Rosemary Thorne's Arc

Chapter 17 of 24

The letter arrived at the inn on Wednesday. The innkeeper's boy brought it up the path at dusk, black wax on the seal, Damien's true name written in a shaking hand. Rosemary took it at the gate. She paid the boy a coin and told him not to speak of it. He ran back down the path before she closed her fingers on the paper. She stood in the garden with it. Damien was inside washing the carter's dust off his arms. Through the window she could see the shape of his shoulders bent over the basin. Four days to Sunday. One letter could unmake all of it. She thought about the stove. She thought about how easy it would be to feed the black seal to the fire and never say the word father in this house. She thought about lying beside him for years with that ash in her mouth. She went inside and set the letter on the table. "This came for you." Damien turned. He saw the seal. His hands went still in the towel. He sat down slowly. He did not open it. He read the front, then the back, then the front again. The scar on his palm caught the lamp. "He's dying," he said. "I know." "You could have burned it." "I almost did." He broke the wax. He read. His jaw worked once. He folded the paper along its creases and set it beside his cup. He did not cry. He looked at the door as if someone he half-remembered stood on the other side. Rosemary sat across from him. Her hands were cold. The witch who had made him a vessel was two months in the ground, and still Rosemary felt like she was pulling him out of another woman's grip. "Damien." She waited until he looked at her. "Is this the life you want?" He didn't answer fast. She was glad of it. A fast answer would have been a lie. "My father sent a steward to drag me home," he said. "He sent Morgana before that, to make me useful past dying. He is sending this letter now because the other two failed." He touched the folded paper with one finger. "He wants a son who signs papers. I am hauling grain for a man with a broken wrist. I sleep on your floor. I am going to stand in a church on Sunday and say your name." "That isn't an answer." "Yes," he said. "This. This is what I want." She breathed out. She hadn't known she was holding it. "I won't write back," he said. "You should." He looked up. "Not to go," she said. "To say goodbye. So it's yours, not his." He nodded. He pulled paper toward him. He wrote three lines and signed a name that was no longer safe to say aloud. He sealed it with candle wax. He set it beside the plate for morning. The letter would go. He would stay.