Chapter 52
I t was easier than I thought it would be to fall into a routine, though still strange to work with the constant backdrop of another person in the room.
She was less obtrusive than I expected her to be, still spending most of her time sleeping off the illness that had overtaken her. Still, I found myself listening for the quiet signs of life from behind the closed bed curtains, her rhythmic breathing or the rustling of blankets.
She was still alive.
And if I caught her staring into the distance, if she was quieter than usual, I reminded myself that it was normal when she was healing from the fever and the lash wounds, both.
She woke in time for lunch, resentfully glaring at the broth Taisiya brought before drinking it down.
While she was in the bath, Taras and Kirill came to bring updates.
“My father?” I asked quietly.
“Might have been led to believe you are out on a mission, and hasn’t asked about her,” Taras supplied.
Koshka wound himself around Taras’s legs while my cousin firmly ignored him. I considered the necessity of his lie, along with the inherent risks.
“Don’t tell any outright lies,” I warned him.
Lying to the duke was punishable by unclanning, on the off chance my father remembered. With my luck, I’d be the one who had to carry the sentence out.
I wondered if that would be my line, holding the brand against my own cousin, or if it would be just another sacrifice I made for the good of my people.
“I will be careful,” he hedged.
The unspoken caveat raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “...But?”
“But she took a risk for my brother,” he said simply. “There is a debt.”
What was I supposed to say to that? I wanted Rowan safe, which for the time being, meant being in here with her, thereby necessitating the mistruth. And I couldn’t stop him from repaying what he considered to be a blood debt, of sorts.
We had both worked so hard to protect Yuriy from my father’s attention. He was a soldier, and a good one, but he never could curb his instinct toward softness, especially as a child.
And the duke had no tolerance for weakness. Taras and I knew better than to show it in front of him, but Yuriy was forever bringing in wounded animals and casting sympathetic glances toward the newly Unclanned.
It was Taras’s right to protect his brother, and his right to repay a debt when someone else did.
So I said nothing. It was Kirill who broke the uneasy silence that followed.
“You can just admit you like her, you know,” he teased, scooping up Koshka from where the feline was harassing Taras. “You’re already late to that party. Well after—“ he looked at me and cleared his throat. “Henrick,” he finished up.
“Indeed,” Taras replied, refusing to comment further. Which made two of us.
“Mairi?” I effectively changed the subject.
Was she meeting with the ladies for tea, or hiding in her rooms like the coward that she was?
“Taken to her rooms,” Kirill answered, cradling the ginger bundle in his arms like a giant furry baby.
I didn’t pretend to be surprised by his answer. The only reprieve we got from her was the weeks at a time she didn’t deign to leave her rooms, and she was fond of retreating after a particular act of cruelty. Probably because she came too close to revealing who she was to my father.
He was allowed to be ruthless, but she was a woman.
“And how is our favorite whipmaster?” I finally asked.
A grim smile spread over Kirill’s face. “Still in recovery, unfortunately. It would seem that Taras was a bit too thorough in his teachings.”
“We have a generation of soldiers to train. You can’t be too thorough with that.” My cousin’s features were perfectly neutral, but there was a vengeful glint in his eyes.
I let out a humorless laugh, wishing I could have been there to witness that training in action. Or better yet, to conduct it.
No matter. There would be plenty of opportunities in the future.
“I quite agree.” My tone was light. “And I appreciate you taking that on in my stead.”
“On that note, when might you be joining us again?” he asked.
I thought of Rowan’s wide eyes, her balled fists, her blurted “no” at just the prospect of me leaving.
“That’s undetermined, as of yet,” I said slowly.
Kirill frowned. “Is she not healing?”
That is the question . “It’s her safety that is of concern.”
He looked between me and the door that led to the lavatory. “Up for a drink tonight?”
I considered Rowan’s silence today, the way she had always taken to Kirill even when it was irritating.
Finally, I nodded. “I wouldn’t say no.”
She didn’t say much when Kirill came for that drink, but neither did she ask us to close the bed curtains, which was a first for the day. For his part, he talked to us in a general sense, telling stories about the villagers and his wife, leaving it up to Rowan whether she would participate.
She didn’t, and he left soon after for her to rest.
The next day, I couldn’t help but notice how Yuriy and Taras both found weak excuses to visit. Yuriy at least was more up front.
“I came to see that you were well, Princess.” He stumbled, catching himself. “Not well, but…that you were…”
“I’m fine, Yuriy.” Her smile was wan, her cheeks still pale, but she injected her tone with more warmth than I had heard from her since she woke up.
Though it still had the false note of a lie.
As soon as he left, she asked me to close the bed curtains. I obliged her.
It was only the second day after her fever. Of course she still needed rest.
And I had letters to respond to. Ledgers to catch up on. Laws to reword and push through to my father. Plenty of things that had nothing to do with worrying about the silence of a singularly chaotic princess who suddenly wasn’t.