Selfish is the Heart by Megan Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

with naught but your clothes and a day’s worth of provisions.”
    This was the description of any vision Annalise had been able to find reported, but she eyed the woman and licked the last slick of grease from her lips. She’d ever been one to stand apart from the crowd.
    “Actually, no.” Annalise had not shared the details of her “vision” with anyone—silent grace so that none might judge the sincerity. Or veracity. She’d done her research so she might know the details of what others had said, but she’d never claimed any of them as her own.
    The woman smiled. “No? What did She tell you, then?”
    Annalise rose with a lie’s thread upon her tongue, one more to add to the tapestry she’d already begun to weave. “She spoke in a voice that made my ears bleed. To be sure, there were words, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. She didn’t need words to convince me I should spend my life in the pursuit of Her return and that of Her husband and child.”
    The words had begun as lie but tasted of truth.
    The woman who’d given Annalise shelter and food but not her name, tilted her head to stare. Then she pointed out the hut’s small window to the yard behind the house and the forest beyond it.
    “Take the path through the woods,” she said. “You’ll find what you seek there.”

Chapter 4
    C assian was not surprised to see the woman from the forest crossing the field beyond the Motherhouse. He’d known even when sending her in the wrong direction that she had the spirit necessary to find her way to the Motherhouse. The surprise came in how early she appeared. He’d not thought to see her any time before midday on the morrow, if not later, yet here she was, striding through the knee-high grass and flowers with the walk of a purpose-led woman.
    This meant one thing of two—either she’d figured his ruse and made her way to the Motherhouse despite him sending her off in the wrong direction, or she’d so pleased the Sister-in-Service who waited for Seekers in the hut at the edge of the forest that she’d been granted approval rather than further misdirection.
    Either way, Cassian knew enough to be impressed. Most Seekers were turned away as many times as it took to discourage them. Most never made it to the Motherhouse.
    But this woman had, and as her gaze fell upon him, he waited for her to hesitate before passing. She did not, much as she hadn’t paused upon their first meeting. By the time she reached him, he’d ceased the slow and careful motions of his hands and arms and had come to rest.
    “You,” she said.
    “Me.”
    She looked beyond him, across the field and the low stone wall separating it from the yard, past the stables and to the Motherhouse itself. She looked tired, but not too tired. One night spent sleeping rough, perhaps two, but no more than that. He might’ve underestimated the length of her journey. Her boots and the hem of her gown bore the stains of dust and grass. When she pushed back the hood of her cloak, her hair proved itself in need of a thorough brushing but her face had been recently scrubbed. She lifted her chin. Here in the light of the morning Cassian could see what had been hidden from him in the forest shadows—this woman’s eyes were more than pale, they were crystalline, the color of ice made faintly blue. Against the darkness of her skin and hair, her eyes were even more startling.
    “Shall I bother to ask you if yonder mansion is the house I seek, or would you set my foot upon the wrong path again?” Soft anger tinged her voice.
    Cassian couldn’t help recalling the less formal tone she’d used with him upon their first meeting. It had suited her better, along with the tease of amusement in those spectacular eyes. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for adopting a more formal stance today.
    “Is it the wrong path if you end up where you wanted to be all along?”
    She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, her voice was pitched low. “Seek