Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
I fret over my husband. I fret over my friends. I fret over Father and the hold. Father loves to feast and carouse and attend parties. What he doesn’t love is the actual day-to-day minutiae that comes with tending to a hold. He doesn’t think he should have to worry over debts or bills or purchasing artifacts.
He’ll be completely clueless about the attack until it’s too late.
Can I send a message somehow? Do I worry him knowing that there’s no money to pay additional knights anyhow? That there are no artifacts to defend the hold should Barnabus continue with this takeover?
I worry that saying nothing is the wrong choice. The selfish choice.
Because if I say something, it will almost certainly be traced back to me. Is it better to try to influence things here? To possibly offer up the promise of funds—or some other sort of compensation—if anything is found? The fact that Barnabus is throwing money at the guild means that his father is low on useful artifacts…or isn’t supporting Barnabus in this particular venture. If no one finds anything useful, will he give up?
I wonder if Hawk is going to miss me while I’m gone.
Things haven’t been cozy between us since that night in the alley. I still throb with arousal every time I think about it and how he’d held me. How he’d pounded between my thighs…and then pushed me away. It’s been days and we’ve been cordial during training, but bed has been lonely. He either doesn’t come to bed or doesn’t speak to me.
I feel like I’ve lost something precious, and it hurts. The bed feels cold without him, and entirely not right. It’s strange to be in his quarters without him, and even though Squeaker loves to sprawl on Hawk’s side of the bed and rub her orange fur all over his pillows, I still find the bed strange when it’s just me.
After our interlude in the streets, he didn’t come to bed that night. Said he had work to do. Since then, it’s been a round of excuses in private. He’s made it clear that no one else needs to know we’re having problems, but each time he leaves me alone to go “on patrol” or to check gear, my heart aches.
And like every other night in which he isn’t in bed, I barely sleep.
I’m regretting it now. I should be full of enthusiasm and excitement this morning, and instead I’m dragging behind the others in my Five as we crowd into the guild hall behind Magpie. There’s something about her that seems a little off this morning. It’s hard to describe—like the hard edges have been softened. There’s something almost lackadaisical about her demeanor, and it’s puzzling.
She yawns as we wait in line. “Not too much longer and then we’ll get going.”
“Somehow when I thought of wild adventure and tunnel crawling, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” Gwenna tells me as we shuffle forward in line.
I have to admit that she’s right. The reality is far more…bureaucratic.
We’re standing in line in the guild hall along with a dozen other fledgling teams, waiting to be recorded in the logbooks. We have to request which tunnel we’ll be heading into and we’ll be assigned a series of colored, numbered flags to denote where we’re excavating.
“It’s to ensure teams don’t tunnel on top of one another,” Magpie had explained as we got in line. “And to avoid tunnel collapses if too many people are working the same area. Also, if we tell the guild where we’re digging, it makes it easier for them to rescue us if something goes wrong.”
“What could go wrong?” Mereden had asked.
Magpie had just laughed in her face.
So…that didn’t give us a ton of confidence. I glance over at Mereden. She’s near the front of the line, standing behind Magpie, her pack on her back. Her tight black curls are covered in a festive head wrap, and as I watch, one of the men from the next line over reaches out and tugs on the jaunty bow over her ear.
She turns, glaring.
“I don’t think this cap is guild standard, fledgling,” the man sneers.
“Who are you, the guild uniform monitor?” Lark immediately comes to Mereden’s defense. “Leave her alone.”
“Bold of you to wear that at a guild event when you’re trying to be taken seriously,” the man says, flicking at her bow again.
Mereden blinks rapidly, her lips pressed together, and she looks as if she might cry.
“They’re not trying to be taken seriously,” jeers another. “Everyone knows they’re trying to fuck their way into guild membership.” He turns toward me and gestures. “Just like that one did.”
Ouch. But…he’s not wrong. Isn’t that what I’m doing? I married my teacher just to have a chaperone.
As Lark argues with the team in line next to us, I scan the room for my husband. Hawk didn’t come to bed last night, and he wasn’t at breakfast this morning, nor did he show when we packed our things. It’s almost as if he’s avoiding me, though Magpie didn’t seem concerned.