Hearts Return - Prolog - Dark Heart 1

He’s angry. I can tell.

That slight twitch of his fingers, as if he’s reaching for a knife: a knife to cut, a knife to flay. I lower my eyes again, stare at the floor, listen to the click-slap of his pacing boots: precise, furious, controlled.

“Up the privy?” he echoes.

I keep my head bowed. “Yes, sir, that’s what she said. And that he promised to be back, with that boy of hers from Bree.”

Sallastin scoffs, a quick exhalation of breath through thin nostrils. “Not likely. I’ve seen to the boy. He’ll be behind bars by now, right where I want him... the young fool, touching what is mine.” The pacing resumes, more deliberate now, calculating. “But this uncle…”

I risk an upward glance. “She told me how to recognize him, sir. I could point him out, in the village, to your guards.”

He waves this away, distracted. “No. Inelegant. What if he has accomplices? Or a witness asks inconvenient questions? No, no…” He’s talking to himself now, not to me; I keep still. When he gets like this, lost in thought, he lets things slip. A word here, a word there. I remember it all.

“Those fools in Bree. Must have let themselves get followed,” he muses. His fingers twitch again, the knife. “But yes… why not? Let it play out. Why chase a rat who will stick its own head into the trap? He’ll walk right to me.” He rounds, suddenly, as if recalling my presence. “You did well, getting her to trust you.”

I don’t let triumph show on my face, though I feel it. Praise from Sallastin is rare, very rare. He must be more shaken than he’s letting on. He hates it when his schemes don’t go like clockwork, when they don’t match the precise lines of his mind.

Men, even this one, cannot bend. Women, though, we know. Know how to sink under the blows, bear the violations... and then rise, when no one is looking, and take our stand.

Memory surges: for a moment I see again the bulging eyes, feel again warm blood pumping over my hands. Oh yes, we return. We return.

Sallastin is still speaking. “So keep playing along. Meet this shit-smeared uncle. Be their go-between.” A smile curves his full lips now, and I shiver in anticipation. He wears that same expression right before he reaches for the knife or lash beside the bed. I shiver again, a brief tremble in my belly, and lower.

“And when you speak with him” – Sallastin’s voice goes silk-smooth – “tell him this is how to rescue her…”