The Crown of Embers(57)

I open my mouth to deny it, but then I decide it’s best to say nothing.

He swings his legs over to the side so that he faces me. “There’s dried blood all over you,” he whispers. “My blood, isn’t it?”

I’m about to tell him that it’s nothing that won’t wash away, but speech leaves me when he cups my face with his hands. “Please, Elisa,” he says, “don’t ever, ever give your life for mine.”

“I couldn’t let you die. I’d rather—”

A knock sounds at the door, and we spring away from each other.

“Come in!” Hector calls, though he continues to hammer me with that unreadable stare.

Doctor Enzo bustles in, but he stops short, his mouth agape. “This is most unexpected.”

After an awkward silence, I say, “Perhaps your skills are even more considerable than you realized?”

He looks back and forth between Hector and me, frowning. “I admit to a certain well-earned reputation,” he says thoughtfully. “But this is not the result of my ministrations.”

“A miracle?” I say weakly.

His gaze drifts to the general direction of my navel. “You healed him,” he accuses. “Somehow.”

I shrug, not wanting to talk about it. I do need to tell someone what happened. Father Alentín or Ximena. But not Enzo. “I fell asleep. Something happened before I woke up.” Hector’s eyes flash with understanding; he knows I’m not telling the whole truth. Before I can be pressed on the matter, I say, “I need to get back to my suite. I’m scheduled to be in preparations for the gala in the morning. Enzo, please make sure your patient rests. I’ll find guards to escort me.”

At my back, I hear Enzo say, “May I record this incident? The Journal of Medical Anomalies would be fascinated—”

As I close the door behind me, God’s holy scripture echoes in my head. My love is like perfume poured out . . .

I bend over, hugging myself with relief, with unshed tears, with exhaustion, and with an understanding as bone-wrenching as it is pure: I am wholly and irreversibly in love with the commander of my Royal Guard.

Thank you, God. Thank you for saving him.

I straighten to find several guards staring at me. One is Fernando, who regards me with the helpless gaze of a frightened pup. “Lord Hector . . . ?” he says in a wavering voice.

“Will be fine,” I say. “I require an escort to my rooms.”

Fernando orders the others to accompany me, then takes up watch, his arms crossed, his face determined. I am not the only one who loves their commander.

Night has fallen, and I consider going to bed, but I know I won’t manage any kind of sleep. “To the monastery,” I say, and they fall into formation around me.

The corridors are empty and silent. Light from sconced torches shimmers against the glazed-tile pattern in the wall, but it also casts shadows over our cobbled path. I imagine assassins hiding in patches of darkness, behind corners. Every scuff of sound, every whisper, is an arrow flying through the air, a dagger whipped from its sheath.

I think of Hector, wishing he were here. And then I’m glad he isn’t, for I have much to think about before I see him next.

We round a bend and enter the monastery, a place that never quite sleeps. Scattered petitioners kneel on prayer benches, and an acolyte in a gray robe quietly tends the candles on the altar. I breathe in the perfume of sacrament roses as comfort. Surely I am safe here, in this place of worship.

I open the door to the archive and find Ximena, Alentín, and Nicandro sitting on stools at the scribing table, bent over a piece of vellum so old that its edges are curled and black.

I thank the guards and ask them to watch the entrance, then I close the door behind me.

They look up, startled, and Ximena’s face freezes with shock. “Elisa? Is that blood all over you?”

I had forgotten. “Yes. Hector’s. We were attacked in the hallway outside my office. Hired mercenaries. Tristán came to our aid. But everyone is fine now.” I came to tell her all about it, about healing him, but suddenly I don’t want to. I need to think about something else for a bit, before I think on that.

“And the mercenaries?” she demands. “Do you know who hired them? Were they captured or killed? There may be more—”

I hold up a hand. “Later. Please distract me with moldy vellum and impenetrable wisdom. Please.”

The three of them exchange a glance, then Nicandro says, “I’ll show you what we’ve found.” He pats the stool next to him, then moves an oil lamp to the side to make a space for me at the table.

I hop up onto the stool, uneasy with the memory pricking at my thoughts. The last time I sat here late into the night with Father Nicandro, he revealed that I had been kept in ignorance of bearer lore, that a prophecy destined me to encounter the gate of my enemy.