“You may go now, Gentlewoman.I have worked myself up thinking about all of this.I will calm, and when we see each other next, we will be friends again.Mhm?”He dropped my letter into the nearest brazier.
I shivered as the paper curled and blackened.Though Arik’s voice had settled, I didn’t feel any safer.Just the opposite.I felt as if I were at sea and only just realized I wouldn’t be pulled to the safety of a ship if Arik didn’t want me there.
I did what I’d always done when afraid; I obeyed.Just as I was stepping out the door into the hall, Arik’s voice rumbled again, and I turned back.
“You could not have warned me?”he said, his face morphing into something ugly which didn’t suit him at all: disappointment.As I had with Jorn, I could see the child hidden within him for the briefest moment.The way he’d looked while in pain as a young boy, perhaps when the other children left him out of their game.He sighed, becoming the wolfish man once more.“Do you have any idea how many children I am responsible for?”
“I…” Still, my voice wouldn’t come.“I thought I could stay them.”
“Yes.Yourattemptto protect us is the only thing that has kept you alive after withholding something of so much importance.”
I left King Arik’s quarters buzzing.He’d said he would overlook the letter, and if he wasn’t going to, I probably would already be dead or punished, and I wasn’t.But…My mind spun torridly.What if he gives me back to the order?And then,he loves Fell too much.And then,the order may still be coming.
I burst out of the palace through a smaller door on the northern side, sucking in the fresh air, the salt, the breeze.Was I going to shake?To cry?To claw my eyes out?I sank to the splintery wood of the dock and tried to steady my breath.
I need to calm, I thought.
The sea swished and lapped against the docks.The wind stirred the sand in the distance into tufts and swales.No, it seemed to be saying.You do not need to calm.
I do, I thought.I will upset Halvar if I don’t calm.I will not think clearly in this state.I have fallen from the king’s graces.He sees me as underhanded.He means to bring Halvar somewhere dangerous.But my letter has not gone to Dayne, so maybe everywhere is dangerous.
Thick, rolling waves pressed into the dock, rocking it beneath my knees.My heart slowed a little.I am being mad perhaps?Maybe people are not punished for mistakes here as they are back home.So much else was different.
The wind surged, pulling my hair into my face, tugging on my sleeves.
I understood this too.It wanted me to turn my thoughts elsewhere.Away from punishment entirely.
It was out of habit and character for me to imagine what a thought would be without the weight of punishment hanging over me.
Immediately, and with no warning, an image grew crisp in my mind.
A gilded door.
A door the wind begged me to open.
I can’t, I thought.I have already risked his wrath.Earned it, more like.
The wind brushed my cheeks.You need to do this, or you will make a grave error.
I shook my head.The idea made me sick.
I have brought you here.I have given you Fell.I have given you Halvar.You will give me this.The elk is moving.If you do not see what I am trying to show you, you will work with Arik differently.That will change the timing.Timing is important.
A thought came—a scarier one because I didn’t want to be asked to help if it were needed.Do you dislike Arik because he worships the god of truth?
The breeze rustled.No.No gods dislike Arik.Even those who despise his god.He is a man who jumps when he feels an urge.This is why he has been given so much.
My heart was slowing further.Though the wind’s desire was crazy—to disobey a king I had so recently angered—its voice, its presence, and the feel of its strength was a comfort.It had saved me before.
The wind roared.Now, it wanted.The moon is shy.
It was.I’d forgotten because Fell had angered me, and then Jorn had softened me, and then the king had terrified me, but the moon was becoming shy that evening.
The whole world quieted—even the sea seemed to slow.I could hear the humming of casting coming from within the palace.If we were leaving for Byernen in nine days, this was the last shy moon before departing and my only chance to look within the forbidden room with no possible witnesses until we returned.This would be my last chance to act on Jorn’s warning.My last chance to obey the wind.
Before Halvar, I’d thought of the forbidden door occasionally.After Halvar, I’d had no space in my mind for anything.But having Halvarandhaving thought of the forbidden door… There was a part of me that was bothered by not knowing what lay beyond it.The palace was Halvar’s home.Arik was a part of my son’s life.The door, and whatever it concealed, could impact my child.
I stood outside the forbidden door for a long time, fretting but also wondering.It was thought of Halvar—of him crying for me—that set urgency to my bones.
