The walk to Elena’s chambers led them down the dark stone corridor, torchlight shuddering as a draft sent soot curling up the walls.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Kael said quietly.
Elena drifted in and out of consciousness, fevered and restless. Kael and Oona awkwardly shuffled her weight between them, passing her a little too carefully.
Kael stole a sidelong glance at Oona. Her small frame belied a strength that seemed unnatural.
“Many women are,” she replied, keeping her head down.
They passed the heavy doors of Lord Edric’s library. Locked. Kael hesitated, feeling Oona tug him forward.
“Come on,” she said firmly. “The fever’s getting worse.”
Kael didn’t move, his gaze fixed on the door. “Did Lord Edric spend much time in there?”
Oona faltered for a split second.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said too quickly. “I didn’t have Lord Edric’s calendar.”
“Yet he insisted on you for Elena’s care.”
Her answer was immediate. “I am the only healer left in town, my lord. The others were killed in the purges.”
They reached Elena’s chamber door. The fire within had burned low, embers guttering in the cold draft, shadows stretching unnaturally long across the stone floor. As they eased Elena onto her bed, her glassy eyes fluttered open.
She grasped weakly at Kael’s sleeve, fingers trembling. Then her gaze found Oona. And her expression changed. A moment of clarity, or delusion, Kael couldn’t tell.
“Don’t leave me with—”
Her voice faded as a gust of wind whistled through the cracks in the window. A low rumbling stirred the silence. Oona’s gaze snapped toward the window. Kael, frowning, smoothed the blankets over Elena.
“I should fetch more blankets,” Oona said, her gaze lingering on Kael. “And herbs for the fever.”
Kael nodded. “I’ll help you.” It was not a question.
In the torch-lit corridor, Kael got his first proper look at her. She stood a half-head shorter than him, dark hair pulled back to frame sharp, timeless features. Not beautiful. Striking. Her sun-kissed complexion carried an ageless quality; Kael couldn’t decide if she looked twenty or forty. Or if she belonged to the present, the past, or even the future.
But her eyes held him the longest. Amber-flecked. Almost luminous. She was watching him, too.
“The blankets, then?” she prompted. Expectation laced her voice.
Kael didn’t move. Instead, he pulled a folded page from his cloak—the one Edric had been clutching.
“I think we both know that’s not why I’m here.”
Oona’s expression didn’t change, but her stillness did.
Kael unfolded the page. The jumping torchlight made Edric’s handwriting dance. Jumbled poetry threaded through half-sketched diagrams across the parchment.
“Lord Edric wrote poetry?” Oona’s tone was carefully neutral.
“Yes,” Kael said softly. “Among other things.”
He ran his fingers along the brittle edge of the page, then read aloud:
Oona didn’t move. Kael studied her as he continued, speaking lower:
He glanced up at her. Oona’s hand went to her mouth, her fingers pressing hard, then falling away just as quickly.
Kael didn’t rush to fill the silence. “He saw something. Was he wrong?”
Oona was calm—too calm. “Does it matter?” she asked.
Kael took a step closer, lowering the page. “It matters to me.”
She turned away, but Kael had witnessed recognition in her eyes. She knew. And he needed to understand why.
“We all have secrets, some worth dying for, Crownsman,” Oona whispered. “Even you.”
He studied her, his expression unmoving. “And what are my secrets?”
“I notice things too,” she murmured as she focused on the thin leather cord barely visible beneath his tunic.
Kael’s hand instinctively moved to the locket, fingers brushing the worn silver surface of the bird.
Oona tilted her head. “Does it mean something?”
Kael stiffened, but his hesitation was answer enough.
Oona shifted, speaking quietly. “You dig through the past eagerly enough, Crownsman. But what happens when it starts digging back?”
Kael exhaled. “I don’t fear ghosts.”
“Then you haven’t met them all.”
The wind groaned through the corridor, threading a chill between them. A deep rumble came from the mountains, and the hum within the castle grew. For a long second, neither moved. Then Oona backed away, breaking whatever moment had formed.
“Elena needs blankets,” she said. Her tone was even, but Kael didn’t miss the hint of relief, maybe, or calculation.
The torchlight swayed as another gust knifed through the passage. Kael folded the parchment, tucking it into his cloak. “Of course.”
But even as he followed her down the corridor, his fingers lingered over the pendant.