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“No,” he says.
Something dangerously close to panic flutters inside my chest. Trapped! The mint-laced scent of Rensivar’s dungeon drifts through my mind.
“Take this the right way, Doshir,” Eadberh begins, “but there’s nothing you could do right now that would be helpful. Nothing but heal.”
My breath comes out of me in a long, slow hiss, like something deflating. My eyes drift back to the ceiling as a breeze puffs the curtains, making shadow patterns dance across the roof beams. Eadberh carefully arranges a pile of gauze, then grabs the crutch that’s leaning against the foot of my bed. He comes to his feet with a soft grunt and a wince so subtle I’m almost tempted to believe I imagined it.
Eadberh turns toward the door, and that fluttery feeling rises inside my chest once again, fear and panic mingling together. Trapped. Trapped and alone.
“You’re working here now?” I ask, suddenly desperate to keep him here.
Eadberh turns to me with a grin.
“That I am,” he answers. “Ailen’s putting my experience patching up soldiers on the battlefield to good use.”
His smile fades. Eadberh glances out the open window as if he’s expecting a message somewhere out there, perhaps written in foam across the waves beyond the harbor. He clears his throat.
“May I ask about Rayne?” Eadberh says.
My eyes close, and some part of my mind decides it would be just fine if Eadberh left now.
“Never mind,” Eadberh says. “It’s none of my business.”
“She chose the king,” I say.
The words fall like stones onto the polished floor. My eyes sting; I blink, then turn to stare out the window along with Eadberh. Sun glitters off the distant ocean, winking between the white-washed walls and red tile roofs of my beloved Cairncliff.
“Shit,” Eadberh replies softly. “I’m sorry.”
I try to say it’s fine, that I don’t need anyone’s pity, but the words tangle on my lips and come out as a sort of soft grunt. Eadberh shakes his head.
“You know how old she was when the king first took her to his bedchambers?” he asks. His lips pull back from his teeth, and for a moment his face twists into a snarl.
I shake my head, suddenly quite certain that I do not want to know.
“Fifteen,” Eadberh says. “Shit, she was just a kid. I always hoped she’d come out of it, that she’d realize what he’d done to her, what he kept doing to her. Just how much of a bastard he is.”
His voice cuts off. Eadberh shakes his head, then runs a hand through his hair. My vision blurs; I tilt my head up again, trying to keep the tears inside. I am a dragon, after all. I’m not about to cry in front of a human.
“Well,” Eadberh says, sounding exactly like a man who’s trying desperately to force unwarranted optimism into a hopeless situation, “as long as the heart beats, it hopes, right?”
He gives me a forced sort of smile, and hot tears leak down my cheeks. It’s an elven expression, probably something he’s picked up from Ailen, and it’s one I’ve always found rather stupid and trite. But now, immobilized on a bed and staring up at the one other person in all of Cairncliff who knows Rayne, that expression cracks something inside of me wide open, letting sunlight and sea air blow a hole right through my chest.
Because it’s true. My heart does beat.
And I do hope.
Chapter7
Rayne
“Put that down,” Ensyvir scoffs.
I blink at him. I haven’t even come into his chamber yet; does he want the mop and bucket left on the landing outside the door? His expression tightens, his frown grows darker, and I make a snap decision. The bucket goes just outside the door, and the mop rests its tangled head on the top step.
Ensyvir’s nostrils flare as I step into the room. Great. I came here first thing in the morning, and already he’s furious.
“What did I tell you yesterday?” Ensyvir growls.
