Chapter 7 The Night Visitor
1593 Words
Sleep does not come.
I lay in the massive bed.
I trace the architecture of the ceiling in my mind.
I have mapped this room completely now.
The door is twelve paces from the bed.
Slightly warped at the bottom corner, so it drags when opened.
The window is eight paces in the opposite direction.
The balcony railing is waist-high.
The drop beyond it is lethal.
The fireplace is to my left.
Cold now. The stones around it still hold a whisper of the day's warmth.
Blindness has given me that, at least. The gift of absolute attention.
My mind drifts to tomorrow.
Zane, The Mad Dog, with his shock collar, his lightning-striking scent, and his eyes that everyone describes as wrong.
I have only encountered him once.
But I remember everything.
The way his fixation felt less like a threat and more like hunger.
The window wakes me.
A scent.
I am sitting up before I am fully conscious.
My heart slams into rhythm.
Something sharp and layered.
Electric and wild.
Cutting through the careful lavender of the Aerie like a match strike in a dark room.
Zane.
"How," I say quietly, "did you get through the window?"
"Carefully." He is already inside.
I track him by the way the air moves.
He is circling the bed with that prowling, unpredictable energy.
Never settling.
"The lower ledge has handholds cut for the original construction. Some of them are still there if you know where to look. I know where to look."
"The guards."
"We are currently very interested in a disturbance I arranged in the eastern courtyard."
A smile in his voice.
"I have maybe twelve minutes before they sort it out."
"So you used twelve minutes to climb through my window."
"You are welcome." his scent wraps around me.
That strange combination of lightning-strike ozone and something under it.
Almost sweet. Like fruit at the edge of turning.
"I brought you something."
I hear him setting an object on the bedside table.
"What is it?"
"Information." His voice shifts.
"Vivian met someone last night. Outside the walls. Which is interesting, because she is not supposed to leave the compound during wartime."
My fingers curl into the bedsheet.
"And the person she met." He paused, "I did not recognize the scent. But I recognized the sigil on his overcoat. A specific one. They deal in what you might politely call 'rare acquisitions.'"
"She is not just your enemy," Zane says.
"She is shopping you."
"Why are you telling me this?"I asked.
"Because I wanted to. I find you interesting. And interesting things should not get sold."
He is already moving toward the window.
"Zane."
"The object you put on the table."
"Oh." A half-laugh.
"It is a flower. From the outer courtyard. It is purple. I thought you might like to smell something that is not beeswax and politics."
The air rushes back into the space he occupied.
Carrying the faintest echo of his scent.
I reach for the table.
My fingers find something small, still holding the warmth of having been carried. I bring it to my face.
Crushed lavender, yes.
But also soil. Something wilder beneath. Something alive.
I sat in the dark holding it for a long time.
Vivian.
The noble Healer with her perfect pedigree and her cold hatred.
I felt it the first day.
That promise of death in sleep.
I assumed she would come for me directly.
Or through the elders.
I did not think she would sell me.
But it makes a terrible kind of sense.
I am valuable.
The elders would never allow it.
But if I simply disappeared.
If I ended up in the hands of some trade house that deals in rare acquisitions.
They think I am inventory.
Fine.
Inventory does not listen through walls and catalog exit routes and learn the names of servants' brothers. Inventory does not know who is selling.
But I do.
And knowing is the first move on a very long board.
Dawn comes slowly.
The light changes in increments that I can feel on my skin.
The first guard shift changes. I hear the drag-footed one leave.
The heavy-heeled one takes his place. Elly will come soon with breakfast. Normal temperature this time, I suspect. She will be careful after yesterday.
I would feel trapped and helpless.
Instead, I feel something I haven't felt since Victor broke our bond on that cold stone floor.
The door opens.
But the footsteps are not Elly's.
They are heavier, military-precise. Carrying a scent I am starting to recognize as permanently anxious.
"Saint Healer." The guard's voice is formal, "The King requests your presence in the training annex. Now, not noon."
I sit up slowly.
"The assessment was scheduled for noon."
"There has been a change. You are to come immediately."
I reached for the robe Elly left at the foot of the bed. My fingers find it. I pull it on anyway.
