Page 5 of The Crown’s Temptation

"Then what use are you?"

"We are Fyrekin," the woman says. Not unkindly. "We are not gods."

Arabar steps forward. His voice is measured, the voice of someone who has spent decades being the calm point in difficult rooms. "The bond between a siakar and his mate deepens significantly after she gives birth," he says, addressing the council. "In this case it is something more than that. I have not seen its like before."

"There is no Fyrekin without her," Colsar says. "There is no me. Whatever I am to you, whoever I am, it ends here. It ends in this room. There is nothing left of it without her."

The council is quiet.

Then one of them, the third, who has spoken least, begins to say something and stops.

Colsar looks at him.

The air in the room tightens. The pressure builds inward until the council members feel it pressing against their lungs.

The man coughs.

"Speak," Colsar says.

Another cough. The man's hand moves to his throat.

"We cannot resurrect dead humans," he says, the words pulling out between labored breaths. "Only creatures. And even that is difficult at best."

The pressure does not ease.

Colsar looks at him. Then he looks down at Asharin in his arms. If she were to wake up she would not be able to breathe this way. The pressure in the air eases.

The council looks at Arabar.

Arabar nods once.

They file out without speaking. The doors close behind them. The fire along the far wall has burned down to embers. The cold is still coming through the broken window.

Arabar does not leave. He moves to the far edge of the room, into the shadow beside the curtains, and becomes very still.

"The children are safe," he says quietly. "They are not in the palace. They are with your uncle."

Colsar does not answer.

He is looking at Asharin.

He adjusts her against his chest, her head in the crook of his arm, the way he holds her when she has fallen asleep somewhere she did not intend to and he is moving her without waking her. His hands are pale. They have not stopped shaking since he found her on the floor and they are not stopping now, a fine continuous tremor that he cannot control and has stopped trying to.

"Wake up," he says.

His voice is barely a voice.

"Asha Bear." He smooths her hair back from her face. "Wake up. You are going to wake up now." He presses his mouth to her forehead and stays there, his eyes closed, his hands still shaking against her. "I need you to wake up. Do you hear me? I need you to open your eyes and tell me I am being unreasonable." A breath. "Tell me I am overreacting. Tell me to put you down. Tell me anything."

The candles have burned very low.

His hands do not stop shaking.

"There is no version of this that I accept," he says. "Do you understand me? There is no version of this that I accept."

He pulls her closer and holds her there in the dark and the cold, his face in her hair, his hands pale and trembling against her, and he does not let go.

Docked