Chapter 54 Kentan
Kentan
Iwake before the light reaches the walls.
The room is quiet. The children breathe softly.
Ari has not moved. Kiss shifts once, then goes still again.
Colsar is not beside me. He had come in late.
I remember the weight of him at my back, the heat of his body against mine, and I had told myself I would speak to him in the morning. He is gone before the morning comes.
The healer arrives later that day. She works more quickly now, the bandages loosening with less resistance, her hands moving with quiet precision as she checks what lies beneath.
"You are improving faster than expected," she says.
"I told you I would."
She presses along the edge of the injury. It pulls but it no longer steals my breath. "When will I be finished?"
"Soon. Very soon, if you choose to accelerate it."
"The pools?"
"Yes." She adjusts the final wrap, then pauses. "You may also resume intimacy."
I look at her. "I am healed enough for it?"
"Yes." A brief pause. "Siakar males are rarely inclined to keep their distance after birth. The bond strengthens. The instinct follows. In most cases they remain close to their partners. It becomes difficult for them to be elsewhere for long."
I hold still.
He is gone before I wake. He is gone before I return. He comes to bed after I am already asleep and leaves before the morning comes.
I look back at her. "Then I will be prepared," I say.
She smiles, then pulls a small sachet from her supply basket and presses it into my hands. “Herbs. These can be used should you wish to prevent another pregnancy.”
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
She studies me briefly, nods, and leaves.
Kiss still does not take to milk easily, though she has learned to tolerate it well enough. She quiets for longer, her crying dulling into something manageable. She still prefers blood, particularly Colsar’s, but she learns to manage.
"She is still looking for blood," Saurin says.
I know that. Kiss pulls away again, her small body pulling tight in my arms.
"She will not have it," I say.
Saurin steps closer. "Then she needs something else."
"She is learning."
"She is struggling."
I guide Kiss back. This time she latches, drinks, stops, then drinks again. Uneven but working.
"She will not starve," Saurin says.
"I did not say she would."
"You were thinking it."
Kiss quiets slightly, not content but calmer.
"She can survive on this," Saurin continues. "It will not be what she prefers but it will be enough."
I look down at her, at the way she adjusts and adapts, and something in my chest loosens before I can stop it.
"And you," Saurin adds, "cannot do this alone."
"I am managing."
"For now." She lets that sit. "You feed them. You hold them. You recover. And you wait."
My grip tightens slightly. "I am not waiting."
"You are," she says. "For him."
Silence.
"We bring in help," she says after a moment. "A wet nurse. For when you are not available to feed her.”
"I am available."
"You were not," she replies calmly. "Just now, when you were with the healer.” She sighs. “Someone who can provide milk when you cannot would be useful.”
Kiss shifts again, still adjusting. I do not argue, because she is right. "Fine," I say.
Cambra is brought in that afternoon. Composed and quiet and certain in the way she holds herself.
"This is Cambra," Saurin says. "She will assist. She will travel with us when we leave."
I nod once.
"My queen," Cambra says.
Kiss stirs in my arms. I hesitate, then pass her over without delay. Cambra adjusts her hold and guides her. Kiss resists, then quiets. Not fully, but enough.
I watch it happen and this time I believe it.
I wake early the next morning, before the light, before anything can reach me. I dress quickly and pause only once at the bassinets.
Empty. Cambra has already taken them. Saurin stands nearby.
"I will be back shortly," I say.
She nods.
The pools are empty the first time I go.
The water takes the weight first, then everything else, the heat moving through me in a way that feels purposeful rather than incidental.
I stay until I feel the difference and then I leave, returning before the children need me and before Colsar surfaces from wherever the day has already taken him.
It helps. More than the healer's hands had, more than rest alone. I decide to go back the following morning, earlier this time, the way the water had suggested might be worth trying.
The pools are not empty the second time.
I realize it as I move further in, the shift in the air subtle but present, like something already claimed.
A man sits in the pool beside mine, separated by a low divide that gives him privacy without removing him entirely.
One arm rests along the edge, the other submerged to the elbow, the skin above it bearing the marks of a healer that has not finished its work.
He looks up as I enter.
