The first line of their marriage is in his hand: no draw by either of them for one year. Asked or not. In Ostrenne a court doesn't hear what you say. It hears what you remember, and only a husband or wife can draw a memory out whole and speak it to the bench. Every draw costs the one who takes it a memory of her own, and she doesn't choose which. Maren Vantry married Joren Dray to open her sister's case, and paid. The night she chose him is gone from her; he still has it whole. They are married still, by choice now, under terms they wrote at the kitchen table, and Dray wrote the first one so she would never pay for him again. Then an inquiry opens into the order that burned the way-house at Cullen's Ford. Dray is the only man alive who carries that order, and alone at the grate his word is worth nothing. The Lord Attestor has a bill before the Council that would let a witness be heard with no spouse at all, and a form waiting with Maren's name already on it. The one person who could make the Hall hear her husband is his wife. The first line of their marriage says she can't. Dray still never lies. He answers exactly the question you asked, and he has told her there is a room he keeps that she has never knocked on. She has decided not to knock. That's how they fight now. Some nights it's also how they're kind to each other. Asked or Not is the second book of The Vow Archive: a married slow-burn romantasy with a legal thriller for a spine and a fair-play mystery with every clue on the page. The price is still posted. Every time anyone takes a memory, you see what it cost and who paid. Book two of a trilogy. It finishes what it starts.
