Nesalla’s shrewd gaze gentled as he studied me closely. After a moment, he turned my hand to place a pot of patchwork cream within, then squeezed it in return. “Okay, my queen.”

Admittedly, I was not adept at healing much of anything, but I was quick on my feet and willing to be of use in any way I was able.

Even if it involved cleaning bedpans and washing pus and blood from bedding and bandages. The tasks, as mundane as most of them were when the infirmary wasn’t too full, kept the sanity that lingered with stubborn claws from fleeing entirely.

I was well aware I couldn’t keep finding new places to hide, tasks to make me feel as though I had some type of purpose. But I wasn’t sure what else there was for me to do when I wasn’t sure what else there was for me at all.

Rorn had given up on trying to call me away from the healers and their fascinating remedies and potions. It became a game of counting the days as he added more between each visit. Sometimes, a week would pass before I would see him. Sometimes, I would merely see him. He would watch me, and then he would leave.

And then it finally happened.

Carelda was brought to the infirmary by Theenon, crying and clutching at her stomach. “He’s coming,” the steward said.

He.

How she’d known what she was having, I didn’t know. A mother’s intuition, perhaps. The reminder that I’d likely never know for certain—never experience it myself—belatedly forced my feet from the rooms.

Hours dragged by, and with the dawn of evening came the arrival of screams I’d wager could be heard for miles.

On the stairs of our tower, I sat and waited as the moon rose and the stars twinkled through the floral green glass in the window behind me.

Rorn found me there, looking weary and rumpled with a glass of wine in hand. He eyed the open door to my parlor behind me, then tilted his head. “Why are you sitting out here?”

“I’m not quite sure.” I frowned as he drank. “Why aren’t you with Carelda?”

The look he gave me was one of reproach and confusion. “My place is not at her side.”

I couldn’t have said it politely if I’d tried, and I didn’t want to. “But that is your son.”

That he did not refute that he was indeed being gifted a son said he’d already known. “I will meet him when they’ve rested.” He walked by me and the parlor, then continued to our rooms above.

But I couldn’t ignore the anguish I’d seen hardening his jaw and darkening his shadowed eyes.