Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Elara
The carriage rattles over the cobblestones, a rhythmic, jarring percussion that makes for a miserable journey to the orphanage.
Inside, the cushions are faded but intact, the curtains freshly shaken free of dust, and the lantern hook above my head holds a lamp that lends some warmth to a morning of suffocating gray.
Providing a sense of normalcy, one of the few remaining ministers agreed.
A measure to keep the hopeless from piling at the palace gates, a sovereign who goes to an orphanage with a husband at her side.
A message to the realm: the new queen is trying to save it, unlike the late king, who refused everything that might save anyone but his own conscience.
I glance behind the white curtain, watching a higher part of Marrowbrae shape from homes with brittle daub and muddy alleys between them. “I think this is the orphanage Kael sent his meals to.”
Across from me, Vale sits rigid against the velvet squabs, staring out the window, his jaw locking so tight a muscle feathers beneath the skin of his cheek. “My, my…a man decaying, a meal for the worms long since, and yet my wife still speaks his name with nothing short of reverence.”
I frown at him, which somehow brings out how his usually pale complexion seems to have a sickly, grayish cast today. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t turn. “Presume it makes a husband wonder.”
“That’s strange, considering that you don’t even want to be my husband.” I scoff, pulling my black shawl tighter around the shoulders of my gray wool dress. “You can feel joy, sadness. Anger, clearly. But I’m curious…what of jealousy?”
“I am Death, Elara.” He finally turns his head to look at me. “I covet nothing experienced by mere mortals.”
I take him in. The strange tint of his skin, the blueish shadows beneath his eyes, the slight hollowness in their sockets. For a god, he looks pretty mortal today. Fragile, even.
When he shifts his weight under my scrutiny and returns his attention to whatever lies behind the curtain, I only watch him harder. “Are you sulking because of the wish?”
“I am not sulking.”
The carriage rocks over a rut, jolting his shoulder against the frame. His hand flies to his chest, fingers splaying against the black wool coat that covers his sternum. For a breath, I catch the faintest hitch in his inhale—like a man pretending he’s not hurt.
“Why are you holding yourself like that?”
He doesn’t blink. “Like what?”
“Like you’ve got a thorn stuck in your ribs.” A knot forms in my stomach, tightening there. “Is it…is it because I touched your heart? Did I hurt it?”
“You did not…hurt it,” he grits out, his voice strained and thin. “The liberty you took that night warrants another spanking to be certain—oh, if only my wife wasn’t so fond of them.” Vale exhales through his nose, controlled. “I’m simply exhausted. It is the tediousness of this travesty.”
A sinking sensation caves in my chest. I chose the wrong wish, didn’t I? I had wanted to show him my acceptance, to bring us closer. Instead, he feels worlds away.
Abrasive. Cold.
We travel for minutes without a word. The wheels grind over wet stone. The driver clucks and curses the road under his breath. The silence becomes a third passenger, heavy and unpleasant.
Until the carriage lurches, frame groaning under the strain of the sudden wobble. Vale groans, too, his entire body seizing up as his fingers dig into the wool around his chest like a dagger just stabbed into it.
That does it.
“You look like you’re about to faint!” A stumbling step brings me to his side, the leather creaking beneath me on the bench when I sit and reach for his chest. “Let me—”
“Don’t,” he snaps, pressing himself into the corner. “I do not want your care.”
“And I don’t want to look at your sulky face for the rest of the day,” I spit back before I settle my fingers beside his, the tension in the muscle beneath as severe as that of stone. “Just let me touch.”
“I don’t want your touch, either.” His jaw works. His gaze slides away to the curtain and the narrow slit of light, as if he’s searching for dignity in fabric.
“I need your hands on me,” I mock in a high-pitched voice, words he once spoke in the tower. Then I dig my thumb into his chest, rubbing the muscle, fingers working with practiced efficiency. “What did you do? Did you sleep wrong?” A moment’s hesitation. “Do you even sleep?”
He lets out a noise, half groan, half growl, but his hand lowers a fraction, reluctantly conceding space. “Perhaps I would,” he grinds out, “if you’d only take a real husband, love him, and slit his throat.”
“Oh, you’re as real as they get.” The bite in my tone is easier than admitting the worry nibbling at my ribs.
I shouldn’t have touched his heart… “Is it your heartstring?” I slide my fingers closer to his sternum, feeling the rigid hardness there, the way his body has been bracing around something he refuses to name. “Here?”
