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The guard, Draven, and Danyal stared.
“You need decent food, clean water, and rest,” Draven said, then shrank away when I leveled my stare on him. This washisfault. He’d done this to me.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I explained to Lark… The things I did, I never meant to hurt you.”
“You explained to Lark, and I’m… what? Supposed to forgive you now, because he did?”
“He didn’t forgive me, actually. He said it was you I needed to apologize to, so here I am.”
It wasn’t enough. He’d put me here, in chains. It would never be enough. Gods, why was it so hot in here and when would the shivering stop?
The guard muscled in and caught my arm again. “Continue whatever reunion this is in your own time. I’ve got a job to do. Talk and walk, if you prefer, but I’m getting this man to his room.”
The walk gave me time to go over all I knew, which wasn’t much. Lark had come to me, he’d sung a haunting song, or had I dreamed his visit? Everything had fragmented in my head, memories and dreams mingling. But I was free, that much was true. Lark must have freed me. Did that mean he’d found the crown and given it to Razak? All the questions chased themselves around my head. The guard left me in a warm, comfortable room, with a roaring fire and fine clothes folded on the bed. He said a healer would be along and left.
I blinked at my bright, clean, blue and white alien surroundings, then down at my filthy hands and clothes. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want any of this. It all felt wrong, as though I was a stranger inside my own skin.
A knock came at the door. “Arin, it’s me.”
Draven.
I dropped onto the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands. If my head would just stop spinning, I could think. Lark… Where was Lark?
“You shouldn’t be alone,” Draven said, still shut out.
“I’d rather be alone than with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You had me arrested.”
“Allow me to explain?”
“Go away.” I needed Lark. Only Lark. I needed his hand in mine and his soft voice in my ear. This place, with its creeping walls and clanging doors, Draven and his lies, Razak pulling all our strings—it was too much. The smell of wet rot wafted from my clothes and my whole body trembled. I chuckled into my hands. I was losing my damn mind and I really was alone.
Breathe.
I had to breathe, to slow everything down.
Lark had found the crown. He’d given it to Razak. Razak had pulled whatever strings he held in the court of Justice and had me released, just as Lark had said he would. That must have happened, for me to be sitting on the bed.
“Damn it, Arin. If you don’t answer me, I’ll kick this door in. Hit me again. I don’t care. You need help.” Draven thumped on the door. “Arin? You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Open the damn door, if you must!”
He pushed in, then stopped halfway to the bed, pinned under my glare. Danyal, the stranger, was no longer with him.
“I don’t trust you,” I said. “I don’t know who you are. Why did you do this to me? To us?!”
“Razak has my son.”
His son? “I don’t…”
Oh, the names on the documents. His son’s name had been among those listed? “Tell me everything.”
He talked and talked, About the letter from Razak outing Lark as my court’s fool; the demands from Razak to do more, discover more, lie more; and finally, to accuse me of treason against War and ultimately to bring me to Justice as leverage against Lark. Draven had done it all to protect his son. As he talked, he heated water over the fire and readied the washbasin, and all I could do was watch and listen and try to forgive him, but it was too raw, too much. A good man would forgive him.
“I needed you to know. It was wrong,” he said, when he was done. “I regret every lie, every hurt I’ve put you through. I’m sorry, Arin, truly.”
