She woke with a gasp.
Her eyes opened wide and her body came upright before she was fully conscious, her hands pressing into something soft beneath her.
The bed.
The bed???
not the floor?, the room was bright with morning light.
The bells were ringing outside.
She sat still for a moment, breathing, letting her heartbeat settle from whatever the memories had done to it in the night.
The room came into focus around her, the window, the desk, the side table with the embroidery frame.
The papers were gone.
She was on her feet before she had decided to stand, looking at the bed, the floor, the desk, all of it clear, all of it tidy, none of the scattered records she had fallen asleep surrounded by.
”Lyel.”
He appeared at the door within moments, as he always did.
She looked at him.
“The papers.”
”Packed and secured, My lady.” His voice was even.
“Before his highness arrived.”
She looked at him.
”His Highness,” she said.
”Yes, Your Highness.
The Crown Prince.
He came to your door last night…I informed him you were resting but he….
he came in regardless.” A pause.
“He found you asleep on the floor. He moved you to the bed.” Another pause.
“He did not stay long after that.”
She stood very still for a moment.
Zyran had been in this room.
While she was asleep.
She exhaled slowly.
”The papers,” she said again.
“He didn’t see them right?”
”No, Your Highness.
I had finished packing them before he came through the door.
There was nothing to see.”
She breathed.
”Good,” she said.”Leave.”
She turned and began getting ready without another word, moving through the familiar motions, washing, dressing, her hair pinned up in the palace style she had grown used to.
She tried not to think about Zyran picking her up from the floor and placing her in bed without waking her.
The bells were still ringing.
The hall was waiting.
She had finished dressing up and she stalked out of the room.
—
In Ashvin, it was already past midmorning.
The room was small and clean.
Everything in its place, the shelves organised, the medical instruments laid out carefully.
A girl lay on the low bed near the window.
She was pale.
Not obviously so, but the particular paleness of a body that had been working hard to survive for days and was only now beginning to survive.
Her breathing was even.
Her hands, resting on the blanket and were still.
He was perhaps fifteen, slight, with careful hands and the particular focused attention.
He had brown eyes and a face that carried something familiar in its features.
He leaned forward and checked the girl’s pulse with two fingers at her wrist.
Counted.
Noted something.
Sat back.
”She is improving,” he said.
“Slowly. Her body is not strong… she has been malnourished for a long time and that slows everything.” He stood, straightening his robes.
“The poison is mostly cleared. Maybe in two or three days and she should be able to move without difficulty.”
Across the room, Azrael stood with his arms folded, watching the girl.
”Good,” he said.
The young man began gathering his instruments.
He set each one back in its case with care.
”She was lucky,” he said.
“If she had gone another day without the antidote…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
He closed the case instead.
”Yes,” Azrael said.
The young man picked up the case and stood.
He looked at the girl on the bed once more, a final check and then at Azrael.
”I’ll come back soon,” he said.
“Make sure she takes the dose when she wakes. If possible she wakes today.”
”Understood.”
The young man moved toward the door.
”Kyren,” Azrael said.
He stopped.
Azrael looked at him, at the careful hands, the well packed case, the focused eyes that were already thinking about the next thing they needed to do.
At the face that was, unmistakably, a face he had seen before on someone who had never once made things easy for him and who he would have followed anywhere anyway.
”You have grown into a very useful physician,” he said.
“Your sister would be proud of you.”
Something moved in Kyren’s expression, brief, quickly managed.
”Take care of her,” he said quietly.
“Please.”
”I always do,” Azrael said.
Kyren nodded once.
He opened the door.
A sound stopped him.
From the bed, a small sound, movement, the particular rustle of someone waking from a sleep they had been in for a long time.
Both of them turned.
Senna was sitting up.
She did it slowly, with the careful movements, one hand braced against the bed.
She looked at the room, the ceiling, the window, the clean unfamiliar walls and then at the two people standing near the door who were both looking at her.
She pulled the blanket toward herself immediately.
”Who are you,” she said.
Her voice came out rough and breaking from dried throat.
Azrael moved to the chair beside the bed and sat.
Kyren came back from the door, setting his case down again.
They explained.
Azrael did most of the talking.
Who they were, how she had come to be here, what had happened to the poison in her body and what the treatment had been.
He was careful with what he said and how he said it, and Senna listened with the focused attention, she was still working out how much to trust what they were saying. This story is hosted at g.com.
Her eyes moved to Kyren while Azrael spoke.
She looked at his face for a long moment.
”You look like her,” she said, interrupting.
Azrael stopped.
”Like Princess Elyndra,” Senna said.
She was looking at him with a certainty that needed no confirmation.
“You look exactly like her.”
Kyren said nothing.
Senna looked at Azrael.
Then back at Kyren.
Then something settled in her face.
”I need to go back to Azgareth.” She was already trying to move to the edge of the bed, her body was not entirely cooperating and she did not care.
“The poisoned food… we ate tog…”
”She is fine,” Azrael stepped in smoothly, his voice cutting across hers before the words could land.
”We are glad you are recovering,” he said, with a finality that closed the subject.
Kyren did not notice.
He was already pulling on his outer robe.
Senna looked at him.
”I want to go back,” Senna said, when she trusted her voice again.
“To Azgareth. To the princess. She fed me from her own tray when I hadn’t eaten in a day. She told me I would eat with her from then on.” She looked up.
“I am not going to sit here while she is there alone.”
The room was quiet.
Azrael looked at her for a moment.
Then he nodded.
”We will arrange it,” Azrael said.
Senna settled back against the pillow.
Kyren picked up his case again.
He paused at the door.
”Tell her…” He stopped.
Started again.
“Tell her I am well. And that I have been reading the letters she left for me.” A pause.
“And that my calligraphy is improving.”
Azrael almost smiled.
”She will be glad to hear it,” he said.
Kyren left.
The door closed behind him.
Senna looked at Azrael.
”He doesn’t know she was poisoned,” she said.
”No,” Azrael said.
”You didn’t want him to know.”
”No.”
Senna looked at the ceiling for a moment.
Then she turned onto her side and closed her eyes.
”She is lucky,” she said quietly.
“To have people like that.”
Azrael said nothing.
He sat in the chair beside the bed in the small clean room and looked at the window.
He did not disagree.