"Give me a moment."
The guard hesitates.
Then retreats.
I hear the door close partway.
I cross to the bedside table. My fingers find the flower. Still there. Its petals are slightly wilted now.
I tuck it into the pocket of my robe.
Then I walk toward the door.
The cage is still a cage.
But I am not the same person who entered it.
The training annex smells of sweat and steel and the particular musk of too many wolves in too small a space.
I am led through corridors I can't see.
My hand rests lightly on the arm of the guard who walks beside me.
The only concession they have made to my blindness.
Footsteps echo. Voices murmur.
The Saint Healer.
The blind girl.
The King's rejected mate.
I keep my face neutral.
My steps are measured.
Let them talk.
Let them think I am just a broken tool being led to another test.
The guard stops.
"We are here."
The air loses the corridor's closeness. I am in a large space.
The echoes bounce differently.
Training mats underfoot.
Their scent is familiar from my days in the lower levels.
And beneath it all, something else.
Wildness.
The sharp edge of barely contained chaos.
Zane.
"Thea." Victor's voice cuts through the space.
"You are here. Good."
I turn toward the sound. "You moved the assessment."
"I moved you." His footsteps approach. Stop a few feet away.
"Circumstances changed."
"What circumstances?"
"I requested to observe."
Vivian.
My spine stiffens, but I don't let it show.
I keep my face turned toward Victor.
As if she isn't worth acknowledging.
"You requested," I repeat.
"And the King accommodates personal requests from his healer."
Victor's voice, when it comes,"Vivian is here because her expertise may be relevant to the assessment. You will begin with Zane. Standard protocol. Approach. Initiate contact. Document response."
Document response?
"Understood," I say.
"Zane." Victor's voice shifts. Command now, "Approach the Saint."
I hear him before I feel him.
That lightning-strike scene is intensifying.
Almost silent footsteps.
Hunting steps.
He stops close. Close enough that his breath stirs my hair.
"Hello, little healer. I brought you a flower. Did you like it?"
"I tucked it into my robe this morning," I say, "It is still there."
"Good."
"The assessment," Victor bites out. "Now."
I raise my hand.
This is the moment.
The test. Zane's feral madness.
And everyone says it is always there. Held back by that collar and sheer willpower.
My palm touches his chest.
The moment I make contact, I feel it.
The storm inside him. It's chaos.
A whirlwind of sensation and impulse and hunger.
All of it is spinning so fast that it threatens to tear him apart from the inside.
And at the center of it.
Stillness.
A single point of quiet.
Right where my hand rests.
The golden light rises without me willing it.
I feel it pour from my palm into his chest.
Seeking that stillness.
Wrapping around it
. Not calming the storm.
Anchoring it. Giving it a center.
Zane makes a sound I have never heard from him.
Something vulnerable. Something real.
"There you are," he whispers.
Then Vivian screams.
"Stop! Stop this immediately!" Her voice shatters the moment.
"Look at her. She is bleeding!"
Warmth trickling from my nose.
From my ears.
The same as before.
But this time, I didn't fall.
Zane's arms caught me before my knees buckled.
His grip is surprisingly gentle.
"Victor." His voice is different now.
"She is burning herself out. If you want this asset to be functional, do something."
Then Victor's voice, rough: "Get her back to Aerie. Now. Vivian. With me. We need to talk about trade houses."
The words land like a blade.
Vivian's scent changes. Cutting through her usual cold elegance.
"I don't know what you."
"Don't." Victor's voice is death.
"We will discuss it in private."
Zane lifts me like I weigh nothing.
His chest is warm against my side.
His heartbeat is fast but steady.
"I have got you," he murmured, for my ears only.
"The flower was the first thing. This is the second. I am collecting reasons to keep you alive, little healer."
I want to respond. Want to understand why the Mad Dog is suddenly my most unexpected ally.
But the darkness is pulling at me again.
Softer this time.
The last thing I feel, before it takes me, is Zane's thumb brushing gently against my cheek. Wiping away blood.
And his voice, very quiet:
"Don't die. I am not done being interested yet."
- Writer
