AMALiA
She stops, though reluctantly, his gentle hands halting her motion, stilling her restless, stalking pace. She stops, but she does not raise her eyes to his; her gaze is trained somewhere around his chest, fixed and peering as though if she only stares hard enough she might be able to see his beating heart. Another short, hollow laugh: "You don't know that," the baker snaps, a reflex left from darker days when those were the thoughts that filled her mind, almost drowned her beneath dark tides. Worthless, childish, nothing, small. Why do you try - why do you try? - when all you do is fail?Ronin does not know her. None of them do- not really, not in truth. Amalia has spent seasons burying those flaws, trying to be better than the things she believes. And in one night Zariah has managed to pluck the strings that hold her heart together, leaving her ruined, in shambles, alone.
I'll take your place is enough to shake her out of her own misery and guilt, her onyx gaze incredulous as it rises to the man. "You won't." Amalia stares at him as though he's said the most unbelievable nonsense she's ever heard. "Don't be stupid. You have Aoife, and a wedding, and to keep everything in place. Besides, it won't do any good. She wants Jigano, since he hasn't enlisted - she hopes she can go through me to get him. I should have just let the Lore Seekers been disbanded. I shouldn't have tried. Every time I try it just makes things worse." The Tulmhainar. The Fae. The Spire. The Spark Perch. The Underground.
Her mother.
She's pacing again, walking through the room, her mind racing at a wild pace that accomplishes nothing but fuels her anxiety. "The Fae won't help. Delah doesn't care about us. She probably loves that Zariah has forbidden us from the woods. But I can try to talk to her. The pit is probably better than trying to deal with her highness."
the darkest nights produce the brightest stars