“Yes.” The word lands rough, tired. “Mmm...”
Beneath my fingertips, his heartbeat stutters—three uneven knocks, a pause that makes my pulse jump, then a return that’s stronger, cleaner, as if whatever was choking the rhythm untangled itself. The tension eases some.
“Better?” I ask quietly.
For a beat, he doesn’t answer. He simply sits there, breathing shallowly through his nose, eyes fixed on some point beyond the curtain slit, as if staring hard enough might dissolve the question.
“I…” His throat works, the word caught like a splinter. He swallows it down, jaw tightening, then forces the answer out in a voice that is quieter than I’ve ever heard from him. “I fear so.”
His hand slides back up to his chest. Not to push me away.
His palm settles over mine just as his head lolls back against the carriage wall. When he turns to look at me, the green of his eyes has gone darker—less moss, more stormwater—caught between relief and something I can’t name.
“I shouldn’t have reached into your chest that night, hmm?” My admission is a little above a whisper, tasting foreign on my tongue. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
He arches a brow. “Pardon me?”
“I won’t repeat it,” I say, and it’s enough to bring a small but sincere smile to his mouth. “If you didn’t catch it, all the better.”
We stare at each other for a long, stretched moment, the carriage’s jostle fading into the background, the road noise turning dull and far away.
I can feel his heart beneath my palm—steadier, heavier—can feel the faint tremor in his fingers where they rest over mine, as if he’s holding himself in place with that touch.
Then the spell snaps like thread as the carriage slows, the wheels sucking at mud. Vale’s hand lifts from mine, his expression shuttering back into something sharp.
He adjusts his coat with brisk efficiency, eyes already turning toward duty, toward distance. “I believe we have arrived,” he says, as if the last ten seconds never happened at all.
When the door opens, Vale steps down first, boots landing in the mud with that impossible quiet of his, as if the ground itself makes room. He doesn’t look back at me. He simply straightens, cloak settling, posture snapping into that composed, courtly silhouette he wears so well.
I gather my skirt and shift toward the door, bracing one hand on the frame. I’ve hauled corpses heavier than my own body without help. I don’t need a god’s gallantry like—
A hand appears in the doorway.
Vale’s.
For a beat, I just stare at it, suspicious of the gesture the way one is suspicious of a wolf going still. Then I take it.
His fingers close around mine—firm, steady, warm enough to jolt me—and he doesn’t tug me down so much as anchor me, guiding my weight as the carriage shifts under my feet.
When my boot searches for the ground and finds only slick mud, he adjusts without a word, stepping closer, angling my descent so I land where the earth is solid.
“You’re playing well at this travesty,” I murmur low. “For one startling heartbeat, I thought I had a husband.”
His thumb drags once over my knuckle—so small it could be accident, yet it feels deliberate—before he releases my hand. “Start hallucinating virtues in me, and I might be forced to have you committed for hysteria before I demand a divorce from some priest.”
Before I manage a rebuke, a woman emerges from a doorway. Busty. Face flushed pink. Apron stained.
“Your Majesty.” Her low curtsy almost makes her topple over before her eyes dart to Vale. “And…My Lord.”
I look at the orphanage behind her: a low stone building with patched windows and a roof that sags as if it’s tired of holding itself up. The courtyard is damp and bare, nothing but trampled dirt and a few crooked benches. A line of small bodies stands inside the door.
“You’re the matron?”
“Sister Merin, Your Majesty. That’s what they call me. Not a nun, just…someone who stayed. Please…” Her arm opens wide in invitation. “We were not expecting… that is to say, when King Kael—God rest his soul—still visited, he usually sent word weeks in advance so we might…scrub.”
“We didn’t bring judgment, Sister Merin,” I say with a gesture to the driver. “What we did bring is oats. Several sacks of them.”
“And how grateful we are. Come.” She waves us toward the door where the herd of children scramble. “Sister Margo will have the older boys grab the sacks. Now please…this way.”
The air inside is damp and thin, reeking of lye and piss.
Straw pallets line the walls, some holding curled children like a question mark.
A few older girls stir a pot over a small hearth.
They go still when Vale enters, staring at him with an attention that’s not quite rational, but not quite wrong, either.
“They’re quiet today,” Sister Merin says nervously, wringing her hands in her apron. “Usually there’s a din—shouting, playing. But with the weather…and your arrival…”