Evran crosses to the bed. His hands are shaking again, the fine tremor returning now that there is no blade to hold and no throat to press it to. He climbs in, and the moment his body touches the mattress Vaike's arm comes around him.
Automatic. Unconscious. The arm pulls him close, draws him in, tucks him against the broad warmth of Vaike's chest. Vaike makes a sound, not awake, not asleep, just the low hum of a body recognizing its missing piece, and Evran is held.
He presses his face against Vaike's chest and wraps his arms around Vaike's thick waist and breathes him in, smoke and skin and the faint musk of sleep, and feels the strain and the revulsion and the terror slowly drain out of him. Degree bydegree. Layer by layer. Until what is left is just exhaustion, and relief, and a love so vast and so costly and so entirely, irrevocably chosen that it fills him from the bottom up and leaves no room for anything else.
He presses a kiss to Vaike's chest. Right over his heart.
Into the quiet space between them, barely a whisper, barely more than a breath:
"I will always keep you safe."
Vaike's arm tightens around him. A reflex. A promise in return.
Evran closes his eyes and sleeps.
Chapter 20
Evran wakes to sunlight and an empty bed.
He knows it is late, the light through the window high and warm, midmorning at least, and the fire in the hearth has been relit by someone, the kindling crackling softly. The furs are pulled up around him, tucked with a care that speaks of hands other than his own. Vaike was here. Vaike woke before him, tucked him in, and left without waking him.
For a moment, Evran lies still and lets himself feel the weight of nothing. The room is quiet. The bed is warm. The braid at his temple rests against the pillow, and his body is heavy with the deep, dreamless sleep that comes from running on fumes and finally being allowed to stop.
Then memory arrives, and he is awake.
He sits up. His hand goes to his thigh where the dagger was, finds bare skin, and the absence of it brings the night back in full, the room, the fire, the vial in the drawer, the blade against Torsten's throat. Bran's face in the doorway. The guards. The long walk back through the corridors and the sound of his own gasping breath against the wall.
He is out of bed and dressed in minutes. His hands are steady, a fact he notes with something close to surprise, because he expected them to shake and they do not. His body feels different this morning, not lighter exactly, but clearer, as though a fog that has been thickening for days has finally broken and the landscape beneath it is visible for the first time.
He opens the door and steps into the corridor.
The eastern wing is buzzing. He can feel it before he hears it, a frequency of movement, bodies going back and forth with the purposeful energy of people managing a crisis that is no longer a crisis but has not yet settled into resolution. A Drakkari warrior passes him at a near-jog, nods without stopping. A Rendari retainer is stationed at the junction with a ledger in hand, directing traffic.
Evran follows the current.
The great hall is full.
The long tables have been pushed to the walls, and the center of the room is arranged with chairs in a broad semicircle facing the high table, where the four Warlords are seated. Harath is in the center, his expression grave. Aldric is to his left, grey-bearded and watchful. Ragna is to his right, her sharp face tight and unreadable. And Vaike is at the end, his bandaged shoulder visible beneath his tunic, his eyes steady.
He is looking at Evran.
Evran feels the look land. It crosses the crowded room and finds him, and for one suspended moment there is no one else, just the two of them, connected across the noise and the bodies and the weight of everything that has happened. Vaike's expression gives nothing away. The Warlord's mask is firmly in place. His eyes hold Evran's with an intensity that makes his chest ache, searching, and Evran cannot read what lives behind them. He does not know if it is pride or anger or grief or the quiet devastation of having tucked in his husband this morning andwondered what he had been doing in the hours before he came to bed. He does not know, and the not knowing is a weight he will carry until Vaike decides to set it down.
Evran slips into the room and finds a seat near the Drakkari section.
The semicircle of chairs is filled with members of all four delegations. Bran is seated near the front, his massive frame taking up a chair and a half, his face composed. Leona is beside him, her back straight and her eyes fixed on the proceedings with rapt attention. Naela is further back, her arms crossed, eyes flickering between the high table and the center of the room.
In the center of the room, flanked by two Rendari guards, stands Torsten.
He looks diminished. It is the first word that comes to Evran's mind and the only one that fits. The man who walked the corridors of Heldrin's End with the easy confidence of believing the world belonged to him is standing in the center of the great hall with his wrists unbound but his freedom clearly revoked, and he looks small. His blond hair is uncombed. There is a bruise on his cheekbone, dark and vivid, the unmistakable mark of a fist, and his lip is split where the punch landed. His clothes are the same ones he was wearing last night, rumpled, and his posture is rigid, holding himself together through will alone.
Harath speaks.
"The evidence recovered last night has been examined by my household healers and verified by the council." His voice carries the weight of being up since before dawn dealing with this and having no mood for theatrics. He gestures, and a retainer brings forward a wooden tray on which sit two objects: the vial of purple liquid, and the assassin's dagger, its blade still tinged with the same iridescent sheen.
"The substance in the vial is identical to the poison on the blade used in the assassination attempt on Warlord Vaike,"Harath continues. "Additionally, a compound identified as Barchweed was recovered from the same chambers, the reagent responsible for the incident with the horse during the excursion to the eastern villages."
A murmur runs through the room. The Barchweed is something Evran had not known about. Bran and the guards must have found it when they searched the room after Torsten was taken into custody, another piece of evidence, another nail in a coffin that was already sealed.
