“No,” Alain said firmly. “Thank you. Thibaut is alive because of you. Whatever else lies between us, I owe you a debt for that.”
The mention of Thibaut brought reality crashing back. What I’d done could not be explained away by herbs and poultices, not really. The speed of his recovery alone would raise questions. Questions that could lead to stakes and fire in a kingdom like Durand, here in the The Noble City.
Alain must have read the worry in my eyes. “No one knows,” he assured me. “The official story is that you’re a talented herbalist. Nothing more.”
Relief washed through me, followed quickly by suspicion. “And you? What do you believe now?”
His gaze dropped to his hands, strong fingers laced together so tightly the knuckles went white. “I believe that magic is more complicated than I was taught. I believe that you are...” he paused, searching for words, “...extraordinary.”
Something fluttered in my chest that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the way he looked at me. I squashed it ruthlessly.
“Would you like to see him?” Alain asked, changing the subject. “Thibaut. He’s in the infirmary, regaining his strength.”
I nodded, suddenly desperate to escape these four walls that had become both sanctuary and prison. “Yes.”
Alain stood, moving to a chest against the wall and pulling out a robe of soft blue silk. “Can you stand?”
I pushed back the covers, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. My muscles protested after days of disuse, but they held when I tested my weight on them. Alain crossed to me quickly, holding out the robe. As I slipped my arms into it, I noticed for the first time that my hair hung over my shoulder in a neat, intricate braid.
I touched it, giving him a questioning look.
“I had a sister,” he said, a shadow crossing his face. “Odette made me learn to braid her hair when we were children, and our older brother refused even when Odette would plead to him. Said her ladies-in-waiting never did it tight enough for riding, so I learned.”
The confession caught me off guard. This glimpse of the boy he had been, the brother who plaited his sister’s hair with careful fingers, seemed almost too intimate to bear. I laughed softly, trying to dispel the heaviness that had settled between us.
“It’s well done,” I said, tying the robe’s sash around my waist. “She taught you well.”
His smile was sad, loaded with years of grief I couldn’t begin to understand. “She was a demanding teacher.”
I slipped my arm through his when he offered it, letting him support some of my weight as we moved toward the door. His body was solid warmth against my side, and he smelled clean and masculine, like leather and cedar and something uniquely him. I hated how much I noticed it, how my body instinctively leaned into his strength.
He could still choose to kill me. And that’s where I kept my focus. Preservation was a must. I’d gotten this far. I couldn’t lose sight now.
The guard outside my door straightened as Alain approached, surprise flashing across his face at seeing me upright.
“We’re going to the infirmary,” Alain informed him. No explanation, no request for permission. Just the statement of a prince accustomed to being obeyed.
The guard bowed and stepped aside, and just like that, I was out of my room. The hallway stretched before us, sunlight streaming through high windows, illuminating tapestries and artwork I’d only glimpsed through my doorway before. Freedom, or the illusion of it, made my heart race.
Alain matched his pace to mine, slowing when my legs trembled, pausing when I needed to catch my breath. The poison had taken more from me than I wanted to admit, setting back the recovery I’d made from months of starvation and confinement.
“Why hasn’t your magic healed you completely?” Alain asked after we’d descended a flight of stairs, his voice low enough that the occasional passing servant couldn’t hear. “It worked so quickly on Thibaut and even now against the poison in you.”
I considered the question, thought about the warmth that still stirred in my belly, waiting to be called upon again. “I’m still learning what I can do,” I admitted. “The magic inside me... it’s new. Or rather, I’m new to it.”
Alain’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t know? Before?”
I shook my head, a bitter laugh escaping me. “I knew I was different. That my eyes marked me as something other than fully human. But actual magic?” I shrugged. “It only manifested when I needed it most. Twice, before I entered the Forest but after…” After Gaspard made me his prisoner, after the rape and torture, after I ran soaked and bleeding into trees that should have killed me but instead embraced me as one of their own.
Alain’s jaw locked at the reference to my past, to the story I’d told him of what happened after my father was taken. “It saved you, then.”
“And damned me,” I murmured. “A powerful entity—” I couldn’t say the Dark Lord, couldn’t risk revealing too much, “—used my own gift against me and placed me to suffer in that dungeon for three months. Drained it to feed himself. That’s why I was so weak when you found me. Why I’m still not fully recovered.”
His grip on my arm tightened slightly. “Three months,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You said you were in that dungeon for three months.”
The horror in his tone made me look up. His face had gone pale, his eyes wide with shock.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
