The Bracken Woods [m] ivory ice

had someone asked cen outright if he believed red leaf had killed ghaden, he would deny it.

but those hours of torment after the death of his son had blackened his mind. it did not matter that the young wife he had married from the sharadoii had come to love the boy as her own on their crossing. it did not matter that she too had grieved. that she had pleaded for her life had been enough for the lanzadoii.

but not enough for cen. he wanted to know for himself if she had done it.

her words went unanswered save for a lingering look when he had come back, and wiped blood from himself, going out a third time to retrieve the carcass and the pelt he had skinned in three long pieces. "we will stay. two days," he told her in lanzadoii, biting into the prepared meat. "dry meat. dry pelts. i will clean the teeth." and then all they could carry would be her burden through the next day. cen might even make her travel two to make up for the time they would lose drying meat.

she loved him. 

when cen had finished eating, he settled against the skins and reached for her, perfunctory and distant though without roughness as desire for his pretty wife rose. she was indeed a prize, and he had suffered twice to have her. for this, red leaf would never be marked upon flawless face by his anger. you did not bruise a rosehip before you had a chance to taste it. "do you know why the sharadoii gave you to me, red leaf?" cen asked, tracing her jawline. "it is because you are not real. you are a shadow. they gave you to the shaman of the lanzadoii so that we might all find out what you are." 

he was not a shaman. red leaf did not need to know this.