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“Sorry. This is all new to me. I... I was just curious about your own experience.”
After a long narrowing of their eyes, they continued walking. “I was, yes.”
“Really?”
“You must stop sounding so surprised, girl. But, well, I will admit it was rather a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“The usual, I suppose,” she said, looking wistfully over the gently lapping brine. “Not long after I moved here, I fell for a young Ardoran.”
“Was he a good man?”
“Better than he knew,” she said, with a faint softening of her eyes. “That was part of his appeal. The whole thing was a whirlwind, of course. But you’d know all about that?”
She gave a demure look. The lying was becoming easier with each passing day. She hardly even needed to remember to act like a young lover anymore—to blush at the sight of Calix and steal kisses in full view, acting like she hoped no one had seen them.
She was quite certain that Ms. Securia suspected nothing about her intentions with Calix. She was quite certain that no one suspected anything.
“So what happened?” Teigra asked as the grass-lined path gave way to the horse-print pocketed streets of the city.
“What always happens: circumstance. He was from a good family. And though he and I were terribly fond of each other, the Third Dynosian War broke out just a few months into our secret courtship. The whole place suddenly became far more parochial. Mestibes was a friendly nation during the Third, but still, those few that knew of our interactions began asking why the boy would choose a foreigner over his own countrywoman.”
“But you loved each other?”
“We did.”
“I’d have thought that here, of all places, that would count for something?”
Securia gave a hollow laugh. “Something you will learn, Ms. Cosmin, is that the higher in society you travel, the more one talks about beliefs, and the less one actually lives them. I did absolutely everything I could. But it wasn’t enough. He was forced to start courting a local girl as well. And in the end, she prevailed.”
“Absolutely everything?” asked Teigra, her eyes bulging. “Surely you don’t mean... you visited the Great Grove?”
Ms. Securia gave a long look to a hanging arbor of white roses, only a few streets from the Temple of Mesti now. “I did.”
“And you picked an eternal rose?”
Another pause, the longest one yet. “I did.”
Teigra suppressed her gasp. “What... what happened?”
They came to a stop just outside the temple. Muffled by the closed door, there came the unexpected sound of hammering. “It matters not what the outcome was, Teigra. The important thing is that I paid my devotion to the Five as best I could. That is what Mestibes has always done. And what we must continue to do.”
Ms. Securia entered the temple before she could ask any further questions. But Teigra didn’t need to hear her say it out loud. She already knew the answer.
It suddenly made so much sense.
Why she seemed so cold all the time.
Her rose had withered. Ms. Securia had put herself on the line. Plucked the rose to show her love. And it had withered, all because of the man’s indecision. And since that time, she’d been cursed to never know true love again.
After a moment’s reflection, she followed her inside.
Securia was at the back of the hall now, thumbing a codex from the large shelves, all the while cocking an eyebrow toward the stonemason’s station. There, a figure sat in front of a mangled block of marble that vaguely resembled a face. A hammer and chisel were held inexpertly in their hands. They were so covered in stone dust, it took a second to realize who it was.
“Jaspar?”
“Oh, hello!” he said, bright enough to light the gloom. “Fancy seeing you here!”
