The single word had the weight of a gavel.
A ripple ran through the pews. Clara’s bouquet, a wilted fistful of wildflowers someone had shoved into her hands that morning, shook as her fingers tightened.
“This isn’t a marriage,” Elias continued, his voice carrying to the back row without ever rising. “It’s a contract.”
Mark’s head snapped up. Judith’s fan stopped mid-flutter. The town leaned forward, hungry and scandalized.
Elias turned then, and looked at Clara.
Not with hunger. Not with disgust.
With assessment. The way a man might study a tool: not to judge its prettiness, but to decide whether it would hold under pressure.
Heat crawled up Clara’s neck. Shame, familiar as breathing.
“Your father owes me,” Elias said. “Five years ago, I spent three weeks keeping him alive. I used medicines that took months to prepare. I left my work, my home, my mountain, and I watched infection try to eat him from the inside.”
Solomon’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t deny it.
