The Vampire King Forgets Me Every Dawn

The Morning He Was Polite

The next morning Sorin did not draw a blade.

He dismissed her politely.

Liora stood at the council door wearing her own repaired dress, with Orla's shawl folded over one arm. She had slept for four hours. For a foolish moment, while washing, she had believed a morning might feel different if she arrived rested.

The letter from the previous night lay before the king under Iven's, Nera's, and Orla's seals. The ink had survived. It described Tom's borrowed identity, the cabinets, the keeper's door, Sabine's escort. It contained no account of the kiss in the gallery.

Sorin read it again when he saw her.

“Archivist Vale.”

She inclined her head.

“You are relieved of private attendance while the council considers these allegations.”

The words landed gently enough that some people would later call them kind.

“May I ask why?”

“Your personal involvement has complicated the inquiry.”

“Which part?”

His eyes went to the covered mark. “There has been an unfortunate misunderstanding about your position.”

Across the table, Sabine sat without guards beside her. Iven stood at the wall, rigid with anger. Sorin had not decided the regent was innocent. He had decided detaining the person who governed half the kingdom on a night's unfamiliar findings was too disruptive.

The letter could preserve the facts. It could not force him to prefer their cost.

“Was the misunderstanding mine?” Liora asked.

Sorin looked uncomfortable. “I didn't say that.”

“They're waiting for you to.”

He glanced at the councillors. Two lowered their eyes. Sabine folded her hands over a closed folder.

“I will provide rooms and an allowance,” Sorin said. “You should suffer no loss for a situation created while I was ill.”

Liora felt the heat climb her throat. He was offering to maintain her discreetly. She could remain in the palace, waiting for another night in which he might discover he wanted her.

“I am paid for archive work,” she said.

“Which you can resume after the review.”

“In the meantime, what will the allowance be for?”

Nobody answered. She looked at Iven. He could not save her from this without turning her into a woman rescued from one man's judgment by another's.

She went to the table and set Orla's shawl on an empty chair. It did not belong to the king. She would return it to its owner.

“Keep the allowance. Give me the wages I'm owed and permission to leave through the ordinary gate.”

Sorin stood.

“Outside the palace you may be in danger.”

“I was in danger in your bedroom yesterday.”

The room became very still.

“I have read the account,” he said.

“Then stop offering the same place as compensation.”

Sabine rose as if to intervene. Liora looked directly at her, and the regent sat down again. Perhaps she had finally judged that a little silence could do more harm than another correction.

Sorin ordered her wages paid. He did not forbid her departure. Liora thanked him for neither and went to her room to pack.

She had fewer possessions than she expected. The pen from her sister. Three good dresses. A chipped cup from the village market. Her journals filled most of the case. On the shelf above the washstand stood a small wooden bird Sorin had carved during a council delay seven weeks earlier. He had forgotten it the next morning and accused a servant of leaving rubbish on his desk.

Liora had rescued it from the hearth.

She put it in the case, then took it out again. There was no virtue in throwing away something she loved merely because loving it had become painful. She wrapped it in a stocking and packed it properly.

Orla arrived with bread and a jar of preserved pears.

“Where?” she asked.

“The old parish rooms in the east ward. They keep asking for help with their records.”

“They can't pay much.”

“They don't expect me to die for the balance.”

Orla sat on the bed. For the first time since the hearing, Liora saw fear in her face.

“Sabine knows those streets better than you.”

“Then tell Nera where I'm going. I won't hide.”

“That isn't the same as being safe.”

“I know.”

They packed the bread between the journals. Orla held her at the door, fiercely enough that Liora almost stayed.

At the gate, Iven waited with her wages and a written pass. He looked as if he had argued the whole length of the corridor.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Keep Tom alive.”

“I will.”

“And don't let him make another choice for me because he regrets this one at midnight.”

Iven folded his hands around the empty purse. “I'll tell him you said it.”

Sorin came before she crossed the bridge. He had left the council abruptly; one sleeve was unfastened and a clerk was hurrying behind him with papers.

“Liora.”

She turned. The sound of her name was still a trap she entered willingly.

“I have not accused you of wrongdoing.”

“You implied I misunderstood an invitation into your bed. In a room full of people who were waiting to hear it.”

“I was trying to prevent them using the mark against you.”

“By teaching them to pity me instead?”

He stopped a few paces away. The clerk pretended to examine his papers.

Sorin looked at the small case in her hand.

“Was there anything good last night?”

She could tell him about the shoe, the key, the kiss. She could begin building the path back to the woman he would want to keep. The familiar work waited, available and humiliating.

“Yes,” she said.

He waited for the rest.

“You don't get it as a reason I should stay.”

She went through the gate.

The east ward smelled of hot bread and the river at low tide. A boy ran past carrying an eel in a bucket. Somewhere a woman was scolding a man for watering dead plants. The street was crowded, loud, and entirely uninterested in whether a king had loved Liora yesterday.

At the parish rooms, she knocked until a woman opened.

“We have no money for another royal collector.”

“I'm an archivist. You asked for help last winter.”

The woman examined her case. “You took your time.”

Liora almost smiled.

“I did.”

Then she saw the portrait behind the woman's shoulder. Nera stood in it as a girl, beside a young man with the same dark eyes. Beneath his face someone had repeatedly written his name, cutting through the paper in places.

Tomas Sol.

The woman followed her gaze and shut the door halfway.

“If you've come to tell me I never had a son,” she said, “you can go back to the palace.”