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Twenty years ago, a plague reached the village that became Nivallia. I’d promised myself I’d stay hidden and never interfere with the people above me. I watched them fall sick. I watched them carry their children into the old hall and beg any god who was listening. I couldn’t let them die. I went into the acoustic chamber under the auditorium and sang Healing through the old passages until every sick person in the village had recovered. Not one of them died.

I don’t regret saving them.

I look at her while she reads it. She does so with her whole attention and no hardness anywhere in her, which is how she told me her own story the day we met. I know that when she reads the next page, that look will be gone, but I write it anyway. Because the only thing left that I can give her is the whole of it.

I sang for too long. They were healthy and strong for a while, then they felt weak, frightened, and in pain. I sang again to relieve them. Each time I did, I made the dependence stronger. They learned I was here. They began to worship me. They built the city around my voice, and I kept singing to them for years because I couldn’t stand their suffering. I understood what I was doing to them the whole time. I did it anyway.

She stops reading before the end. I see her eyes stop on the page and stay there for a few beats before continuing.

Six months ago, I stopped. I believe that if I refuse long enough, the dependence will break. They’re miserable. I watch them from the ruins, and I’ve seen no sign that the withdrawal is killing them. It’s why the letters beg for Mercies. It’s why Callum believed a gift might bring me back to singing. I understand his desperation, because I’m the cause of it. That doesn’t excuse what he did to you.

Aveline is done reading, but I know it isn’t over. Because I haven’t yet confessed to the reason why I’ve been keeping these things from her.

She steps back and moves away from me toward her bedroom door. She stops with her back against the wall beside it.

“He bought me for you, as a sacrifice, so you’d sing,” she says. “I understand that.” Her voice is louder than she means it to be. This time, she doesn’t correct it. “You told me to trust you. But you’re keeping me here, aren’t you? You’ve accepted the sacrifice.”

I don’t move my hands, and she goes on without waiting for me to decide what to sign.

“You could’ve told me from the beginning. I would’ve understood. I know… I know that I’m broken, and I can’t expect anything from anyone. Callum knew it too when he saw me at the bride market. He was the only one who raised his paddle. He bought the woman that no one wanted.”

Her eyes go past me toward the door that leads to the library, the music room, and the padded room where we sing together. Then she looks at her own hands.

“You healed my burns,” she says. “Every one of them. Face and body.” She lifts her gaze and looks straight at my mask, at the grille that covers my mouth. “Tell me the truth now. Does this mean you can also heal my deafness?”

I can hear the fire burning in the hearth, the water lapping at the dock outside, and her irregular breathing as she waits for my answer.

“You told me you tried,” she says. “You told me you tried twice and it was beyond you. Was that a lie?”

I could sign it in one motion. Yes is one motion, and no is one motion.

“Did you lie to me?” she asks again, her voice so low now that it sounds feeble.

I go down onto my knees in front of her. I curve my back so low that she has to look down to see my hands. I raise them into the firelight. They’re shaking.

“Forgive me,” I sign.

“Please tell me the truth, Mordred.”

“Let me explain, Aveline.”

Chapter Fourteen

Aveline

Mordred is on his knees before me, and it’s not even the first time. I push away from the wall. He keeps his hands up in the firelight, shaking, held where I can read them. I step over his pages and the scattered letters, cross to my chair by the hearth and sit. The velvet is worn through at the arms.

“I’ll listen,” I say. “But I don’t know if I can believe you anymore. You lied to me about the one thing that mattered most, so I don’t know if I can trust anything you say now.”

He turns toward me and looks up at me, though his head is still slightly bowed.

“Let’s try again,” I say. “Can you heal my deafness?”

“Yes,” he signs.

My breath catches.

“Then why didn’t you?”