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They ate. The steak was good, Sevrin noted to himself. Perhaps her kitchen staff could stay whenever all of this…ended.

He was not sure when that would be.

Aviaryn cut her steak carefully, then set down her knife.

"The tax levies in Slurvina require attention," she said. "The third district has been underreporting yield for the better part of two seasons and the discrepancy⁠—"

"Did you wear shoes?" Nox said.

Aviaryn looked at her. "What?"

"When you went to Slurvina today. Did you wear shoes?”

"Flagsar does not wear shoes."

"Flagsar is a creature."

Aviaryn's fork hit the table.

Sevrin looked at her. "Have you ever heard the story of the thorn and the shoe?"

She turned to him. "I thought you did not know any stories."

"That does not mean I cannot make one up."

Nox stared at him.

Aviaryn got up from her chair, crossed to his side of the table, and sat in the empty seat beside him. She reached into her pocket and produced a sweet and placed it in her mouth.

"I am listening," she said.

He told her a story. He made it up as he went, which was not something he had done before, and it was not a particularly good story, but it had a thorn and a shoe and a creature who refused to wear one and eventually understood why it mattered. It took longer than he expected. She did not interrupt once.

When he finished she was quiet for a moment.

Then she got up and went back to her seat and picked up her fork and continued eating.

Nox was still looking at him.

He reached for his goblet of blood. He wished it were wine. His staff would have known he preferred wine.

The days began to blend together after that.

He worked on his strength in the mornings, pushing further each day than the day before, his recovery admittedly slow but there was progress. Each day his chest seemed to hurt just a little less, and his gait became just a little stronger.

Ivernet came intermittently with news. She arrived without announcement, which was her way, and stood near the window and gave her report. Most recently, she had told him that the castle was under Axar's care, her sources had told her. The Darkway held. The creatures were manageable.

Fine. He had known no harm would come to the Morrath throne with Axar in it. He had also known Axar would not bother keeping it. The man found little value in kingship. Sevrin had noticed that from the beginning.

He dismissed Ivernet and sat with the quiet for a while.

After, he went below to the library himself, moving through the shelves with the attention Aviaryn had shown him, looking for the ones with illustrations. In the evenings he would meet her in the sitting area in the east wing that had two comfortable chairs and a warm fire. He had not ever remembered using it, but he had remembered it recently and thought it a good place for the reading to take place. Aviaryn met him there each evening with whatever she had found in the library that day and he would show her what he had found and they would decide which story she would read to him. She would sit in the chair beside the fire with the book held at an angle that suggested she was still learning how to hold one properly. Her reading was careful and precise and she did not look up when she turned pages.

One evening she set the book down and said, "There is a story I have heard about. Someone told me of it." A pause. "A friend, I think is the correct word."

"What is it called?"

She told him.