“I don’t understand why I must remain locked in this god-cursed chamber all morning, dressed like a ducessa’s lapdog,” I said, scraping the frost off the window mullion. The distorted view through the thick little pane revealed naught but the snow-crusted ruins of the abbey brew-house, a sight to make a stout heart weep. “You seem to forget that I’m yet a vowed novice of Saint Ophir’s Rule. I should be helping the brothers rebuild their infirmary or salvage their stores if there’s aught to be found under the rubble.”

Storm, pestilence, civil war…the world was falling apart all around us. Abbot Luviar’s hope to protect the knowledge of humankind against this growing darkness dangled by the thinnest of threads. A monk I had believed holy…and my friend…had abducted a child I’d vowed to protect. And I was stuck here in Gillarine Abbey with a guard who never slept, awaiting who knew what. I needed to be doing something useful.

I wrenched the iron casement open and let the snow-­riddled wind howl through for long enough to remind me of the dangers abroad. Setting off alone on a mad chase through the worst winter in Navronne’s history was a ludicrous idea for anyone, much less a man who was like to lose his mind at any hour. My unlikely nursemaid, a warrior whose presence turned men’s bowels to water even before they glimpsed his mutilated face, blocked the doorway of the abbey guesthouse bedchamber. A pile of velvet and satin garments draped over his arm, and a pair of low-cut doeskin court boots—large enough they might possibly fit my outsized feet—dangled from his thick fingers. He waited until I slammed the casement shut before vouchsafing a comment.

“His Grace wishes you to dress as befits his pureblood adviser. You must be ready whenever he summons you, so you should do it now.” Voushanti twisted the unscarred half of his mouth in his unsettling expression of amusement. “And you’re as suited to be a Karish monk as I am to be a pureblood’s valet.”