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“I can try that,” I replied.
Again, silence.
“Do you think...” Aislinn started, but a knock at the door interrupted her.
I gestured at her to hide behind the chair she was sitting on, and she quickly did as told.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Sir,” a man’s voice reached me. “Are you awake?”
I did not recognize his voice. Curious, I got up from my bed and went to the door to open it.
A guard stood outside the door. He was short and lean, which made him look young, but he was much older than me.
“I am,” I said, making sure to stand before him so that he would not see Aislinn hiding inside.
“The queen wants to see you,” he said.
The queen wanting to see me at this time of night was certainly not a good sign.
But one did not question an order coming from the Queen of Light. It would not be appropriate to even wonder why she would call me at this inappropriate and rather unconventional time.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll need a few minutes.”
The guard nodded, which eased me a little. If the queen had figured out my visit to the resistance, this man would not have given me any opportunity to escape.
But then again, that was something I shouldn’t have been thinking about. Pushing the thought out of my mind, I tried to focus on my curiosity.
Why would the queen want to see me at this hour?
I pulled a cloak over my clothes. Luckily, I hadn’t changed into my nightwear yet. Aislinn did not make her presence known as I prepared and when I left my room, she stayed behind. I left the door unlocked for her.
The guard was waiting for me a few paces away.
So he wasn’t simply here to deliver a message and then leave. He was here to take me to the queen personally.
That wasn’t a good sign either.
He did not say anything as we walked to the queen’s quarters. It was quite late, which meant there were no fae around to witness me being taken to the queen.
“Go ahead,” the guard said as we reached the double doors leading into the queen’s quarters. “Her majesty is in her study.”
I entered and quickly walked over to the door on the other side. It was wide open, so I didn’t have to knock.
The queen was alone. She was sitting at her desk, her elegant hand moving quickly over a parchment she was writing on. It irked me to see her doing it herself instead of asking one of her scribes, but her hand moved quickly and swiftly as though she was accustomed to the task.
“My queen,” I said, not daring to approach her more than a few steps. “You asked for me?”
“Feremir,” she looked over her shoulder to meet my gaze. There was a wide smile on her pretty lips. It was odd seeing that same smile, the one I’d always thought of as compassionate. Now, all I could see was the lack of that sentiment in her gaze. Still, her feigned compassion was a promise that we would keep pretending tonight.
“Apologies for pulling you out of bed at this time of night,” she said. “But I have an urgent issue I need your help with.”
“Whatever I can do, my queen,” I whispered despite my surprise.
She gestured for me to approach her desk.
The parchment she had been writing on still had fresh ink, but the queen did not use the bowl of sand to dry it. She did not seem to mind that I could easily read whatever she was writing either. Still, I did not dare to look toward the parchment as she met my gaze.
