Over the years, Three-Forks had matured. His cough had continued for a long time--dimly and for no apparent reason, as if somehow in conspiracy with the village itself to make him better. Once in his tenor, his hands bore callouses from sword and shield, but now they wore the creases of dough and lye soap. The cottage had extended itself even more: two new rooms, a proper hearth, a garden that defied the short summers. The three girls she'd rescued from the river's brink were now women: Jara, the eldest, sharp as a whetstone; Mila, the middle, quiet as a shadow; and little Tilly, who still clung to Arin's skirts, although now she'd surpassed her mother's height.
That was how Arin understood the matter.
She had come at dusk when the sun burnt copper over the fields, in indigo velvet that none in Three-Forks could afford-a cloak, and leather boots tooled exquisitely, clicking as a nobleman's would. Her hair was the same as Jara's, and her eyes glowed with the same cold winter blues. The girls stood still in the yard while she dismounted from her horse-a beast with silver chased saddle, a creature from a ballad.
"*Mother*,'' Jara breathed, a shard of glass.
Arin turned from kneeling by the garden. The woman had swung her attention away from her, looking towards the cottage door. "Thom?" came her voice sweet, as melody. "I've come home, darling."
The door creaked open. Thom stood motionless in it, shoulders squared in a new linen shirt, a gold chain glinting at his throat. He turned a stare at the stranger, then back at Arin, then back again. His face drained of color. "Lira," he whispered.
The name struck Arin like a slap. "Lira." Not a name of a dead wife. Not a name of a ghost.
Jara took a step forward and balled her fists. "You said she was dead. You said the river took her."
Thom swallowed hard. "I... I thought she was. It was, I heard, a long time ago. She left to find work, quite a few years ago. The roads were unsafe. I-I never heard from her again."
"*Left*? " crumbled the voice of Mila. "You told us she drowned herself after the mill burned. You made us wear mourning bands!"
"Surely," the woman-Lira-said. "A misunderstanding. I went to the coast, found my cousins in Port Veyra. They needed a housekeeper. I wrote letters. Did they not reach you, husband?"
Arin was rising, dirt clingy to her apron. Eyes of the girls flickered to her and back, as if she were a stranger. Eyes. *Their* eyes. Those same storm-grays she'd seen in the well water. *Her* eyes.
"Thom," said Arin with the ash buzz of name on her lips. "What is this?"
Lira turned as if discovering Arin for the first time. "Ah. The nurse." How quaint." She stepped closer, her perfume cloying, stealing a glance at Arin's patched dress. "You've let yourself go love. But I suppose that happens when you play at being a soldier's widow."
Arin's fingers twitched. The sigils on her arms burned cold. "I am his wife."
Lira laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "Wife? I have been gone six years, and he has built all this," she waved her hand in the direction of the cottage with its neat garden and the fields beyond, "without me. Tell me, did you think a war-worn crone could gain such comforts? " She leaned in, hot breath of hers filling space with heavy breath. "He used you. We both know it."
The girls remained silent, and Tilly's eyes glistened. "She's lying," Arin wanted to say. But Thom's silence was a scream.
Lira snapped her fingers. "Thom. The deed to the mill. The contracts with the southern traders. The *money*. Show her what a real wife's labor buys."
Thom shuffled indoors, then returned hauling with him an iron-bound chest. Its heft swung it open, revealing the lapel mouth. Scintillating gold coins glimmered in sufficient lots to buy a barony. Arin's breath caught. Where had the new roof come from, all the hired hands, the silk ribbons which Tilly wore? She had never asked herself; *her* magic would-unseen, unasked-penetrate the soil, the-harvest, and even the air. She had thought it'd a gift.
"They were a gift," Thom said as though discovering her thoughts. He wouldn't meet her gaze. "Your... tricks. They made the fields yield double. The merchants paid fortunes. But it's *my* name on the deeds. My blood, my sweat." He kicked the chest shut. "You were a phase. A charity case."
Arin's vision blurred. The walls of the cottage leaned inward, the crackles in the hearth transformed into a derisive laugh. She looked at the girls-Jara's voice concealed any smirk, Mila was tear-stained, and Tilly had a trembling lip. *Her* girls.
"You let me believe they were mine," Arin whispered.
Lira chuckled. "They were never yours. They called *me* 'mother' first, remember? Before you filled their heads with stories of war and ice."
Something shattered in Arin's chest and she felt for the sigils, the power coiling beneath her skin-but then stopped herself. *No. Not like this.*
Thom stepped up to her, contorted face and all. "The clothes. Take them off. They're Lira's now. The boots, the cloak, all of it."
Arin stood, frozen, as he clawed away at the woolen dress she had mended a hundred times. The fabric tore and cold air bit at her skin, but she didn't flinch. When he'd stripped her to her threadbare shift, he spat at her feet. "Go. Back to your wars. You're nothing here."
The girls were silent.
Arin walked. Past the well, the road, beyond the hills. The sigils on her arms glowed now, not with the soft silver of hearth-magic but with the jagged light of a blade unsheathed.
Winter, she thought, has a way of returning.
The door of the cottage slammed shut behind her. Somewhere, a kettle began to sing.