, rested upon a foundation built by the Maiden Morta Killer. That my parents’ comfort had been bought by incentives paid out by the Lord. My parents knew that my compliance was periodically rewarded—buthowI earned their security remained a mystery to them, a requirement of my grim charge.

“It’s because of Mariana that we’re still here at all,” my father added around a bite of bread.

Faren’s realization rested heavily upon me. Not interested in his pity, I concerned myself with rearranging the vegetables on my plate.

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Faren said after a moment.

I could feel his gaze on me, holding firm, but I refused to look up—not just because the conversation made me feel exposed, but because the last thing I needed was for my mother to catch us making eye contact after he’d just complimented me.

“Do you live here full time?” Faren asked Bard, mercifully moving on.

My brother nodded around a big bite of vegetables. “With my wife and son.”

“It’s a blessing having them here,” my mother said.

“A blessing to my back,” my father put in. “I can’t handle farm work like I used to.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Bard said.

Sometimes I forgot that my brother was a grown man and not the imp he once was. I poked his leg, and he poked me back, and I ignored how Faren observed the exchange. My familywere the only ones with whom I felt comfortable being touched, not just because I trusted them, but because they knewhow: firm contact, no lingering. Now that Faren knew I was a touch magician, him witnessing my physical exchanges felt like letting him in on a secret of some kind. A new piece of myself he wasn’t supposed to see.

“Mariana also mentioned a sister,” Faren went on. “Rosie. Does she live here, too?”

“She married a nice Lothgaimian man,” my mother said. “She lives there, now.”

Faren’s eyes lit up. “Whereabouts?”

“Henborrow.”

Faren clapped his hands. “My family estate is not far from there. Beautiful countryside.”

“I thought I heard a Lothgaimian lilt to your voice.” My mother cast me a meaningful glance, as if to say,You, too, could marry a nice Lothgaimian man.

I wedged a massive bite of bread into my mouth.

“What brought you to Fenrir?” my father asked.