A lord gawked at me wrestling the handle as he walked past. When it wouldn’t budge, I jammed my shoulder into it.
My body paid for it more than the door.
“That’s not how we open doors around here.” Fyn’s fingers slid over the stubble on his chin.
I cradled my throbbing shoulder. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know I don’t ever want to be a door that doesn’t open around you.” His usual smirk threatened to pull his lips at the corner. “Is it possible it’s locked?”
“That would require me to have locked it, which I didn’t.” I tried the handle again. “I never lock it.”
“You don’t lock your bedroom door?” He asked. “What if someone enters? What if they take something that doesn’t belong to them?”
“Seeing as I have few possessions, there’s nothing totake.” No one would be stupid enough to steal my sword. It was far too slender and lightweight to be of use to them.
“May I try?”
“Be my guest.”
His jaw stiffened as he turned and slammed it forward, opening the door with little effort. “See. It was easy.”
The slender room was too dim the moment the sun slipped behind the clouds. My sister’s lady’s maid couldn’t enter to check the lantern she usually lit for me.
“How do you see anything in there?” he asked.
I glared up at him. “Normally it’s fine enough, but the lantern must have gone out.”
Fyn reached out to the next servant who passed. “Can you find someone to assist? It seems the princess needs someone to light her lantern.”
She nodded, pulling matches from her apron. “I can, my lord.” She walked into the slender room while we waited in the hall.
The amber light emitted a peaceful glow.
“Thank you,” I said as she left us.
Fyn pressed his weight into the door frame as he inspected it. “I’ll send someone to look at it for you.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all just temporary.”
His throat bobbed as his thumb slid over the metal latch. “If you wanted to stay… it could be fixed for you.”
My nephew, Astrael’s cries sang through floorboards.
“The nursery is overhead, isn’t it?” Fyn’s nose scrunched.
“It is,” I said. “It turns out you can hear a sound so many times that your mind starts to ignore it. That’s funny, isn’t it?” It wasn’t really, but he was standing too close to me and suddenly I found myself flailing to find something to say.
“That sounds rather unpleasant. Have you told Aelira?”
“No. It is a minor inconvenience.” My sister was queen—a mother—a wife. She didn’t need me piling onto her concerns. She was already stretched thin enough.
I sat on the edge of the bed as Fyn peered around my room.
“Thank you for getting the lantern lit. Now I don’t have to sit in the dark while I think about what comes next.”
“Aelira’s been to speak with you, I assume.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“She has.” I waited for him to say something else, but he only assessed me. “If you think you’re going to talk me out of it too—you can just keep your thoughts to yourself.”
