CHAPTER 63
Her room was dark and silent when she returned, but her stomach was loud and churning.
She ran for the bath chamber and dropped in front of the commode, losing her dinner in several waves.
She was not prone to a weak stomach, but after Tyghan had left Sun Court, she wolfed down her piled plate of food, and her empty stomach had not been ready for it. Now it was empty again.
She fell back on the floor, weak, and wiped her clammy forehead with her palm, then felt a cold nose nudging her elbow.
She opened her eyes. It was Reggie, checking on her.
“I’m all right,” she said, and got to her feet, splashing her face in the basin, and brushing and gargling until her mouth was fresh again.
She snapped her fingers, illuminating a single candle on the chandelier, and got into the shower, trying to wash away the day.
If anyone spots him, he’s a dead man. Fine advice from someone who imprisoned him for a thousand years.
He’d rather be dead. So would she. And that was the precise point of Judge’s Walk.
The horror of seeing his face pressed against the marble made her woozy again.
She got out of the shower and was drying off when she heard her door slam.
Fucking appearances. He was here. She wished she had never suggested it. She quickly threw on her nightgown and wrapped her hair in a towel. Tyghan gave her a cursory glance as he entered, and she left the bath chamber. “The sofa,” she said as she passed. “Yours.”
He didn’t respond, but he crashed around the bath chamber like he was a trapped bear instead of a man. When he finally finished, he exited with only a towel around his waist and scooped her up from her side of the bed.
“What are—”
“Appearances. Your idea.” He deposited her on the sofa. “The sofa is yours.” He returned with a blanket and threw it at her.
Tyghan lay in the dark, staring at a ceiling he couldn’t see. She was awake too. He heard her rolling over on the couch and then rolling back again.
She was just as stubborn as her father. And arrogant. Smile, Your Majesty. Every eye in Sun Court is on us. Like he didn’t already know that after a lifetime of being watched. His business became everyone’s business in the blink of an eye.
He had been crazed with worry when she disappeared, searching all over the palace for her, ready to call out a whole regiment to search the skies for Pengary and pull her from his jaws—and then he found her filling a plate at the buffet tables?
His momentary rush of relief had turned to rage. Rage at everything she had done.
I gave her the potion in return for her silence. Blackmail. Bristol knew what Kasta had done for weeks, and she didn’t tell him. She chose to blackmail Kasta instead, then compounded it all by releasing Pengary too. And now Kierus was out there somewhere, doing the gods knew what.
Bristol rolled over, unable to get comfortable, but not because of the sofa.
I know him better than you do. Open your eyes, Bristol. He’s a knight on a mission.
That’s what she had seen when she said goodbye to her father. A determined man on a mission to save his wife—but he was also mortal. A man who had already been captured once. A month. That’s all I gave him.
A month? A thousand years was what the council ordered.
And that’s what her father and Kasta had both said.
But when Tyghan said one month, he didn’t hesitate.
It was not new information he had plucked from the air as an excuse.
His eyes never strayed from hers. He believed it.
The difference between a month and a thousand years was the difference between choking on a sip of water and drowning in an ocean.
But her father never should have been imprisoned in the first place.
“You promised to call off the hunt,” Bristol said into the darkness. Tyghan didn’t answer.
“And the kill order for my mother. Did you really rescind that, or was that a lie too?”
She heard the rustle of bedcovers and then the slam of the door.
He didn’t return until dawn, a minute before a servant arrived with breakfast.
Just in time for appearances.
The servant hummed as he laid breakfast out on the table, removing warming covers, pouring coffee for her and juice for him—their usual fare.
When everything was set and they still hadn’t moved toward the table, he asked, “Anything else?”
If this was for appearances, they were both failing miserably at it.
Usually at the first sniff of hot biscuits, Tyghan was crawling out of bed and peeking under warmers, reciting the dishes to Bristol as she brushed her hair in the bath chamber.
Instead, today they were both dressed and groomed like they were ready to move on with their day, and they hovered at a safe distance from the table and each other.
“Nothing else,” Bristol said cheerily, and finally sat down. Tyghan did the same, and the servant left.
They stared silently at the dishes for a moment and then Tyghan dug in, his fork and knife clinking in place of conversation. He cleaned his plate in minutes and stood, his eyes grazing her still full plate. All she had managed was half a biscuit.
“You haven’t touched your food.”
“I had something last night that disagreed with me.”
He stared at her, wondering if that something was him. “Then see Esmee about it. We have a full day.” He went to the wardrobe, grabbing some of his things.
She shouldn’t have been irked, considering the enormity of everything else that had transpired, but Bristol was peeved that his only concern for her stomach was that it might interrupt his schedule.
She stared at his back as he slipped a jacket on.
Sometimes it was the small things that unleashed tongues.
“Last night you proclaimed that I interfered. Well, guilty as charged. I was on a walkway and suddenly I was caught in the horror of my father’s tortured face jumping out at me from a pillar. Yes, I interfered. And I will not apologize for blackmail.”
Tyghan turned, color tinging his temples.
“You had a fright? Last night I did a record number of nightjumps. Ten at least, to the point I could barely breathe, because I was frantically searching for you. I was terrified that you might be in the jaws of that beast you released. Instead, I find you happily piling food on a plate, because apparently blackmail agrees with you! Don’t talk to me about horror. ”
“It’s not the same thing at all.”
“I agree. Not even close. And I didn’t promise to call off the hunt. I promised to convene the council for a new vote. They refused!” He grabbed his weapon belt from the chaise and headed for the door.
She screamed at his back, her voice on the brink of collapsing. “Safe? How could you look me straight in the eye yesterday and tell me he was safe?”
He was halfway out the door, and turned, his expression blank. “Because yesterday he was safe. Safer than he is today.” He left, not bothering to close the door behind him.
Bristol ran over and slammed it shut, so he’d be sure to hear.