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"None of that,” I say, insisting on her taking another sip. “You have spent weeks waiting on and being kind to a perfect stranger, all while your own health deteriorated. You will let me do this now."
I push away the images of what Madame would have done to me and any servant she found me acting so familiarly toward. Though her reach seems to have no end, she is not in this room, and she has already left me so little room for kindness in my life that she will not rob me of this as well.
I feel Einar's gaze on me now, but he doesn't comment.
He speaks only to Sigrid.
"Is there anything else you need?" He stokes the fire with a poker, as though she will get better if only he can make her warm. "Anything at all?"
"No, Ùlfur." It's the second time she has called him little wolf, and it almost makes me smile. But one look at the state she is in effectively rids me of that notion.
Then she thinks again and asks the king to have someone bring her to her bed.
"No," I break in without thinking, ignoring the disbelieving look Einar sends my way.
I am sure he provides well for his servants, but I doubt even Sigrid has a bed as nice as mine, and I’m not certain I trust that anyone would be capable of carrying her so far. Thisthingthey have could attack them, too, and they could wind up hurting her if they fell.
"You can recover here for the time being." I squeeze her feathered hand gently. "Just rest, please."
Leif returns, this time without knocking, and he moves a chair to Sigrid’s bedside, grasping her other hand in his.
She nods at me weakly, and I stand up, pulling the thick covers a little closer around her shoulders before finally lifting my eyes to the king's.
He stares at me with an expression I don't have the energy to try to decipher.
I gesture my head toward the panel, and he follows my gaze before letting loose a sigh, his shoulders falling slightly with the movement. He nods.
I know the feeling. Truthfully, I would rather stay in this room with Sigrid if it was not for the fact that I'm certain it would only be to watch her die. Something I am not willing to let happen if there is another way.
Besides, I am no fool, and the king has been doing more than keeping secrets. Once again, he has been lying.
Chapter Thirty-Four
We are standing in the middle of his room, the silence filling the space between us as I watch his chest rise and fall with each grieving breath he takes.
He’s leaning against one of his bookshelves with his head tipped toward the ceiling, and the quiet continues to stretch on.
Part of me wants to reach out and touch him, hold him, be held by him. Only hours ago, we were locked in a moment where nothing else existed, and I can’t deny a selfish part of me that wishes we could be in it again, feeling only each other and drowning out the world and its problems and its pain.
But that won’t make them go away.
So, I try very hard to ignore the oppressive presence of his massive bed, even larger than mine. I try not to remember how I felt the last time I was in a bed with him, or the way his lips felt against my bare skin, or how he tasted like cinnamon and honey.
I try to ignore the traitorous part of me that just wants to crawl back there with him, even if we are just a couple of liars.
I shake my head to clear those thoughts, looking him straight in the eye when I call him out.
"An illness?"
He says nothing, his gaze settling slowly on the bed as well, and I can feel the tension stretching between us like one of Aika's fiddle strings about to snap.
"Funny,” I pull his attention back to the conversation at hand. “It's like no sickness I have ever seen. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I might even think she had been --" I stop before I finish my sentence, unabated horror washing over me.
"Think she had been what?" Einar's voice is reserved, curious, as he moves away from the bookshelf and angles himself toward me.
"Poisoned." I breathe out the word through lips that have gone numb.
All at once, I feel like an idiot, like even more of a pawn than I have always been.
