No matter how I try to level my breathing, it punches out of my chest in gasping exhalations. This can’t be happening. Pushing to my feet, I stride toward the bookshelves in my sitting room, scanning the fourth shelf from the bottom. I drag every book free, dump them in a haphazard pile to reveal the space behind them. No wine. Only dust.
Dazed, I return the books to the shelf with a trembling hand. Will I have no relief from this thirst? “Orla.” I stare at the engraved spines. “You didn’t search through my belongings while I was ill, did you?”
“No, my lady.”
My entire body threatens to deflate. I will my spine into steel. If my cache has been confiscated, then I will restore it, and this time, I will choose better hiding places. I’ve thousands of doors to choose from, after all.
I cross the room with every intention of doing exactly that when I catch sight of my reflection in the full-length mirror hanging from the wall. The view is so ghastly I physically recoil.
Puffy eyes, cracked lips, and a haggard complexion. Wonderful. My hands cup my chapped cheeks. The knee-length nightdress clings to my hunched frame.
Orla appears at my side. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes.”
I’m lucid enough to understand that the tonic, that blessed veil of sleep, shielded me from the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. The need to wet my tongue, however, has not abated. The craving digs hooks beneath my skin.
As though I am five years old, my maid peels away the damp fabric and pulls a dry, clean tunic over my head. To my horror, tears sting my eyes.
Orla pauses in helping me into a pair of fresh trousers. “My lady.”
“Orla, I told you to call me Wren.”
“Yes, my lady.”
I hate crying. As if I didn’t purge enough last night. Or, rather, last week. The past seven days do not exist for me.
“What if…” The words stick in my throat. “Orla, what if what you believed to be true wasn’t actually true, and what if what wasn’t true wastrue, or at least partly?” Am I even making sense? “And what if you made a mistake, but you don’t know how to fix it, or if it can even be fixed?”
She watches me intently, her natural warmth reaching out to envelop us both. She knows. Of course she does. “What happened between you and the lord?”
“I entered a room I shouldn’t have. It was on the third level, in the north wing. A child’s room.”
Orla cannot hide her surprise.
“Whose room did I enter?” I ask.
She plucks at her apron, a deep wrinkle creasing her brow. “It’s not my place to say, my lady.”
“Please.” I take both her hands in mine. “This is important.”
Weeks ago, she would have refused, pulled away, exited through the door with the excuse of folding laundry. Now she moves to the bed, drawing the sheets tight across the mattress. “A long time ago, the lord was married.”
I know this. After all, I am not the first of his wives.
“And… they had a son.”
I assumed a child was involved. But to hear it aloud, that hehada son, a little boy, judging by the contents of the room, sends a wave of foreboding through me. “What happened?”
Her fingers curl against the blankets. Then she attacks the bedding with a vengeance. “A horrible,horribleman took them away,” she whispers roughly. “Stole the lord’s wife and child.”
Slowly, I round the bed so I can see Orla’s face. She wears a stricken expression, and my chest pinches in response.
“They were taken captive,” she continues, “across the mountains to the west, an area known for bandit attacks. They got caught in the crossfire, and were killed.”
“When was this?”
“By my guess, I would say three centuries ago.”
A time before the Gray, when all was green. But winter encroached, and stayed. The Frost King would have been alone, locked away in this citadel, grieving those he’d loved and lost.
