Up close, the cracks show. The faint shadow beneath his eyes. The tightness around his mouth.
“What did you think?” he asks.
I hesitate. “I think most rulers would have chosen the easier path in all of those cases.”
“And you?”
I take a slow breath. “I think you chose the right ones.”
I watch as his expression softens. “My advisors might consider the right path weak.”
“Your advisors don’t have to live with the consequences of all these choices. You do.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile but close. “Careful, Miss Cyra. That almost sounded like approval.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” I quip.
This time he does smile, faint and fleeting, but real. Then the tremor returns to his hand. He notices me notice, and the smile disappears.
“It’s flaring up, isn’t it?” I whisper.
He doesn’t deny it. “Court days are when it gets worse.”
The offer rises to my lips before I can stop it. “Let me help.”
Lord Zevran glances toward the doors, then back to me. We both know what I’m suggesting. The atrium is one thing – private, safe. But here, where any servant or guard might return…
“Someone could come back,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“If they saw—” He stops himself, but I understand. The public knows he retains a healer at the palace, but they don’t know the extent to which he’s dependent. A Lord whose body constantly betrays him, who can’t go more than a few days without a healing session – that information would spread through the court within hours, most likely used against him in every way possible. His enemies wouldn’t need armies if they knew exactly how fragile he is.
“Iknow,” I repeat.
For a long moment, he just looks at me. I can see the calculation happening behind his eyes, the careful weighing of risk against need. Then he nods once, and I realize I’m watching him make a choice he wouldn’t make for anyone else. That somewhere in these past few nights, something in the way he views me has shifted.
I climb the steps to the throne. When I reach him, I kneel beside the armrest and place my hands on his forearm, just above the wrist. His skin is warm beneath my palms, and I’m suddenly aware of how close we are, how the scent of sandalwood and leather surrounds me.
The magic comes easily now, chilling and steady, flowing from my palms into his skin. And there it is – that rush, that brisk feeling spreading through my veins. I tell myself it’s just relief at easing his pain, but I know better. The addiction purrs beneath my skin, satisfied and hungry all at once, crescent moon sigil faintly glowing on my chest.
His breath slows, his shoulders drop, the tension unspooling gradually. For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
Then his free hand moves, covering mine where it rests on his arm. The gesture is simple, brief, but the warmth of his palm against the back of my hand sends heat rushing through me. My stomach flips, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of every point of contact between us.
I pull my hands away, realizing that we’ve been sitting here too long, that anyone could walk in. My pulse hammers in my throat as I stand.
“Y-Your Grace.” The title feels wrong in my mouth now, too formal, too cold.
“Miss Cyra?—”
I don’t look back. I descend the steps, cross the empty floor, and slip through the side door before he can say anything else.
Only when I’m halfway down the corridor do I let myself stop, pressing my back against the cool stone wall. My hands are still tingling – from the magic or from his touch, I’m not sure. Maybe both.
Six weeks have passed since I arrived, and the palace has begun to feel less like a trap and more like a maze I’m learning to navigate. I know which corridors the servants use, which ones the nobles prefer. I know that the cook’s apprentice will slip me extra bread if I smile at her, that the guard with the scar on his jaw will nod when I pass, that Lady Vera takes her morning tea in the east garden and hates being interrupted.
Small things. But they add up to something that almost feels like belonging.
