Waking a beast

The cold fever didn’t go away until he woke up, well past noon the next day. The space on the right side of the bed was empty, any trace of Elena’s presence was long gone.

“Who did this to you?”

Few people had ever sounded so sincerely concerned about his well-being, and he almost felt guilty that he couldn’t be honest with her (which seemed like it would be a constant in this relationship).

Putting on a shirt, and grabbing some clean clothes from the closet, Ivar walked out of the room and made a slow descent to the hot springs underneath the palace. On his way there, he asked Bolton about Elena’s whereabouts and learned that she’d gone outside with her personal maids and the baby, who apparently needed to spend long hours out