"I, there's some in the cabinet," Torsten says, already disentangling himself, already climbing off the bed. "I saw it earlier, near the basin. Don't move."
He crosses the room in three strides, his back to the bed, and begins opening the cabinet doors, rattling through the contents, clumsy, his blood having left his brain entirely.
"It was on the second shelf, I think, or maybe the third."
Evran does not wait.
The moment Torsten's back is turned, he rolls over. The bed is wide, a guest bed built for visiting dignitaries, and the bedside table is on the right side, an arm's length from where he is lying. He reaches out, his fingers finding the iron handle of the drawer, and pulls.
The drawer slides open.
Inside: a folded cloth, a ring, a leather coin purse. And there, sitting on top of everything, unconcealed, unprotected, as though its owner has never once considered that someone might look for it here, a small glass vial no longer than Evran's little finger, filled with liquid the color of a bruise.
Purple. The same purple that tinged the blade. The same oily iridescence. The same poison that was designed to kill hishusband slowly, painfully, degree by degree, while the man who administered it watched from a distance and waited.
Evran stares at it. He thinks about how arrogant you would have to be to keep the evidence this close, to keep the vial of poison you gave to an assassin in your bedside drawer, three corridors down from the man you tried to kill, to sleep with it beside you every night as though it were a trophy, a reminder, a promise of things still to come. But Torsten has never feared consequences. Torsten has never had to. He has moved through the world with the perceived invincibility of answering to no one, shielded by his uncle's influence and his own self-importance. Why would he hide the evidence? Who would dare look for it?
He shuts the drawer. He rolls back onto his back and is lying with his arms above his head, his shirt rucked up just enough to show a strip of stomach, when Torsten turns around.
Torsten has a small glass bottle in his hand. Oil. His expression as he crosses back to the bed is ravenous, his eyes moving over Evran's body with undisguised appetite, believing he is about to get everything he wants.
He is almost to the bed when there is a firm double-knock on the door.
Bran.
Evran knows it is Bran. The knock is exactly as they planned, two sharp raps, a breath apart, the rhythm they established in Bran's room last night while going over every detail of this operation. It is Evran's escape plan. Bran will knock, ask if Torsten has seen the Warlord's husband, Torsten will stammer out an excuse, Bran will leave, and Evran will tell Torsten he has to go or risk being caught.
Simple. Clean. Over.
Torsten stops. He looks at the door.
The knock comes again, louder this time. "Torsten of Windfar?" Bran's voice, muffled by the oak. "I need to speak with you."
Torsten's jaw tightens. He looks at the door. He looks at Evran. He looks at the door again.
Then he crosses the room, slides the lock into place, and does not answer.
Evran's blood goes cold.
Torsten turns back to the bed as though whoever is on the other side is unimportant, as though the massive, armed warrior of the Drakkari clan standing in the hallway is simply a minor inconvenience, a disturbance to be waited out. His expression has not changed. The hunger is still there, undiminished, and if anything it has sharpened, the threat of being caught adding an edge to the want rather than diminishing it.
Evran realizes he has drastically underestimated someone who has never answered to anyone.
The plan accounted for Torsten being cautious, careful, calculating, unwilling to risk exposure. It did not account for this: for a man so utterly convinced of his own invincibility that a locked door is protection enough against the world. Someone who hears a warrior at his door and thinksthey'll go awayrather thanI should be afraid.
Torsten gets back on the bed. He leans down, the bottle of oil still in one hand, and moves to kiss Evran again.
Evran presses his hands against Torsten's shoulders. "Maybe we should wait. That might have been someone looking for me."
"They're gone already." Torsten's voice is dismissive, the impatience in it barely veiled. His hand finds Evran's waist again, his thumb pressing into the hollow of his hip. "No one knows you're here."
"But what if they come back? What if they check the other wings?"
Torsten exhales through his nose, a short, irritated sound, and pulls back just far enough to look at Evran's face. His expression is that of an interrupted meal, deciding whether to be tolerant about it. The tolerance is thin and getting thinner.
"They won't come back," he says, and his voice is slower now, deliberate, condescending, explaining something simple to someone he considers slow. "The door is locked. There are no guards in this corridor. No one saw you come in. We have all night." His hand slides from Evran's hip to his ribcage, pressing, pulling. "Stop worrying and let me have you."
The casualness of it,let me have you,spoken with the same inflection you might use to say let me have the salt, makes Evran's fury flare so hot it nearly reaches his face. He controls it, barely, and shakes his head.
