Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The exhaustion from the emotional and physical abuse I endured today is overwhelming, and I fall in and out of consciousness for most of the day.
Weston still hasn’t returned by the time the light darkens in my windows, and worry stirs in my chest the longer the night goes on with no word.
It feels like I startle awake every few seconds, anxiously checking to see if he’s back, but am only met with the steady crackle of the hearth and the slow turning of pages as Tila reads across the room.
When the murmuring of voices wakes me some time later, there’s no way of knowing how late it is. Fighting against the weight of my eyelids, I open my eyes, just barely enough to see the shadows of two people standing near the door.
“She has been resting all day, but only finally fell asleep,” Tila whispers. “She’s in a great deal of pain. I propped her pillows beneath her so she would not move, but she has been restless.”
Relief washes over me at the answering rumble, and my body instantly relaxes. “The healers sent me with something that will help as soon as she wakes. Did she eat?”
“Barely a thing. It was too difficult. I’ve already instructed those you’ve already cleared in the kitchens to prepare soups and broth for her tomorrow. She needs strength to get through all of this.”
Weston’s voice lowers even more, and my ears strain to hear. “Thank you, Tila, for looking after her. I couldn’t leave her with someone I didn’t trust.”
“You know there is no reason for you to be thanking me.” Soft footsteps click as she walks closer to the door, and his follow behind.
“The crown isn’t thanking you, Tila. I am.”
There’s a pause as Tila’s skirts swish around, and her voice is hushed when she responds. “You care for her, don’t you?”
Weston doesn’t answer, not with words I can hear, and Tila starts again.
“Well, it is not my place to ask questions. I’m much too old to care about such things as propriety. As long as the First Guard puts the queen above all else, I’m sure that is all her father wanted.”
“I do,” he grumbles.
“Good. And the king? Are you at liberty to say?”
“There was an assassin. He was someone from the king’s past. He tried to harm her too.”
She lets out a huff. “Then we are lucky she is still with us.”
“We are.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, mister Rowe. It is a loss for us all, but I’m sure it is a great deal harder for you. I remember how close you were to the king.”
“Thank you, Tila. It was not an easy day.”
“You are correct. So, it is high time this day was over for us all. I am going to retire. I will check in on her in the morning. Goodnight, mister Rowe.”
A strip of light expands across the room as Tila slips out the door, but it is extinguished quickly as Weston closes and locks it softly behind her.
His footsteps cross the room, followed by the sound of a log being added to the hearth.
The orange glow flashes brighter, followed by more crackling and popping as the flame catches the bark.
He’s rounding the corner of my bed in the next moment, and there’s a clink of glass as he sets something on the bedside table.
His fingers trail over the curve of my head, and I feel his lips press into my hair.
“Hmmph,” I grumble, trying to will my eyes open, but everything feels heavy and difficult to move. When I finally force them open, the burning makes me want to shut them again, but I don’t. I want to see him. I need to see him.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs as his lips hover just above my skin, and I grunt again.
“No.” My voice is a barely there rasp, and it feels like the cut of blades as the air from my breathing and speaking slices through the space, but I do it anyway.
He leans back, hovering just above me, but the shadows cast over his features make him barely visible.
I place my hand on his cheek, feeling for any bandages or stitches, and he leans softly into my touch.
“Did you see a healer?” I mutter.
“I told you I would. They said I’ll be fine.”
“Mmm,” I hum, happy that he took care of himself and didn’t just ignore his needs to take care of mine. I take a deep breath through my nose and inhale his fresh scent that tells me he must have cleaned up before coming back here.
“Are you in pain?” he asks gently, and I decide not to lie. What’s the point? I don’t want him to worry about me, but I also want him to know everything I’m feeling. There’s no hiding anything between us anymore.
“Yes.”
He straightens and turns toward the table, picking up the bottle he set there before.
“Drink this. Roxyana said it will lessen the pain and help you sleep.” His hand cups my jaw while the other guides the bottle to my lips.
He tilts it back, helping me take small swallows until the entire dose is gone.
I was always grateful for the healing magic on Dawnlin, but I haven’t missed it more than I do now.
