When Sorcha released her, Jocelynn was steadier. Two hugs. Two different kinds of support. She was still standing, and the walls around her heart were still in place. They had cracked, but they were still holding.
Jocelnynn thought that perhaps it was over now. Charlotte had pulled Baroness Sorcha into this, but Sorcha had been a commoner until she married her husband. She didnât have the same kind of trained restraint that most noblewomen did, and that Charlotte so blithely ignored.
Jocelynn thought that she could gather herself and return to the table and the wine and the careful, measured conversations that were supposed to come next.
Then Ragna stepped forward.
Ragna Fayle was lean where the others were broad, sharp where they were soft, and she moved with the deliberate precision of a woman who calculated the cost of every gesture. She wasnât the type to offer comfort easily, and the other women seemed to sense it, because the room went very still as she approached Jocelynn and held open her arms in a simple, silent invitation.
"You all really wonât..." Jocelynn said softly, hesitating for a moment as she realized she couldnât just shrink back into herself to nurse the hurts that kept the grudge in her heart sharp. For a moment, she almost said âIâm fine,â intending to reject Lady Ragnaâs offer. After all, unlike Charlotte and Sorcha, the former baroness was restrained enough that she wasnât ambushing Jocelynn. She could refuse if she wanted to.
But... she didnât want to. Much like the moment at the pyre, Jocelynnâs feet moved without her thinking, but this time, when she realized she was moving, she didnât stop herself as she stepped into the embrace, and Ragnaâs arms closed around her.
The embrace was lighter than Charlotteâs or Sorchaâs, less insistent, but there was something in the way Ragna held her that neither of the others had offered.
It felt like her mother.
Not precisely. Ragna was too angular, too spare, and she smelled of wool and wood-smoke rather than the lavender and sea-salt that clung to Countess Maelaâs clothes. But the way she held Jocelynn, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other pressed flat against the small of her back, was the way a mother held a child who had been crying, and Jocelynnâs body recognized the gesture before her mind could catch up.
She stiffened again, sharply, and Ragna noticed. Of course, she noticed. Ragna noticed everything the way it seemed like motherâs always did.
"I know," Ragna said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "Iâm not her. But close your eyes, child, and let go of whatever youâve been holding back. Itâs just us here. No one else needs to know."
The words shouldnât have worked. Jocelynn had been holding herself together all morning through worse than this, through nightmares and confessions and a pyre that burned her sisterâs last possessions to ash. She had knelt on a stone floor and sobbed until her body shook, and she had risen and carried on because carrying on was all she knew how to do right now.
But there was something in the combination of the word "child" and the hand on the back of her head and the permission to let go that reached past every wall sheâd built and found the little girl underneath. The girl who had been holding her breath since Eleanor died, since sheâd killed Percivus...
Ever since sheâd realized that no one was coming to save her, because the things that hurt the most were the things that she had done, and no one could save her from herself.
Jocelynnâs breath hitched. Then it broke.
She pressed her face into Ragnaâs shoulder and wept. There was no restraint left in her to hold back the flood as she let loose with the raw, ugly, shuddering sobs of a young woman who was so desperately tired of being strong and just wanted to be a little girl again. A little girl who could pretend that a motherâs hug could still fix everything that was wrong with her, and that it could protect her from the cruel world that had hurt her.
The sound of her sobs was muffled against Ragnaâs shoulder, and the former baroness held her through it, her hand moving in slow, steady strokes across the back of Jocelynnâs head while the other women stood witness in silence.
Ragna didnât count heartbeats. She simply held on until the storm passed, and when it did, Jocelynn pulled back with swollen eyes and a face that was blotched and raw, and Ragna let her go without comment. She produced a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it into Jocelynnâs hand with the practiced efficiency of a mother who always carried an extra one long after her own son had grown too old to ask for it, and the smallest ghost of a smile crossed her lean, sharp face.
"Better?" Ragna asked.
"I donât know," Jocelynn said honestly. Her voice was cracked and raw, but there was less pain hiding between her words than there had been earlier. The edges of the hurt werenât quite as sharp. "Maybe."
"Thatâs a start," Ragna said as she stepped aside.
Jocelynn stood in the center of the room, wrung out and trembling, clutching Ragnaâs handkerchief in one hand and wondering if her legs were going to hold her. Three women had held her in the space of a few minutes, and she felt as though someone had reached inside her chest and rearranged the contents of her heart as if they were pieces of furniture in a room, leaving everything familiar but slightly out of place.
Then Adala stepped forward, and there was a moment of awkwardness that hadnât been present with the others.
Adala wasnât Charlotte, who acted on instinct, or Sorcha, who bulldozed through hesitation with blunt warmth, or Ragna, whose maternal authority made the gesture feel natural. Adala was composed and careful and a little uncertain, and when she opened her arms, there was a tentativeness to it, as if she wasnât entirely sure she had the right to offer what the others had given so freely.
"Iâm not as good at this as they are," Adala said quietly, and the admission was so unexpected from the woman who always seemed to have a pleasant word ready for any occasion that it startled a small, wet laugh out of Jocelynn.
She stepped into Adalaâs embrace, and it was different again. Different from Charlotteâs warmth, different from Sorchaâs solidity, different from Ragnaâs maternal gravity. Adala held her carefully, with a light, precise restraint that communicated something the others hadnât. Charlotte had insisted on breaking down walls. Sorcha had offered to share the weight behind them. Ragna had given her permission to let them fall entirely.
Adala was helping her build them back up.
The embrace was briefer than the others. I wasnât cold or formal, but it was contained, and Jocelynn felt her own composure slowly reassembling around the shape of it. Adalaâs arms were slim and firm, and she held Jocelynn at exactly the right pressure, close enough to be genuine but restrained enough to give her space to gather herself.
It was the hug of someone who understood that after being pulled apart, a person sometimes needed help being put back together again, and that the kindest thing you could do was to give them the quiet in which to do it.
"Youâre not alone," Adala said. The words were simple and unadorned, stripped of the pleasant cheerfulness she usually wore. They were also, Jocelynn realized, the truest thing Adala had said all morning.
When Adala released her, Jocelynn stood a little straighter. Her eyes were still swollen, her cheeks still raw, and her body still trembled with the aftershocks of Ragnaâs embrace. But something had shifted.
She hadnât been healed. Nothing as simple as a few hugs could give her peace as complete as that. But the raw, bleeding edge of her grief had been covered by something warmer. Four women, four different kinds of care, layered over the wound like bandages applied by hands that knew what they were doing.
She wasnât healed. She wasnât saved. The pain was still there, and with it, the slow-burning need to put an end to the one person who needed to die before she could.
But she was, for the first time in longer than she could remember, not entirely alone. And that was harder to bear than any of the grief, because it meant that when she did what sheâd decided to do, she wouldnât just be leaving Ashlynn behind. Sheâd be leaving them, too, even after theyâd gone out of their way to help her in this bitter, cold place where so few people would.
Jocelynn wiped her eyes with Ragnaâs handkerchief and took a deep, steadying breath before she sat back down at the table.
"I think," Jocelynn said, with a voice that was rough and ragged but also a little calmer than before. "I think that I need more wine," she said with a fragile smile that was more genuine than any other smile had been so far today.
"I think thatâs the right idea," Baroness Sorcha said with a hearty laugh as she reached across the table for the jug...