State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(83)

When they finally went to their beds, Sorrow left her dress and bag in a heap on the floor. She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, her heart breaking as she finally admitted the truth to herself. The real reason she’d never considered a future with him: not because he was Rhyllian and she was Rhannish. Not because of duty. She knew exactly what he’d wanted her to say. She’d known he’d waited years for her to say it. But she couldn’t. She didn’t love him. Not the way he’d needed her to. She’d wanted him – craved him, even – loved him as a friend, trusted him more than almost anyone. But she hadn’t been in love with him. And if she was honest – really honest – she wasn’t sure she could love anyone that way.

Sorrow, for that is all she brings us, a voice whispered in the dark.

For once it wasn’t Rasmus’s voice in her head. This time it sounded like her own.


When she woke the next morning Luvian was gone, the door to his room open and his bed neatly made. Once she was dressed, and had eaten, Sorrow went to find him, but he wasn’t in the parlour or the library. She wondered whether to search the grounds, but a light drizzle, and the worry she might bump into Rasmus, put paid to that idea. If she never saw him again it would be too soon. She was already planning to fake an illness to get out of the second dinner that night.

At a loss for what to do with herself, she retreated back to her rooms. She found the pile of Rhannish records Luvian had been going through on the table in their private parlour, and, remembering what he’d said about the vastness of the task, she decided to see if she could help.

They made for gruesome reading, and once again Sorrow realized how little she knew of everyday Rhannish life. It seemed children fell into wells, rivers, or vanished into woodlands with something close to regularity. They were presumed eaten by desert cats, jungle cats, snakes and even, in one case, tiny carnivorous lizards that dwelt on the coast of the West Marches. Children who’d left their homes in the morning and simply not returned. Babies seemingly snatched from their cots, or from beside their sleeping mothers. Children who’d been last seen talking to strange adults, taking their hands and vanishing for evermore…

Sorrow almost put the records down, not wanting to know any more. But then she forced herself to pick them back up. These were her people. She needed to know about these things, might be able to help, somehow, provide money to cover wells, and for fences for villages where animal attacks were likely. Besides, if she found him in here, she’d know for sure that he wasn’t Mael. She could get on with the election, and her life, with an easy heart. She began to go through the reports.

Luvian, it seemed, had narrowed his search down to missing children from the North Marches, which Sorrow supposed made sense. Easier to take a child from close to the border than from deeper in Rhannon. She started to mark them off, following Luvian’s lead, crossing out any from outside the border state, and any who were female.

Sorrow was so engrossed in the work that she didn’t hear Luvian return until he spoke.

“There you are,” he said.

Sorrow narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘there I am’? I’ve been here all day. It’s you who’s been off, Graces know where.”

“Ah, yes, you’re quite right. I have been mysteriously absent,” he beamed.

He sat opposite her, kicking his long legs up on to the table and removing his glasses, polishing them theatrically.

Sorrow knew what he was waiting for, and she ignored him.

Luvian squinted at her and pushed his glasses back on to his face, and despite how upset she still felt about Rasmus, and how heartsick over the missing children reports, she almost smiled.

Five, four, three, two… she counted.

One.

Right on cue, Luvian said, “Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?”

Sorrow shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll tell me in your own sweet time.” She smiled.

He scowled. “I ought to make you wait. But I’m going to take the higher ground, because I’m a better person. Do you remember yesterday, during dinner, when you were talking about the abilities? You said there was a registry for them. And I said they had registries for everything?”

“Yes…” Sorrow said slowly, leaning back against the carved arm of the sofa.

“They keep lists of everyone who visits. That’s why they were so put out about Dain. She wasn’t on their list. So they added her.” He paused. “And you know who else would have been on a visitor list? Beliss. You told me the queen had her brought here. Ergo, she must have been put on a register.”

“You found her?” Sorrow stared at him. “You really found her?”

He nodded. “I skipped the drinks last night and went to find one of the guards. I told him I thought there had been a mistake on the register about my address, and he told me I’d have to go to the registry, right here in the complex, to correct it. He also told me it was closed for the next few days for the Naming. So, this morning, at the crack of dawn, I went there.”

For a moment she was puzzled. “But if it’s closed… You broke in? Luvian! If you’d been caught…”

He smiled winningly, in a way that suggested the idea of him being caught was preposterous. “Then you would have had to fire me for misconduct and have me arrested, and release a statement saying you didn’t know about it, and it wasn’t done on your orders.”