The injuries I endured there never seemed that bad, because the pain was so short-lived. The island wouldn’t let us suffer long.
Not here.
Here the pain is prolonged and masked, and the healing takes away from everything else this new life demands of me.
“Thank you,” I murmur. He doesn’t respond, only sets the bottle down again, then kneels next to the bed with his elbows resting on the mattress at my side.
“Were there any more threats?” I sink into the propped pillows and turn my head slightly so I can face him, but it’s still too difficult to see.
“No. It seems like everyone who knew about it was in the throne room with us. Everyone else was kept in the dark.”
“How long were they all here?”
“Only a few days. They locked Rem in his room, so he knew something was wrong, but everyone else just thought the king needed solitude.”
“Bastard,” I grumble, and Weston huffs a laugh.
His hand reaches up and brushes my hair off my forehead before falling down to the bed again. “We’ll learn more when we question the ones who were in charge.”
“I want to be there. At least for Brynne and Storm.”
“Of course,” he agrees.
There’s something I still don’t understand, something that has been hovering in the back of my mind since I heard the guard in the throne room refer to Weston as ‘sir’.
“If they were all kept in the dark, how did it all end? How did anyone know to come get us?”
“Remember when you thought something was wrong as they led us to the throne room?”
It seems like that happened so long ago now, but I remember. I remember Guthrie making comments about Weston being beaten too hard, and worrying that he needed help from all the blows they landed on him.
“Yes.”
“The guards in the corridor, ONeal and Charles, have been guards for a long time. They started as young men, and while they may not look it now, that is how I remember them. I commanded them. I trusted them. So when I saw who was stationed as I walked by, I used a phrase that signaled a mutiny to them. They didn’t forget. ”
“And they broke in,” I breathe. The booming sounds, the splintering of wood, the rattling of chains. Those two guards gathered other trusted men and broke into the throne room.
They saved our lives.
If it had been any other men stationed there today, we might not be sitting here, whispering in the dark. I will never fail to be impressed by all the ways Weston is the best at what he does, and the quick and decisive way his mind works.
“I was so scared,” I admit to the darkness, and my voice quivers with the coming onslaught of tears.
“I was too,” he grumbles, his warm fingers wrapping around mine. “But Dane is finally gone, and you are safe, with me. No one who wants to harm you will be allowed to. They will be removed.”
“What will happen now?” I whisper. “There’s no Guardian. He and my father killed each other, and now there is no one to take his place.”
“I don’t know. But maybe it is better this way. The myth will become just that, a myth. No one will have to endure the pain of being unworthy and having their hope ripped away.”
He’s right. Without a new Guardian, no one will get to the mountain only to leave empty-handed. But without a new Guardian, all that hope will also be lost.
I’m not sure which is better.
Weston’s thumb strokes the back of my hand, sending tingles up my arm as we sit in comfortable silence, but the lack of conversation only makes my mind reel. When I can’t take it any longer, the worries slip from my lips.
“How am I going to be queen?”
The question settles between us, but before he can answer, my doubts and worries take over.
“Getting to this point was what I always wanted. What I thought I always wanted. I’d finally be in control of my life.
I wouldn’t just be subjected to someone else’s choices.
I’d get to make my own. I got a taste of what life could be like, and I couldn’t let it go.
When I wasn’t worthy, I wanted to stay on Dawnlin, just so I didn’t have to give up that freedom.
But now that it’s here, I don’t know if I can. ”
My throat screams when I fall silent, but I don’t care. I had to get all of it out. His thumb halts, and I watch his shadowed face in the darkness, waiting for his response.
“Lennox, there is no question of going to be. You aren’t going to be anything. You are. It is who you always have been, and who you always would become. It’s only a title, nothing more. You are still Lennox Holt, whether ‘queen’ comes before your name, or not.”
Lifting my hand, his lips press firmly onto my knuckles. “And you will always be my queen, even before you were officially.”
Tears prick at my eyes, and I’m thankful for the darkness so he can’t see them. I’ve cried so much recently, and I don’t want him to see the mess I have become in the last few days. I want him to see the strong, fierce Lennox.
“Thank you for not letting me do this alone.”