Three days passed after the poisoned well, three days of guards doubled at every gate, and Kael barely left my side except to meet with his war commanders. I noticed the toll it took on him, the way his shoulders carried a weight that had not been there when he first found me, the way his eyes stayed sharp even in the quiet hours when he thought I was already asleep.
"You should rest," I told him one evening, finding him awake at my bedside for the third night in a row. "You can not protect me if you run yourself into the ground trying."
"I will rest once I know you are safe," he said, though the shadows beneath his eyes told me exactly how long that promise had gone unfulfilled.
"Kael." I reached for his hand, and he let me take it, his fingers curling around mine with a gentleness tha
