Chapter 21

I never did.Three words, weightless, and they came down on Lucien like the heaviest thing ever made and pinned him where he stood so that he couldn't move at all.He looked at her—at that calm, unmoving face in the moonlight, at the plain cold finality in her eyes—and every drop of blood in him seemed to freeze and then, in the same instant, to catch fire, and burn, until everything inside him was cramping with it.He was still reeling, barely upright, when the inner door creaked open.Julian came out with a lantern in his hand and an outer robe pulled over his shoulders—clearly woken by the voices in the yard. He saw the two of them standing off against each other, and his brows drew in, and he crossed to Evelyn quickly and put an arm around her shoulders as naturally as if it had never occurred to him not to, and looked at Lucien with a careful wariness.“Evelyn, it's late—why aren't you inside? Is this gentleman—” His eyes rested on Lucien's face and he placed him: the man fro

Chapter 22

Lucien closed his eyes.When he opened them, the enormous storm behind them had gone quiet, and what was left in its place was a flat, dead, bottomless waste.He raised one hand slowly and made the sign to the soldiers around him.Withdraw.They looked at one another. But nobody was going to refuse him, and they went back like a tide going out, and left behind them a wrecked gate and an air that would not move.“All right.” Lucien's voice had gone badly hoarse, like sand dragged over rough stone. “I won't force you.”Evelyn did not lower the dagger. She watched him.Lucien looked at her, at the guardedness and the distance she wasn't bothering to hide, and the pain under his ribs had gone numb some time ago.“But I'm not giving this up.” He held her eyes and said it one word at a time, and it sounded like an oath and it also sounded like a curse. “Evelyn. You're my wife, and you will be for the rest of your life. I'll give you time. Think it through properly.“But one day I'll

Chapter 23

The royal residence was heavily guarded, and not one man there made any attempt to stop her.She walked in without a hand raised against her and was shown through to a pavilion built out over the water.Lucien stood at the window with his hands behind his back, looking out at a pond of dying water lilies. When he heard footsteps, he turned around slowly.“So you've finally consented to see me,” he said. His voice was a little rough.Evelyn stopped three paces away from him. She didn't look at him. She gathered her skirt and went down onto her knees, and put her forehead against the floor.“Your Majesty. I'm begging you. Let Julian Rivers go.”Lucien looked at the shape of her, bowed flat on the ground in front of him—that respectful, abject posture—and it went into his eyes like a splinter and hurt.He stepped forward to lift her up.Evelyn flinched back from his hand as though it had scalded her, and stayed exactly where she was, kneeling straight.Lucien's hand stopped in th

Chapter 24

Something closed hard on Lucien's heart, and the pain of it nearly stopped his breathing.What he had wanted had never been this—a surrender given out of despair, because she'd been left nothing else.But it had come to this, and what else was there for him now?“I don't go back on my word,” he said, and turned away from her, because he was afraid that if he looked any longer he would soften, and lose hold of himself entirely.For those seven days, Lucien spent every ounce of gentleness and patience he had ever possessed.He put her in the finest and most comfortable wing the residence had, and had every furnishing in it arranged to the tastes she'd had at Silverleaf Palace.He sent for the most delicate confections in the south, the newest dresses, jewelry, and filled her rooms with them.He took his meals with her, even when she barely touched her food and sat with her eyes down, like a porcelain doll with nothing behind it.He found the books she used to like and read them a

Chapter 25

The seventh day, toward evening.The fever had come down somewhat and Lucien was lucid again, though still weak. Evelyn came into the inner room carrying a bowl of thin, plain broth.He didn't reach for it. He only looked at her, and the look was heavy, and there was one last thin thread of hope somewhere in it.“The time's up,” Evelyn said quietly, and set the bowl on the low table beside his hand.The light in his eyes went out, a little at a time, until there was nothing left in them but a flat gray.“You're still going,” he said. His voice was badly hoarse.“Yes.” Evelyn nodded. She didn't look away from him.“And if I don't permit it?” He was watching her the way a cornered animal watches, making its last attempt.Evelyn looked back at him without moving. Then she took the dagger out of her sleeve—the same one she had once held to her own throat—and laid it on the table beside the bowl.“Then what Your Majesty gets will be a body.”Lucien looked at the blade. Then up at

Chapter 26

Outside the room, Lionel heard the noise and put his head cautiously around the door.“Your Majesty? Shall I send men to—”“Let her go.” The voice that came back from inside was hoarse past bearing, and there was a calm in it that came from having stopped wanting anything at all. “No one stops her. Send men—quietly—to escort her family out of the south. Wherever they want to go. Make certain they get there safely.”Lionel's eyes stung, and it came out thick.“...Yes, Your Majesty.”Nothing else came from inside the room.Lionel waited a long while, and the uneasiness in him kept building, until at last he found the nerve to push the door open a crack and look in.Lucien lay on the bed, perfectly still. His face had gone a strange blue-white. There was dark red froth at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were shut and his breathing was so faint it was barely there at all.“Your Majesty!”Lionel's blood went cold. He half fell through the door and into the room, and his voice wen