"I do not know when it happened. Somewhere between the soup and the bucket, I suppose. One evening I looked across the room and thought, I do not want to leave. And then I thought, I am in trouble. A nobleman's son does not marry a nameless healer from a hut in the pines."
Kiara pulled her knees up onto the chair, hugging them, her tea forgotten.
"Then one night she told me the truth." His voice dropped. "She sat down across from me, very straight, and said she had something to confess. She said that she was a... witch."
The word hung in the lamplight. Neither of them flinched at it.