He is handsome, dark hair falling into his eyes, his smile easy in a way that does not feel practiced. There is something in him that reads as though he has seen too much of the world and chosen, anyway, to remain unbothered by it.
He inclines his head. "I am Kentan," he says. "The Sovereign's younger brother."
That is not what I expected. He is far younger than the Sovereign, the difference immediate now that I see it.
I nod once. "Asharin."
Recognition moves through his expression without surprise. "I thought so," he says, and does not shift after that. No added formality. No correction in tone.
"These are better," he says after a moment, glancing toward the water. "Less crowded." A brief pause. "Which is not many, but still more than you would like."
"Yes," I say.
He studies me a moment longer, then turns his head, giving me his profile. "Go ahead," he says. "I am not looking." A moment passes. "I do not wish for my dear nephew to gouge my eyes out."
The laugh leaves me before I can stop it. It feels unfamiliar. He lets out a quiet breath that carries the same quality and leans back, his attention drifting elsewhere.
I step down into the water. The heat moves through me quickly, easing the tension that has not fully left my body. I lower myself slowly, letting it work through the deeper ache that still lingers.
For a time neither of us speaks, and it holds easily.
"You were at the border," I say after a while.
He nods. "You were not," he replies.
"No."
He shifts slightly, the movement careful in a way that confirms what I already see. "They are pushing again," he says.
"The undead?"
"Yes."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that I am here instead of there."
That tells me enough. "They did not breach."
"No."
"But they tried."
"They always try." Simple. Certain.
I lower myself further, letting the heat take more of the strain.
"You should come earlier," he says after a moment.
"Earlier than this?"
"Yes. It stays quiet longer, before others come through."
"I might," I say.
"Good."
Another pause moves between us, unforced. Then, "You did not come here just to heal."
I look toward him. "No."
He nods once. "I did not think so." He leaves it there and does not ask for more.
I let myself sink deeper into the water, the heat moving through muscle and bone, loosening what has been held too tightly for too long. For the first time in days nothing presses in on me.
When I return the chamber is not quiet.
"You should have told me—"
"I was told she was within the palace—"
"You were told wrong—"
I push the door open. Colsar stands near the center of the room. Cambra is seated with Ari in her arms, already feeding. Kiss fusses lightly against Saurin's shoulder.
Colsar turns. Relief moves across his face first, then something harder behind it.
"Where were you?"
"The pools."
His jaw tightens. "You left without telling anyone."
"I told Saurin."
His eyes move to her briefly, then back to me. "Ari was hungry."
"He is being fed." I nod toward Cambra. Ari is calm, already taken care of.
Colsar goes still. "You did not discuss this with me."
"You were not available."
Silence.
Saurin moves quietly. "Come," she says, and Cambra rises immediately with Ari while Saurin adjusts Kiss and follows. The door closes behind them.
Colsar's attention returns to me fully. "You do not make decisions like that alone."
"I did not make it alone."
"You did not make it with me."
"You have not been here."
"I have been exactly where I need to be."
"And I have been here," I say. "With them."
His jaw tightens. "That does not mean you leave without—"
"Without what? Asking your permission?"
He stops. "That is not what I said."
"It is what you meant."
Silence moves through the room.
"I was gone for less than an hour," I say. "They were cared for. They were fed. Nothing happened."
"That is not the point."
"Then what is?"
Something moves through his expression. "You should have told me about Cambra."
"I would have," I say, "if you had been here."
He exhales once, his attention breaking away before returning. "I am handling something that requires my focus."
"I am aware."
"Then act like it."
"I am."
The words sit between us. He looks at me as though he wants to say more, and this time he does.
"I do not want you going back to the pools."
I look at him. "They are healing pools."
"It does not matter what they are. They are worse than the ones at Rathmor Palace because men and women share them.” His voice is controlled but the thread beneath it is not. "I do not want another man seeing my wife without her clothes on."
I hold his eyes for a moment.
"I understand," I say.
Something in him eases slightly at that.
I turn toward the door. "I am going for a walk."
He does not stop me.
And as I step into the corridor I think that understanding something and choosing to obey it are not, in fact, the same thing at all.