Chapter 185

The first time I heard it, I thought it was the wind.

It came as a soft, traveling thing—half-syllables and doubt—edging through the square and changing the faces of people I had greeted with bread only days before.

I was returning from the infirmary, a small bundle of folded linens in my hands, Mirella’s herbal satchel bumping at my hip, and the market had the usual small chaos of bartering and g