Chapter 4
Chapter Four
EMORY
I burst out of my house in a panic, carrying my little chest of artifacts, wearing my boots, my nightgown, and my heavy fur cloak I’d had the wherewithal to grab before I fled.
Now I trudged through the snow-covered ground, passing log cabin after log cabin, all lined in neat rows that hedged the cobblestone road where I walked.
I had no idea where to go, what to do. I just knew I couldn’t stay in that house with my dead husband. I stopped, looking back and wondering if I’d lost my mind.
Oh, I’d definitely lost my mind, but some part of me still knew that I couldn’t go back there. With my husband dead, my mother gone, I’d have nowhere to turn. Women could receive titles, deeds, inheritance from their spouses, but only if it was granted, and my husband had always made it clear he’d only be leaving those things to an heir. One I’d never given him. His cruel words echoed in my head. He was right about my future. I had no formal training, no skills, no money. I didn’t know how to be anything but a wife.
Despair swallowed me up. A frigid gale swept past me, fluffs of snow sticking to my skin and hair. I knelt down and opened up the chest, pulling out a scarf that I wrapped around my throat to cover the mottled bruises my husband had inflicted. I shouldn’t be wearing this scarf. It was precious and rare, a relic that many say Spirit Sky gifted to a mortal woman he’d fallen in love with. But I also couldn’t have these bruises on display and had no other clothes on me since I’d left the house in such a hurry.
I needed to find shelter, or at the very least, I needed to get out of the middle of the road, before any curious eyes might have enough time to wonder what Lord Growley’s wife was doing traipsing through a snowstorm in the middle of the night.
The sun peeked over the horizon. Not the middle of the night anymore. Early morning. Even more reason why I needed to come up with a plan.
My heart thumped so hard my chest ached, and I was having trouble getting air through my passageways. What had I been thinking? Why had I run like that? The servants would be waking now, might have already found him. If I came back, it would look suspicious. If I didn’t go back, it would look even more suspicious.
I turned halfway, staring at our three-story wood cabin in the distance, frozen with indecision.
I should return. I stared at the familiar wooden front door. The little steps that led up to the porch with the swing I’d sit on during snowstorms. From here I could see through the window of the first floor into the parlor with all my favorite books and couch where I’d sit and read in front of a warm fire. Another window showed the great hall where we’d host parties for all my husband’s friends.
I had no choice. I had to go back. There was nothing else for me, no one I could go to.
Driscoll’s and Leoni’s faces popped into my mind, and I straightened, their visit suddenly rushing back with stark clarity.
The lightning bolt. The bone collector. Their mission. And they wanted my help. They saw me as more than just someone’s wife.
My mind began spinning with possibilities. With hope. That lightning bolt was valuable, a relic among the likes of which we’d never seen. The Academy of Scholars & Historians would want to collect it so they could study it, so they could get clues about where the other spirits’ weapons might be located.
If I brought that bolt to them, they might take me seriously as a candidate, might even allow me to join the academy. I could finally live my life on my own terms and not someone else’s.
If I went after it, I’d also have a chance to see the bone collector again. My heart thumped for a different reason I didn’t particularly want to explore.
My feet started moving again. I trudged through the snow toward the town that sat nestled at the top of the road, all the wooden buildings topped with heavy snowfall.
Leoni and Driscoll had told me to meet them there. I would go now. I’d wait for them at the inn all day if that’s what it took. My neck pulsed with pain, and I winced, hoping this scarf covered all the bruises.
Despite all the horrible things that had happened, for the first time in a long time, a curious emotion stirred inside of me. An emotion that felt suspiciously like hope.