Selfish is the Heart Read Free Page A

By the Arrow, Jacquin, we are to be married in a month’s time. I know what you do in your own time before we are wed is of your own account, but . . .” Annalise swallowed hard.
    “I plead your mercy. Truly, Annalise.”
    Jacquin came from Alyria, where it had long been known that men who preferred the company of their own sex were freer with their public affections than was the case in some other places. Here in Evadia such intimacies were rather less accepted, at least in public. Though anything a man and a woman could get up to seemed entirely allowed, no matter how decadent, Annalise thought with bare-boned scorn as she remembered a couple she’d seen standing by the fountain. The woman wore a golden choker that would have looked like nothing more than expensive jewelry if not for the slim leash of golden chain attaching it to the bracelet of the man beside her. It had been difficult to tell if the length allowed either of them sufficient room to move apart or if they always need stay at each others’ elbows.
    Annalise shuddered at the thought of it.
    She sighed and leaned against the shelves, her appetite fled. She’d accepted Jacquin’s troth a year ago, just a sevenday after Allorisa had taken Denver’s. Annalise enjoyed the privileges of maidenhood and yet grew weary of being her father’s chattel. Trading that in for the position of wife seemed a pleasant enough arrangement. And she’d known Jacquin for near her entire life, after all.
    She knew him.
    “Hush, love, don’t cry.” Jacquin pressed a thumb to her cheek and took it away glistening with her tear. “Please. I swear to you the lad approached me. In a moment of weakness I allowed him to pull me inside—I never meant to do more than speak with him about why I must needs refuse his offer.”
    Annalise captured Jacquin’s hand between hers and kissed his knuckles gently before releasing it. “Sweetheart, I know that.”
    He startled and pulled his hand from hers. “Do you?”
    “Think you I could know so well the color of your eyes, your favorite dessert, the way you cheat at cards, and yet not also know the other truths of you?”
    “I think you don’t know as much truth as you think.”
    “Jacquin, will you be happy?”
    It was not the place to ask such a question, there amongst the bags of flour and crocks of jams and butters. Perhaps there was no good place to ask. Jacquin answered, anyway.
    “I would do my best to try.”
    Annalise sighed and ran a fingertip along the shelf, which gave up only the finest hint of dust. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. “As would I. But would it be enough?”
    Jacquin tilted his head to look her up and down. He stepped back. “What exactly are you saying?”
    She had to strain her ears to hear even a hint of the merriment outside and maybe even that was her imagination. Outside in the garden, her sister danced with her new husband. In nine months time or close to it, Annalise guessed, her sister’s belly would swell with that man’s child, giving him an heir and Allorisa a reason to occupy her time with somewhat other than herself. Outside in the garden, guests ate and drank her parents’ hospitality, provided by their new son’s coin.
    And all of that would be hers in a few short weeks. The rest of her life would stretch out in front of her—marriage. Motherhood. A pleasant home of her own and a husband who would do his best to make her happy but would never love her the way she desired, no matter how he was able to force himself toward it. She’d been able to overlook all of this before, but today, now, seeing the joy on her sister’s face and knowing it would never be hers struck something deep inside her.
    “Jacquin,” Annalise said. “I cannot marry you.”

Chapter 2
    S triking Serpent. Biting Dog. Leaping Monki.
    Cassian Toquin moved through the forms of the Art with practiced discipline and ended with his feet together, hands tight-pressed palm to palm, fingers