Chapter 292: If Any Of You Speaks Of This....

The door had opened.

All of them saw.

They saw the Shadow King step out into the corridor, in his shirtsleeves, with his coat wrapped around a small bundle in his arms. They saw a bare foot slip out from under the black wool. They saw a tumble of dark hair across his shoulder, and a flushed sleeping face, and a slender arm drooping out of the cloak.

They saw the marks on her wrist.

Nobody breathed.

Thorne stopped.

He turned his head, slowly, and surveyed them. His face was a mask of ice. His eyes were black as pitch. Shadows lifted from the floor around his boots in a slow dark tide, and the air in the corridor turned sharply cold.

"If any of you speaks of this," he said softly, "I will know."

The maid dropped her towels.

"Go about your duties."

They scattered.

They fled in six directions at once, a clatter of boots and a flutter of cloth, and the corridor emptied in the space of a breath. Thorne stood alone, with the sleeping woman in his arms, and let the silence settle.

Then, quietly, from the shadow of a pillar, a young man in the king’s grey stepped forward.

Corin.

He was white as paper. He had been standing at his post at the head of the stair for four hours, with his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, trying not to hear. He bowed from the waist, stiff as a board.

"Your Majesty."

"Corin."

"I....." He swallowed. "I did not leave my post."

"I see that."

"I heard nothing."

"I’m certain you did not."

"My lady...." His eyes flicked to the bundle in Thorne’s arms, and away. "Is she well?"

Something in Thorne’s face eased.

"She is very well," he said. "And very tired. You did your duty tonight, Corin. I’ll tell the Captain."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Walk with me."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Corin fell into step a pace behind.

They went down the long gallery together, the king and the guard, with the sleeping woman between them and the morning light spilling across the stone. Thorne’s steps were slow and even. Morgana did not stir. Her head rested against his shoulder, and one hand had crept out of the cloak to curl against his chest, trusting, unconscious.

Halfway down the corridor, Thorne’s eyes shifted.

He did not turn his head. He did not break stride. But the shadows around his boots gave a small, sharp ripple, like a dog lifting its head.

At the far end of the passage, at the edge of the great gallery, a figure in a pale council robe was stepping back around a pillar.

He moved quickly. He had not meant to be seen. A glimpse of grey sleeve, a flicker of a hem, and he was gone, vanished into the long shadows of the gallery beyond.

Thorne watched the place where he had been.

"Corin," he said, very quietly.

"Your Majesty?"

"Who is on duty at the council wing this morning?"

Corin blinked. "I....couldn’t say, sir. I’ll find out."

"Do."

"At once."

"And Corin."

"Sir?"

"Don’t tell the Captain until I say."

Corin’s eyes widened. He glanced at the bundle in Thorne’s arms, and at the empty pillar, and back again.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said slowly.

Thorne walked on.

The shadows lengthened behind him, quiet and watchful. In his arms, Morgana sighed in her sleep and turned her face against his chest, and the black cloak slipped a little from her shoulder. He drew it up again, gently, and held her closer.

Somewhere far above, in the bright cold sky over the palace, the morning bells began to toll the hour.

***

*Noon*

The first thing she knew was silk.

It was cool against her cheek and smooth beneath her fingers, and it smelled faintly of cedar and rain. She lay still for a moment with her eyes shut, taking inventory the way she did on bad mornings in the village. Her legs ached. Her hips ached. A low tender soreness ran through her in places she had no names for, and when she tried to stretch her arms above her head, every muscle in her back lodged a complaint.

She smiled into the pillow.

Oh, she thought. That kind of ache.

Memory came back in pieces, unevenly, like the light through a broken shutter. A window, and a door, and a chair. The sound Kaelen made when she said stay. Draeven’s voice at her ear, steady as a hand on her back. Two bodies moving with her, and a warm gold hum rising in her chest, and then....

She opened her eyes.

The ceiling was dark stone. The bed was enormous, with a headboard of black glass-smooth stone and sheets the color of midnight, and the heavy curtains were drawn against the day. A single lamp burned low on the nightstand. She was lying on her side, tucked under a thick coverlet, wearing something large and soft that smelled of a person she knew.

A shirt. A man’s white shirt, so big that the sleeves fell past her fingertips.

Thorne’s.

She turned her head.

He was sitting in a chair beside the bed.

He had pulled it close, close enough that his knee almost touched the mattress. He wore a black coat buttoned high and a dark tunic beneath, and his hair was combed back from his forehead. A book lay open on his lap. He wasn’t reading it. His eyes were on her, dark and tired and very steady, and she had the strangest feeling that he had been watching her for a long time.

"Good morning," he said quietly.

"Is it still morning?"

"Barely. It’s a little past ten."

"Oh." She blinked. Her voice came out hoarse, raspy from screaming, and she cleared her throat. "You’re dressed."

"I am."

"Have you slept?"

"No."

"Thorne."

"I slept in the chair for an hour." The corner of his mouth moved. "It was a very good chair."