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Because mostly, I just want to know him better, to explore the inner workings of his mind. So, I take my seat across from him. Once again, he flips the coin.
"I'll take your head this time," I say with the barest tilt of my lips.
He doesn't respond verbally but proceeds to flip the coin and show me the wolf's head. His move, then. I feel a satisfied smile tug at my lips, and he narrows his eyes.
"If I didn't know any better, I would swear you were playing to lose."
A small, sad laugh escapes my lips.
He doesn't know how right he is. How it feels as if I have spent my entire life with little choice but to play to lose. How there is no real winning here. No real winning for me anywhere.
But he's also wrong, because in our last game, he beat me fair and square, which is something that few men can boast. So, I say nothing.
We take our turns in a tangible sort of silence, the kind that feels louder than conversation would. The kind that says more than words do.
It isn’t until we are at least twenty minutes into the game that I hear his voice again.
"There is a sickness in the castle." The silence shatters into a thousand scattered pieces. He has broken it to tell me something I already know, and that isn't like him. So, I wait him out.
He makes a move, and I counter. Back and forth we go until he speaks again.
"It isn't new. But it is getting worse.”
I turn his words over in my head, flip them around, and study them for the answers I have wanted so desperately.
“What do you mean, worse?” I press.
Einar rubs his temples, pretending to study his knight even though we both know full well that he only has one viable move if he wants to protect his king.
“It’s progressing, and they are...suffering,” he says reluctantly as he forms a castle.
It isn’t just his move that makes the pieces he’s given me and the ones I’ve observed click together in my mind. His people haven't leftthiscastle in seventeen years.
I wasn't allowed to bring anyone with me, and I have encountered so few of the staff or courtiers except from a distance, across a vast dining table. None of their families visit. They are closed off behind their gloves and veils in their own private wing of Alfhild.
"That's why they wear the masks?" I phrase it as a question, but it isn't, not really. It's the only thing that makes any sort of sense. He meets my eyes, nodding.
"And yet you seem concerned neither for my safety, nor your own." I gesture between our clearly unmasked faces.
"You are not at risk," he says firmly. His pupils don't change in size, and his gaze does not waver.
The truth, then.
In a much quieter voice, he answers the second part of my question. "And neither am I."
Guilt overtakes his features, and I wonder at that statement. He doesn't appear to be lying, but there was a small note of falsehood as well. And then, there's his disproportionate remorse.
Did he cause this sickness somehow?
I open my mouth to ask him, when a flurry of footsteps interrupts what I was about to say.
Sigrid sweeps into the study without preamble. I reluctantly pull my attention from the king to the woman who is shuffling much faster than usual to reach me.
When she draws closer, I notice the large ivory envelope in her hand.
My heart races.
I know who it's from before I catch sight of the address. But I stall anyway.
