Chapter 67 The Knock
The Knock
The knock comes hard enough to fracture the quiet of the chamber. It strikes the door with a force and urgency that does not belong to domestic mornings. Our smiles fade, because no one interrupts a prince in their chamber this early unless it is important.
Colsar is out of bed almost instantly, moving with the instinct of a man whose body has long ago learned the difference between inconvenience and alarm.
The warmth he leaves behind cools too quickly.
He does not hesitate or curse the interruption, only reaches for his clothes with a focus that tells me this is not courtly irritation. This is something else.
“Stay here,” he says, already pulling on his trousers.
I push myself up onto one elbow, hair falling around my shoulders. “I was not planning to flee before breakfast.”
He almost smiles at that, almost, but it does not reach his eyes.
He bends to kiss me, brief and firm, then disappears into the corridor barefoot.
The door closes. The silence that follows hums with movement beyond it.
Voices. The muted clatter of metal. The rhythm of boots that do not belong to a leisurely morning.
I lie there a moment longer, telling myself that this is nothing, that court never truly sleeps and I am simply new to the cadence of it.
But the air feels wrong, stretched too tight, and I cannot remain still inside it.
By the time he returns, I have risen and wrapped myself in a loose gown. I am seated at the vanity with my brush in hand, pretending at normalcy, working through the tangles as though this day intends to unfold the way we had imagined it only hours ago.
“Do you have time to brush my hair before breakfast?” I ask lightly, lifting the brush toward the mirror without turning.
No answer comes.
I look up. Colsar stands in the doorway already fully dressed, his boots laced and his sword belted at his side, the dark tunic drawn high along his throat. His hair has been secured with careful precision. He did not come back here to change. He dressed elsewhere. He dressed to leave.
The brush lowers in my hand.
He closes the door carefully behind him and crosses the room, each step controlled, as if he is pacing himself so I can meet him without shattering. “A scout arrived from Shalvar,” he says, voice low but even. “He rode through the night. He was covered in blood and dust.”
The words draw the air from my lungs. “The Threns?” I ask.
“Not in the way we expected.” He reaches me then and takes my hand. “Undead,” he continues. “They rose hours after battle beyond the passes. Villages near Shalvar’s wards are burning their dead as soon as they fall. Even the wards are weakening.”
A chill spreads through me, slow and invasive. Images I do not want surface anyway. The tavern. The smoke. The way bodies were destroyed with no regard for what they had been.
“The Sovereign?” I ask, because I cannot help it.
“He was leading a search beyond the outer wards,” Colsar replies. “He and several scouts were attacked. They withdrew to an encampment before being completely surrounded, but he is badly injured.”
“Alive?” My voice tightens despite my effort to control it.
“For now.”
He does not soften it, and I am grateful for that. Truth is easier to brace against than comfort.
The warmth of the moment fades as the truth of the morning returns.
“You have to go,” I say.
“Yes.” There is no hesitation in him, only resolve. He draws closer, his hand rising to cup my face.
“I would not leave you if there were another way,” he says quietly.
“Not for duty alone, but because Shalvar is not only a territory to me. It is the place I intended for us to retreat to if court ever became unsafe. If you are with child, you may become a target. I would have somewhere safer prepared for you. For us.”
The future he speaks of feels impossibly fragile in this moment.
“I cannot come,” I say, already knowing the answer.
“You cannot,” he agrees. “Speed matters. I cannot divide my attention between leading men through mountain passes and guarding you from what waits there.”
My chest tightens. “How can the undead injure siakars?” I ask. “You told me they are difficult to kill.”
His expression shifts slightly, calculation replacing emotion. “I do not know what they encountered in the passes,” he admits. “But I am not only a siakar. I am both bloodlines. Human and creature. I am stronger than either alone.”
The certainty in his tone is calming, though it does not quiet the panic building beneath my ribs. He senses it anyway. “If trouble arises here,” he says, lowering his voice, “you do not wait for me.”
I shake my head instinctively, but he tightens his hold, forcing me to listen.
“No harm should come to you within these walls,” he continues, “but if it does, you leave. You take the names on this list and you go to them. I will look for you there first.”
He presses a folded parchment into my hand.
“These are the people and places I trust. If I must search for you, these are the roads I will follow.”
My fingers close around it. He hesitates briefly, then adds, more quietly, “I have already sent word to Artherin. The King will not force a marriage while I am gone.”
My brow furrows. “You think he would try?”
“No,” Colsar says evenly. “But I do not leave things to chance.”
