Chapter 23 Candlelight Trembles, and So Do I

Chapter 23 Candlelight Trembles, and So Do I

Dinner looked beautiful. Unfortunately, my stomach was still preoccupied with everything else.
The tray waited on the round table near the window: thick soup, bread, slices of chicken with shining skin, a glass of water too calm for its own good.
I sat at the edge of the bed, feet on the carpet, the cloth bag of forbidden books on the floor beside me. My left palm throbbed in a slow, stubborn rhythm. The wound from the nail wasn’t large, but every heartbeat felt like something was pressing outward from inside the skin.
I turned my hand toward the candlelight. A diagonal red line cut across the center of my palm, not deep, but clean like a carving that had changed its mind. The dried edges were dark, and my fingers felt stiff.
I clenched my jaw. A small voice in my chest asked: if I leave it alone, will the gold light come on its own and mend this? Will it search for cracks the way it did yesterday in Jerome’s body?
Another voice answered: enough fire-play for one day.
A soft knock at the door broke the argument.
“Come in,” I called.
The door slid open. Mira stepped inside, carrying a second, smaller tray. Her face appeared first, dark hair braided to one side, a few strands escaping to cling to her cheek from the kitchen steam. She was my age, maybe a few months apart, we grew up in the same halls, only differing in where we sat and who called our names with a title. She’d long since stopped bowing too low to me.
“You’re actually here,” she said, closing the door with her hip. “Half the kitchen was sure you climbed something again.”
“Half the kitchen is always wrong,” I replied, tilting my head. “I only climbed people’s thoughts today.”
“You climbed too hard, apparently.” Her gaze dropped to the fading blood on my hand. “I nearly dropped the soup when I saw that.”
I hid my hand behind my skirt. Too late. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just a little nail.”
“That nail may be little,” Mira set the small tray down, “but the healer wants to knock anyone’s skull who thinks a wound on the left hand is unimportant.”
My eyes narrowed. “The healer saw this?”
“No. Lord Thalorian did,” she said breezily. “The healer only received the order.”
Air stopped in my lungs. “I’m sorry—what?”
Mira was already coming closer, holding clean cloth and a roll of bandage. “He stopped by the kitchen,” she explained, taking my left arm and pulling my hand into her lap without asking. “He gave the watch schedule, then said, ‘The Princess has metal in her palm. Give her this salve and a pulse-soothing brew.’ Then he left before I could ask why he knew it was your palm and not your elbow or shoulder.”
Heat crawled from my chest up my neck. “He remembers the wrong details,” I muttered. “Too observant for his own good.”
“I think it’s rather… sweet,” Mira said with an innocence absolutely not innocent. “A tall sexy lord from the Thalorian line telling the healer to prepare medicine for a tiny cut on the princess’s hand....that’s good story material.”
“If you tell that story, I’ll replace all the kitchen’s salt with sugar,” I warned.
Mira laughed softly. “Relax. The kitchen already has stories of its own.”
She took a small bowl from the tray and lifted its lid. The scent of herbs drifted out: wild lavender, willow bark, and something minty dragged through mud. Mira’s fingers were warm as they touched the skin around the cut.
She cleaned it gently with a damp cloth, skilled and practical, without pitying touches. The water in the bowl turned faintly pink. A sting bit the skin. I kept my face still.
“Did you punch the nail or did the nail punch you?” she asked.
“We had a disagreement,” I said. “I won by pulling it out.”
“And Lord Thalorian watched?”
I glared. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
The salve touched the wound. Cold at first, then a slow warmth seeped through my skin and into the joints. The pulsing that had been knocking at my palm eased.
“Kitchen gossip,” Mira continued as if discussing grain prices, “says you nearly fell on the stairs after lunch this afternoon, and Lord Thalorian caught you before your nose met the stone.”
“People in the kitchen need new jobs,” I cut in.
“People in the kitchen have eyes in the west corridor.” She wrapped the bandage neatly around my palm, tying it off at my wrist. “They say you were pressed against the wall, he was pressed against you. Too close for a blessing, too far for an accident.”
I felt my heartbeat strike the bandage from within. “They need to learn distance.”
“They also said,” Mira added, tone dropping slightly, “that in the hall, when the Duke told him to escort you to your chambers, your eyes challenged each other like duelists in an arena. That makes excellent gossip.”
