Second, and much more pressing, was the protest of her spirit. She was certain she’d suffocate trapped in a manor as some lord’s wife. Even as a girl she’d longed to escape the monotony of spinning, weaving, and needlework. She’d been plagued by jealousy as Alistair and his brothers learned swordplay and horsemanship while she and Agnes were cooped up in the manor. Alistair had become her closest friend and confidant because of his willingness to thwart convention, stealing away to meet her in the hollow so she could at least have a taste of martial training.
Ember ached for a life where she could live by her sword and her courage. A life unavailable to the daughter of a nobleman. Except for this single possibility. Her father’s debt to Conatus meant that she might be called to serve at Tearmunn. In what capacity she couldn’t know. Even with her obligations to Conatus she might still be destined for a politically expedient union.
Her hopes were futile. Ember knew as much. But over the past year she’d too often allowed herself to imagine otherwise. Alistair’s letters had encouraged her dreaming, hinting that joining the order would forever alter her life’s path.
No work could be greater than the sacred duties of Conatus, he’d written. But what was that work? Despite his reassurances she still found herself doubting that she’d have a place within this strange order. Perhaps she’d been a girl who played with swords and slaughtered straw dolls, but now she was a woman. And women warriors were aberrations, creatures of legend but not the world she inhabited. Though it might be at the ends of the earth, Tearmunn was still of this world, and that meant she had to live as women did. As a wife. As a mother.
But now Alistair had returned, as he’d promised. Her pulse jumped at the thought that her daydreams of another life might be realized. With opposing currents of hope and fear sloshing against each other in her mind, Ember clambered up the grassy bank after Alistair.
Alistair’s horse, a glossy bay mare, was gorging itself on the spring-green shoots that appeared in thick tufts throughout the pasture. The horse blew out in annoyance at having such a lovely meal interrupted when Alistair took up the reins. They started across the green fields toward the tall manor that loomed over the glen. The mare snorted, craning her neck in an attempt to snatch another mouthful of the grass.
“She’s beautiful,” Ember said, looking over the long lines of the mare’s form.
“Her name is Alkippe. The horses at Tearmunn are exceptional,” he told her. “Everything there is exceptional.”
“And they haven’t made a monk of you?” she asked, easily falling into their old pattern of teasing each other about romance. Alistair had always boasted that one day no woman would resist his knightly charm. Ember had countered that no man could ever have charm enough to make her want to marry.
Expecting Alistair’s laughter, the suddenly harsh cut of his mouth startled her. “Of course not,” he said. “Conatus may be an arm of the church, but we’re not a monastery.”
“I was only making fun,” Ember said. “Your letters spoke of taking vows.”
“The vows are of loyalty.” Alistair’s pace quickened. “Not chastity.”
“But you said as a knight of Conatus you can’t marry,” she argued. “And that you continue the work of the Templars—who were chaste, were they not?”
The words left her mouth and Ember’s heart became tight as a fist when she remembered that the Templars had been disbanded and many tortured and burned because of charges they’d broken their vows.
Alarmed, she murmured, “I shouldn’t have jested about something so serious.”
He grimaced. “You don’t understand the function of the vows. They exist only because of the danger . . . Never mind. You’ll learn the truth of this soon enough yourself. Now our task is to deal with your father.”
Ember fell silent, lost in her own thoughts about the strange world that Alistair had called home for the past year. The world that was intended to be her home too.
“Are you so worried about my prospects for marriage?” Alistair smiled and tried to take her hand.
Ember shied away. She’d missed him, but twining their fingers wasn’t something they had ever been in the habit of doing. He frowned when Ember pulled her hand back, causing a twinge in her chest that made her regret her choice. She quickly took his hand, squeezing, and was pleased when he smiled.
“You know I don’t bother with such things,” she said. “My father and mother have their plans. I have others. We shall see who wins the day.”
Her words carried courage that Ember didn’t feel. In truth she’d fled her house that morning in a desperate attempt to keep her mind occupied, just as she had every morning since her sixteenth birthday passed. Fear that an emissary from Conatus would never arrive, that her hopes wouldn’t be fulfilled, had rendered her sleepless night after night.
“We shall.” Alistair’s tone grew serious. He halted, covering her hand with both of his. “Your arrival at Conatus is considered a harbinger of the order’s future. One way or the other.”
He dropped her hand, but only after briefly raising her fingers to his lips. An unpleasant shiver coursed through Ember. The flood of happiness filling her at Alistair’s return was seeping away, leaving a cold foreboding in its wake. Why was he acting so strange? Touching her too often and in ways that were unbefitting of their friendship.
“How can that be?” Ember asked, hoping to avoid more awkward interactions. If she kept Alistair talking about his life at Tearmunn, perhaps it would make things more comfortable between them.
“You’re the daughter of a noble,” he said.
“You’re of noble birth,” she countered. “Wasn’t your arrival equally auspicious?”
He shook his head. “I went to Tearmunn voluntarily. You are being called because your life is owed to Conatus.”
Ember went quiet. Though she had no memory of it, the story never failed to unsettle her. When her mother’s labor pains began, the birth hadn’t progressed as it should. Death hovered over mother and unborn child. The sudden arrival of an extraordinary healer—a woman trained by Conatus—had offered salvation. But miracles came with a price. And the price named was the infant girl when she reached her sixteenth year.
Growing up with this memory following her like a shadow had been strange. That she was pledged to Conatus hadn’t been hidden from her, but whenever it was mentioned, her mother fretted and her father roared. Even lacking her own memory of the event, Ember felt as though the circumstances of her birth had left her only loosely tethered to this world. That her survival had been a mistake, leaving her with a half-formed and chaotic soul. And that was why she wanted things she wasn’t meant to have and dreamed impossible dreams. Because her very existence was ephemeral. Unintended.