“How heretical,” I whisper back, feigning awe. “But fascinating.”

“Isn’t it?” She smiles. “I know we aren’t supposed to speak of him because Kavar’s eyes are always watching, and I try not to. But it’s my favorite hymn. It was being sung when I first walked into the temple here in Vetris, and so I’ve always had a soft spot for it.”

The first tree. It could, like Tarroux says, just be a metaphor. But something about it doesn’t sit right with me. The first tree in the hymn, the song Gavik and Yorl’s grandfather know…

“Do you remember how the old hymn you found went at all?” I press. “In Common Vetrisian, of course.”

The sudden opening of the door next to us has us both jumping up to stand as a polymath scurries out of it.

“He’s awake! His Highness is awake! Inform the king, quickly!”

The tight undercurrents of anxiety loosen within me instantly. Sheer relief floods me down to my toes, weakening the bones keeping me upright. Lucien’s awake. He’ll live. One of the guards trots off to tell the king, and next to me, Lady Tarroux steadies herself on a nearby wall with one of her hands, making the sign of Kavar by touching her other hand to both her eyelids.

“Oh, thank the New God.” She turns to me. “Lady Zera, should we greet him together? I’m certain he’d be pleased to see you.”

I stare at the dark crack in the open door. To go in, to see him awake and alive with my own two eyes— No.

I’ve heard he’s alive. That’s enough for me.

I smile at Tarroux. “You go on. I have business to attend to.”

Her face is hurt, but only for a second before she makes a bow. “Of course. Thank you for your companionship, Lady Zera.”

“You can thank me, Lady Tarroux”—I make a deeper bow—“by staying by his side.”

The words sting coming out, as if I have cuts on my lips and each syllable is salt and vinegar. Her pale brows knit, and I can hear the courtly cogs working in her mind; Prince Lucien’s Spring Bride, the one he was rumored to ask to marry him at the Hunt, asking another girl in turn to stay with him. It’s a strange pivot, a bizarre path for a Spring Bride to take—rejecting the prince, pushing him away from her when her very existence at court is meant to pull him in.

I’m gone before she can speak.