Page 115 of Forged in Flame and Shadow

“Smart,” I say.

He glares at me but turns back to Esther. When he speaks again, his voice is ruthlessly controlled.

“I’ve told you people I’ll have nothing to do with you. Not after what you did to Marina.” I blink in surprise. His control broke on that last word, and there was so much pain in the way he said the name—a deep, raw hurt. It’s like someone’s taken a piece out of him and left a gaping hole I couldn’t see before. It unsettles me.

“We didn’t do anything to her,” Esther snaps. “It was the Temple that slit her throat, not us.”

“You’re the ones who put her in that room, trying to get answers. You’re the ones with her blood on your hands.” Wadestaff rounds on the rebels. The shadows are climbing the walls now, swallowing up the purple wallpaper.

“Marina was the informant you told me about before,” Ana says in a tone of realization. Ah yes, she’d said Harman had had a spy in Hallowbane who was murdered by the Temple. But I don’t recall any mention of the woman being someone close to Wadestaff.

“Yes,” Esther continues. “And she was a brilliant asset. We were all devastated to hear what happened.”

“She was more than anasset,” Corrin spits. “She was everything. Don’t talk to me about devastation. You didn’t have to find her, or hold her cold, blood-soaked body as you closed her eyes.”

Tears are shining in his own eyes, and agony radiated from him. Agony and love—the gut-wrenching, bone-aching kind you feel when a gory memory is all you have left of the person you adored. As he describes the scene, I find myself picturing it, only instead of a stranger’s face there’s Ana, fatally pale and splashed with crimson. I shove the image from my head. It doesn’t bear thinking about. No matter what it takes, I will never,everlet that happen.

“I’m sorry, Corrin,” Ana says softly. “Many of us have lost someone at the hands of the Temple. That’s why we’re here.”

Wadestaff’s shaking his head violently. “And how many more have to die before the Hand’s crusade leaves us in peace? You’ll accomplish nothing but a bigger body count. The Temple owns us all, and you’re fools to think otherwise.”

“Marina thought otherwise.”

We all turn to the door, and I recognize the speaker as the hostess from our last visit here. The pretty smile she usually turns on Wadestaff’s customers is gone, replaced by a determined stare.

“Rosa, what are you doing here?” Wadestaff demands.

“Warren told me what was going on. And you can’t get mad at him either. Marina wasmysister, and she’d want someone speaking up for her in all this.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he bites back, but Rosa shakes her head.

“She knew what she was getting into with the Hand. She was sick of us all bowing, scraping to the clerics and their lies. She knew things needed to change—and she wanted to be a part of it. She’s not the only one, either,” she says.

“What are you talking about?” Wadestaff says, wary.

“A lot of the girls want to pick up where Marina left off. I have four of them waiting out there, ready to talk to these people. They want to help the Hand. Are you going to forbid them doing it?”

Wadestaff gapes at her. “These people just want to use them.”

“Andyoudon’t use them?” Damia pipes up scornfully.

He turns to glare in the soldier’s direction. “I keep them alive. I keep themsafe.”

“You’re a hypocrite,” Damia says, her voice rising until she’s almost shouting. “If you’re happy to take the blood money of the people who killed your lover, then that’s your choice. But you shouldn’t take away these women’s choice to fight back in their own way.”

There’s silence. Damia can often be cutting with her words, but right now I can tell something more is bubbling close to the surface. She took a stand againstherclerics—only they took the form of her family and their group of Morelium fanatics. Shecan’t stand it when strong people stand back and do nothing in the face of corruption.

I can see her words have touched a nerve. The look Wadestaff gives her is full of both fury and pain, and when he speaks, his voice vibrates with emotion.

“You can think what you want, fae, but I see my people as something more than kindling to throw on the fire of someone else’s cause. I value them too much for that.”

Rosa sighs. “But what about what Marina valued, Corrin? What about what she’d want?”

“She’sdead,” he snarls.

“Exactly! And don’t you think she’d want her death to count for something?” Rosa throws her hands up, tears dripping down her cheeks. “You can make that happen. Let me bring the girls in. Let them hear what the Hand are proposing and decide for themselves.”

Wadestaff’s shoulders sag. He looks like a hollowed-out man who realizes he doesn’t have the weight to stand against this tide. Finally, defeated, he nods.

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