Chapter 113

Ronan’s POV

I wrote down the memories because Darius had said I might lose them. It was a poor bargain with paper: a description of Mara laughing in the stable wasn't the laugh itself, and a list of places we had kissed wouldn't make a stranger ache to kiss her again. I wrote anyway. Each sentence made the proposed Excision less abstract. I could imagine surviving the ritual; I couldn't imagine reading these pages afterward and finding her voice on them without hearing it in my head.

I began with the stable because I could see the scene without asking the Crown for help. Mara had come to Black Hollow furious with me, wearing a borrowed coat that was too broad at the shoulders. She had tried to persuade a stubborn mare to take a carrot; when the mare ignored her, she had eaten it herself. I remembered thinking that she would never forgive me for laughing. The page held the facts, but it couldn't