Page 183 of The Crown's Awakening
CHAPTER 53
The Recovery
The chamber is quiet by the time they sleep. Ari has not moved. Kiss took longer, her small restless sounds giving way slowly until her body went soft, her hand still curled against the blanket as though she might reach again if she woke.
I watch them longer than I should. Then I stand.
The bath has been drawn, steam lifting from the surface in slow curls. I step in carefully, lowering myself with more attention than I would like to admit. The pull through my abdomen lingers and then eases once I am still.
The door opens behind me.
Colsar does not speak as he enters, removing what remains of his clothing as he crosses the room, slower than he would have been before. I watch him. The marks remain, faint bruising along his ribs, a deeper line at his shoulder where the skin has not fully returned to itself. The Fyrekin healing had taken most of what the undead left behind, he had told me, but not all of it. And layered over those older marks, newer ones, the bruisingand abrasions from his fight with Teorin still visible beneath the surface.
He steps into the bath behind me.
The water moves around us and his hand comes to my side immediately, then pauses at the bandages.
"You should not be in this."
"The healer said they will hold."
"That does not mean I like it."
A quiet breath leaves him. His fingers adjust the edge of the wrap anyway, careful and checking. I let him.
Then I reach for the cloth. "Lean forward."
He does, without hesitation. I work slowly, rinsing the last of the blood from his hair and from the edge of his scalp, my fingers following after, pressing lightly, easing what I feel held there. His head lowers further and the tension in him shifts.
After a moment he speaks. "Before I left Veynar," he says, his voice quieter now, "I told Sevrin I was coming for his throne."
My hands pause briefly. "Did you mean it?"
"Yes."
I resume the slow movement through his hair. "You still mean it, do you not?"
"Yes."
"Good."
He lifts his head slightly at that. "You expected otherwise?"
"I expected you might decide Shalvar was enough," I say. "Especially with your father's push for you to be Sovereign."
"It is not enough."
I meet his eyes. "Then we are aligned."
"We always were."
"Which means you cannot go to Veynar only for revenge."
His jaw tightens. "I cannot go and not seek it."
"You can. Because taking the throne is bigger than that. Kiss is a feeder. If she is to inherit, she needs a crown that holds."
A pause. Then, "Mysin."