“Does no one talk about the rite? Or the envoys of four kingdoms? Or the food shortages?” I lifted my wrapped hand. “All this is more interesting than Lord Thalorian and me standing in a corridor?”
“The rite has everyone on edge,” Mira shrugged. “People need something else to chew on.”
“So they chew on me.”
“And a little on Thalorian,” she said, smiling.
I sighed, letting my head rest against the bedpost behind me. “Tell the kitchen they’re aiming their energy in the wrong direction. Lord Thalorian is too busy counting Morvane. I’m too busy counting escape routes from the capital guards.”
“People who are too busy don’t usually send potions to stop a tiny cut in someone’s hand from throbbing all night,” Mira said, lifting a small cup from the tray and offering it to me.
The liquid inside was murky, pale green, its bitter scent slipping into my nose beneath a thin layer of honey.
“What is this?” I asked, wary.
“A pulse-soothing brew,” Mira replied. “The healer said it’s for stopping pain in the hand and the head. He said, ‘The Princess needs sleep before the rite. If she keeps walking around like a shadow with wide-open eyes, we’ll all run out of energy chasing her.’”
“The healer needs to speak more quietly,” I muttered.
“Lord Thalorian requested it,” she added, deliberately.
I blinked. “You really enjoy saying that, don’t you.”
“A little,” she admitted. “He said, ‘Give her this. If she asks, say it’s from the healer. If she insists, say it’s from me.’”
I stared at the cup in my hand like it was a new enemy. “He can’t order me to drink a potion.”
“You can choose not to,” she leaned back, fingers laced in her lap. “You can also choose to let your hand throb until morning, make your head pound, and then yell at everyone in the hall when the new guards are introduced. That sounds like an appealing strategy too.”
The way she said it tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I hate when you make sense.”
“You love when I bring midnight pastries and close my eyes when you disappear through windows,” she countered. “This balances it.”
I raised the cup. The earth-scented liquid swayed. “If I die,” I told her, “tell the healer his brew is terrible. Tell Lord Thalorian I will haunt him until the end of his days.”
“If you die, I’ll bury them both myself,” Mira said lightly. “Drink.”
I pressed the cup to my lips and swallowed. The bitterness hit first, then honey smoothed it over, then something cold slid from my throat into my chest, down my arm, and into my wrist. The throbbing in my palm loosened, turning into a small, harmless flutter.
Something inside me unknotted.
“Well?” Mira asked.
“Like swallowing snow mixed with honey,” I said. “My body can’t decide whether to shiver or smile.”
Mira let out a laugh. “The healer would love to hear that.”
“Don’t tell him,” I leaned back again. “He’ll make me drink twice as much.”
Mira gathered the bowls, the dirty cloth, the leftover bandage. Her eyes kept flicking to my face, as if searching for something beyond the wound.
“Are you alright?” she asked, softer now, stripped of jokes.
“I have four forbidden books, a wrapped palm, and an entire castle talking about me and a man descended from an ancient god,” I said. “This is almost the definition of ‘not alright.’”
“Hmm.” She tilted her head. “If I were you, I might… enjoy it.”
“I don’t know how to enjoy people talking about things that haven’t even happened,” I said.
“Yet,” she repeated deliberately.
I threw a small pillow at her. Mira dodged easily, and the pillow thumped harmlessly onto the floor.
“I’ll pick that up before I leave,” she said calmly. “Tomorrow morning I’ll tell the kitchen the Princess didn’t kill anyone tonight. They’ll be disappointed.”
“Out,” I told her, but without teeth.
She laughed once more, then moved to the door. It closed quietly behind her. The room swallowed the fading sound of her footsteps.
Silence settled. Not empty silence. A silence thick with candle-breath, fabric shifting, wood creaking lightly.
I sat still for several breaths.
The brew began to work elsewhere, not just in my palm. The pulse in my temples slowed. The tension in my neck eased, no longer a bowstring pulled too tight. My body softened, though my mind still churned.
I forced myself to stand and look at my half-cooled dinner. I wasn’t hungry, but if I didn’t eat, Mira would know tomorrow when the bread stayed whole and she'd scold me.
I sat at the table, tore off a small piece of bread, dipped it into the soup. Chicken broth, thyme, a touch of pepper filled my mouth. The chicken followed. I ate enough out of habit, out of survival.
