Page 7 of The Duke and the Disciple

She strained to recall the conversation from earlier that day, when she’d gleefully bedecked herself in costume, secretly hoping to be caught. She and Tasmin had been talking about the rising pressure from some families to put an end to the long-standing Vuk od Varem, which had always been controversial, from the very first season the Vjestik had settled into the village, centuries past. They were tired of losing their sons to wulves every year, just for the chance to safely hunt the forests for a season. It had been almost two hundred years since the accord with the wulves had been made, and it was time for a new one, a new way, they said. Drazhan’s own son, Aleksy, would probably one day face a wulf, and the odds were no more in his favor than any who had come before—even if Drazhan himself had bested the wulf when it had been his season.

Aesylt had no intention of having children of her own, because she refused to offer even more to such a taking forest.

Her breath hitched.

Val.

Val was this year’s chosen son.

The one she prayed and prayed would buck the overwhelming odds and win... but was more likely to lose, like most sons of the Cross.

No matter how heroic the sacrifice, Drazhan could never know Valerian was the reason his little sister was stuck in the bows of a towering timber in the middle of the night, or he’d have his testicles for breakfast.

Soft snow dusted her face. She swatted her cheeks, but a soothing voice told her to relax, that everything was fine.

Scholar Tindahl.

Could it be that he wasreallyat the top of a pine tree with her?

Surely she was dreaming.

If your wulf catches you, it won’t matter if he does nothing, Aesylt. Everyone will assume he’s done whatever he wants. And then I’ll have to kill him, right? So don’t get caught.

Later, Tasmin had accused her of wanting to get caught. She wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t for the reason her friend supposed. The past decade Aesylt had thrown herself into crisis after crisis, hoping to feelsomething.

Rahn. Duke Rahn Tindahl was the one cradling her in his arms. The scholar who had reignited her life when he’d come to Witchwood Cross—the man who had said she was inimitable as the stars in their interminable sky.

I know how these traditions must seem to you, Scholar, coming from royalty as you do. Like we’re savages.

Rahn had set down the quill, removed his spectacles, and met her eyes. He always gave her his full attention.I don’t think you’re savages.

Then you’ll come?

I have so much work to do. But I promise to try, Aesylt.

She’d started the chase so full of excitement. There’d only been the briefest hesitation at the start, when the horn had blasted. Her wulf had placed a hand—Rahn’s hand, though she hadn’t known it then—between her shoulders to stir her from her daze, and she’d bolted, ready for anything the night had to offer.

Ready for the freedom Drazhan seemed determined for her never to have.

The last clear memory she had before losing her footing was of the foothills of the Northern Range, how they colored the tops of the trees like one continuous painting, stretching higher until they joined with Icebolt Mountain in the Northeast. Behind her, Fanghelm Keep had loomed high on the cloudy horizon, but she’d been looking ahead, not back. If she’d been lookingsideways,she wouldn’t be stuck in a tree.

In the distance, a horn sounded.

The Dyvareh was officially over.

“When we don’t return, they’ll come looking,” Rahn said, more to reassure himself, it seemed. Had he really climbed atreeto save her? The tenderhearted, studious duke who had come to Witchwood Cross to learn and teach, and had given her purpose?

She should tell him her ankle was broken. It had happened when she’d landed, and if she hadn’t managed to catch hold of a firm branch on her way down, she’d have broken everything else too. Even the thought of putting weight on her foot sent her stomach churning. She was too tired to shift into the celestial realm and heal herself—and too scared the return might somehow create instability in their little haven of branches—so she’d have to wait to address it. Once she was safe, she’d have to let the vedhmas heal it up for her, or Drazhan would know she was still starwalking when she’d promised not to.

For all Rahn Tindahl had taught her, she knew so little about him. He was one of the handful of people in the kingdom who had come from Ilynglass,the mythical land beyond their kingdom no one had ever been capable of traveling to. His family had perished in the same shipwrecks that had eradicated most of the Duncarrow refugees, and he, only a little boy, had been taken in by Duchess Teleria Farrestell, a young widow who had lost her husband and infant in the same disaster. The king and his court hadn’t known what to do with the child duke, the sole heir to House Tindahl, so they’d given him the task of teaching the children born on Duncarrow.

Whatever had happened over the next two decades was a mystery. Evenwhyhe’d left the royal isle was unclear, only that he’d shown up in the Cross one day, unannounced, and decided to stay.

He never called himself a teacher in their small learning cohort, and he disliked the termstudentfor his research assistants.We’re all equals in this endeavor,he would say, though everyone but him seemed to know how untrue it was.

Rahn Tindahl was a god among men, even if he didn’t know it.

“A god,” she muttered, rolling her face along the warmth of?—

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