Page 95 of The Crown’s Temptation

Aviaryn said nothing in response. Instead, she looked back at the ward. Ari had shifted in his bassinet, one small fist raised above his head the way he slept when he was deeply under.

"They are very small," she said.

"They are."

"Do they do anything?"

"Not yet. But they will."

She seemed to find this acceptable. We stood in the tunnel together in the dark with the ward between us and my children and I did not ask her again what she was doing down here because I already understood that in Morrath that question had a different answer than it would have anywhere else.

"They are lucky," she said quietly. "To have someone watch them sleep."

I did not say anything to that.

"There is a man who comes and sits near the tunnel," she said. "On the other side. Every evening until morning. Sometimes all day." She paused. "He looks sad." Another pause. "One time I saw a tear fall down his cheek."

She said it the way she seemed to say most things, as though it was not an important statement at all.

Something in my chest clenched.

"Do you know him?"

My eyes filled before I could stop them.

"That is my husband," I said.

She looked at me. "Why are you crying?"

"Because I miss him very much."

She considered this. "He is usually here." She glanced back at the ward. "I wonder if he is dead." A small shrug.

Were the thought not so painful, her nonchalance might have made me laugh. "I will come every day and check." I looked at her. "But if you see him, can you tell him something for me?"

"What?"

"Tell him I'm alive. Tell him I love him. And tell him I'll find a way back to him."

She looked at me with those very still eyes. Then she nodded once, as though this were a perfectly reasonable errand, and turned and walked back the way she had come, barefoot and unhurried, disappearing into the dark without looking back.

I stood there a little while longer.

Then I went back to the Darkway.

Grief and Tunnels

COLSAR

Colsar was exhausted. He had spent the day sifting through every record in Sevrin’s study, searching for any clue, any motive someone might have had to harm Asharin.

The hardest part was pretending she was gone.

Colsar refused to believe it. The castle, however, would not let him forget. Candlelight vigils. Condolences. Flowers enough to fill entire rooms.

She could not be gone. She would come back to him. She had to.

“Majesty.”