The bottle was gone. Six years it had sat on that shelf, and now there was only a clean ring in the dust.
My uncle had taken it. I knew that the way I knew my own name.
Timo coughed in the corner, folded small under his blanket.
Calista: When did Uncle Vellin come down here?
Timo: This morning. He took the brown bottle. He said it was empty.
Vellin: Calista. Good. Sit down.
Calista: I'll stand. Where's his medicine?
Vellin: Gone. Like your cousin.
Vellin: Ilyana packed her things before dawn. The dragon bride contract is due at sundown, and she left me holding it.
Calista: Then hold it yourself. Give me the bottle and I'll go buy more.
He opened his desk drawer and set the bottle inside, slow and careful, so I would see exactly where it went.
Vellin: Duskhold pays three hundred gold for a bride. You're going to earn it.
Calista: I'm not a Hargrove daughter. I'm the spare nobody counted.
Vellin: No. You're the bastard's get. Your mother opened her legs for a sellsword and died paying for it.
Vellin: A bastard can still walk through fire if I tell her to.
I reached for the drawer. His hand closed on my wrist and twisted until the bone creaked.
Vellin: You want to steal from me in my own counting house? In front of my clerk?
He shoved me into the wall. My cheek hit stone and my teeth cut my lip open. Blood ran hot to my chin.
Vellin: Look at that. Nothing but a mess, like always.
Vellin: Sign the care order and Timo stays in this house with his medicine.
Vellin: Refuse, and I put him on the street tonight. He won't last a week in the cold. You know he won't.
I did know. That was the worst part.
He signed first. His name, then Timo's, then the seal pressed down hard.
My brother became a line of ink on my uncle's paper.
Then he put the bride contract in front of me and I signed it with blood still on my fingers.
Calista: There. Now give him the dose.
Vellin: Tonight. After the dragons take delivery.
Timo: You can't. Calista, they burn people.
Calista: They don't burn me. I'm too stubborn to catch.
I smiled for him. It hurt my split lip, and it hurt worse than that.
Calista: Take your medicine. Every dose. I'll come back for you.
Timo: Promise?
Calista: I promise. I don't break promises to you.
Calista: If he misses one dose, I'll hear about it. Then I'll come back and burn this house down myself.
Vellin: Get in the cart.
Princess Yrsa was waiting in the street with two guards and a black cart.
Yrsa: So this is the substitute. A wool merchant's stray with blood on her chin.
Yrsa: My brother sleeps and does not wake. You'll be a widow before spring.
Calista: Then I'll finally get some peace.
Yrsa: Say that again at Duskhold and I'll have your tongue.
Calista: Then you'll have to take it. Get in line.
I climbed into the cart with my lip bleeding and my wrist already turning purple.
Nobody dragged me onto that cart. I put my own name on the paper, and that was the part I could not forgive.
Behind me, Timo stood in the door. I fixed his face in my head and swore I'd see it again.