“Junis returns tomorrow,” he adds. “I left instructions for him to remain close to you. He is loyal. He is to be trusted.”
I nod, though my throat feels tight.
“Do not leave the palace grounds at night,” he continues. “Do not wander alone. Ride your horses. Get fresh air. Train. Do not cage yourself in these chambers and call it devotion.”
“You just told me not to leave the palace,” I say quietly, studying him as if the answer might change depending on how carefully I look at him.
“Yes,” he replies, and there is no contradiction in the word, only consideration. “And I also know you would not survive being confined to these chambers, measuring your days by the sound of doors opening and closing.”
I search his face. “So which is it? Do I stay inside or not?”
He steps closer, his hand lifting to brush his knuckles along my cheek before drifting down the line of my throat, not possessive in display but instinctive, as though touch is the way he organizes his thoughts.
“While I am here,” he says, “remaining within these walls is caution. Once I leave, remaining here out of fear would be a mistake. If danger comes, the only person who can protect you with the same ferocity I would is you.”
The idea leaves me off balance and strangely certain at the same time.
“You are stronger than you think,” he continues, his gaze moving over my face as if measuring whether I believe him. “And I will not make you smaller simply to quiet my own instincts.”
Something almost amused moves through him then, and he turns his head slightly, baring the side of his neck without ceremony.
“Besides,” he adds, his voice lowering, “you have already demonstrated what you are capable of.”
Heat rises to my face before I even look.
The marks of my teeth remain faintly visible against his skin, a reminder of the moment when desire overcame restraint and I chose to leave proof.
“You did that,” he says, not reproachful, not embarrassed. “You marked me because you wanted to. Not because I told you to. Not because you were afraid. You chose it.”
The memory of it pulses through me, bold and unmistakable. Mine. I step closer, my fingers hovering near the marks as if to claim them again. “That was different,” I murmur.
“Was it?” His hand slides to my waist, firm and anchoring. “You wanted something, and you took it. That is not weakness.”
He leans nearer, his voice lowering against my ear. “I will always want you,” he says. “I will always claim you. But if I am not here, you answer to no one but yourself. Not my brother. Not the court. Not the lies they tried to build around you.”
His thumb traces slowly along my jaw, and there is no gentling in it, only certainty. “You are my treasure,” he says quietly, “and I will guard you with everything I have. But do not mistake that for fragility. You are the woman who bites kings. Remember that.”
It does not make me flinch. It roots deep, as if he has named something I have always known. “And if someone forgets?” I ask quietly.
His hand tightens at my waist. “Then remind them,” he says.
“There are jealous eyes upon you now that we have returned,” he continues.
“Worse yet, the Threns have likely realized you matter. My brother is distracted by this war and will be more so once I depart. A distracted king is a dangerous one.”
“And within these walls?” I ask.
“If danger reaches you inside these walls,” he replies evenly, “then nowhere in Rathmor is safe.”
He lifts my hand and presses his lips to my knuckles. “These are not rules,” he says. “I cannot predict the future. I am asking you to use your judgment. Trust your intuition, because I trust you.”
“You want me safe,” I whisper.
“I want you alive,” he corrects. “But you are nobody’s prisoner. You are not the Baron’s bastard. No one owns you. No one gets to make you small.”
The old wound in me stirs at that. “What am I, then?” I ask softly.
He leans in, mouth brushing my ear. “A queen.”
The word moves through me like a blade reforged into something brighter.
“I love you,” he says then, without embellishment.
The timing nearly breaks me. “I love you,” I answer.
He kisses me again, longer this time, as though he is committing the shape of me to memory. When he pulls back, he studies me carefully.
“Practice your swordsmanship,” he says. “Do not mope.”
I manage the ghost of a smile. “Yes, my King.”
His expression darkens in approval. “If you ever must run,” he adds quietly, “run knowing I will come. I will find you, I promise.”
“You better,” I murmur, my voice finally betraying me. “You are all I have and all I want, Colsar Rathmor.”
Tears rise, hot and unsteady, held at the edge of falling as he blinks once, then twice, then three times, and something in me locks into place. I do not break.
Something like approval passes across his expression, his hand tightening at my waist for a final, fleeting second. “I will not make you a widow,” he says. At the threshold he pauses only long enough to look back at me.
“Asha Bear.”
“Wings,” I answer.
And then he is gone, leaving behind a chamber that still smells of him, a folded list in my hand, and a title in my chest that feels heavier now that I understand what it demands.