Outside the window, night climbed slowly. Lights bloomed across the city one by one: oil lamps in windows, torchlight at the gates, the warm glow of the middle-layer taverns where people laughed louder to keep the dark at bay.
Thaldrun cut the horizon as a solid black line. Above it, the sky stretched like a deep blue cloth pricked by scattered stars. Thin clouds drifted past, dimming the light for a heartbeat before going still again.
I stood, carrying the last piece of bread in my right hand, and moved to the window. The cold glass pressed against my cheek when I leaned in.
Evrithall always looked more honest at night. Daylight hid exhaustion behind the bright colors of the market; night showed only what dared to remain: lamps in windows of those still working, small patrol lines on the street, a song drifting up from a tavern below.
I cracked the window open. Night air slipped in, carrying the scent of cold stone, woodsmoke, and something softer: the damp earth rising from the fields.
The potion seeped through my limbs. My body felt heavier, but not sluggish. As if the world had placed a thin blanket around my shoulders, not chains.
And still, the back of my neck chilled.
The fine hairs on my arm rose, slow, one by one. Not from the wind. Its touch was weak, brushing only my chin. This was a different kind of cold. One that came from inside, from the small point between my shoulder blades that suddenly realized something was watching.
I straightened.
Don’t turn around too fast. Let the body sense it first.
This room didn’t have many hiding places. The bed on the right with its tall posts. A wardrobe in the corner. A desk by the window. A small bookcase. A folding wooden screen for changing. A clean stone floor, carpet thick near the bed.
I shut the window again, letting the hinge’s groan fill my ears, listening for any sound that followed.
Nothing.
Just the faint vibrations of the castle: a guard’s footsteps somewhere far in the outer hall, maybe, or a heavy door closing downstairs.
I turned slowly. My gaze combed every corner. Beneath the desk, empty. Behind the folding screen, only clothes and shoes. Under the bed, just darkness and the box where my dagger rested earlier.
The feeling stayed.
Like the dream: before the light, before the metal bed, there was that moment when the darkness itself felt awake. As if a shapeless eye had opened, looking through the layers of the world.
I grabbed the bandage over my left palm. The fabric felt soft, but beneath it my skin remembered the nail. Somewhere deeper, threads Jerome had seen might have begun to stir.
“If this is one of you,” I whispered into the empty room, “I don’t have the energy for this kind of trouble tonight.”
The candle on the desk flickered. One flame leaned left, as if touched by wind. But the window was closed. The other flames stayed steady. My eyelids lowered slightly, focusing.
“It’s rude to spy on a woman’s room at night,” I added, my voice lifting half a note. “Whether you’re a god, a nightmare, or a certain Lord who likes blending into walls.”
The phrase a certain Lord was half serious, half stupid hope that if Zade had some uncanny way of watching, he’d be annoyed enough to answer.
Silence answered instead. The candles steadied.
I walked to the door. Checked the bar. Set. The lock turned inward. No gap underneath for eyes, only enough for air.
Just when I started telling myself it was only leftover nerves and potion haze, something shifted in the window.
Only a reflection.
The glass reflected part of the room when I approached. Usually I only saw blurred outlines: the bed, the posts, my own shape. Now, behind my shoulder in the reflection, there was another dark line. As if someone stood right behind me, close enough to press against my back.
I spun.
The room stayed empty. Bedposts. Folding screen. Desk. No shadow that wasn’t mine.
I faced the window again, leaning so close my nose nearly touched the glass. My reflection showed my face, hair tied up, eyes more tired than I wanted to admit. Behind me, only the bedposts.
No extra shadow.
“Great,” I told my reflection. “Now I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”
Still, as I returned to the bed, lifted the blanket, and slid beneath it, resting my wrapped left palm atop the pillow, the sense of being watched didn’t fully fade.
I lay back, staring at the wooden ceiling. I snuffed out the candles one by one, leaving a single flame on the desk so the dark wouldn’t feel too thick. That last flame danced, throwing shifting shapes across the boards.
The potion tugged gently at my eyelids. My body felt heavy, balanced between the waking world and somewhere else.
In the seconds before sleep pulled me under, I felt something inside my chest. Not a pulse. A faint tug, like a thread being drawn from the other end.
Not painful. Not gentle either. Just a quiet truth:
I wasn’t standing alone at the root of the thread.