Page 253 of The Mercy of Dawn

“I feel terrible for Astor. How long has…” She had to choose her words carefully here. “How long ago did he marry Reyna?”

Dion blew out a slow breath, his attention turned on the fire.

“Mm… How old is Mikael? I remember Runa being pregnant and terribly sick at the wedding.”

“He’s…”

Cyril swallowed.

Fucking hells.

She was certain she asked him this at some point.

“He’s twenty…twenty-seven…I think?”

“You think? Oh, Cyr.” Dion laughed. “Well, if that is the case, then they’ve been married twenty-seven years this winter. Which, I think, is an awfully long time to be married to someone and not know what they are capable of.”

He’d taken the thought right out of her head.

“It’s sort of sad too,” Dion continued, “that this all seems to be borne of some woefully misguided desperation. It’s baffling how fucked up the purists’ beliefs still are, even after all these years.”

His sigh was palpable.

“Have you heard anything?” Cyril asked hesitantly. “About her, or…”

“Unfortunately not. The peninsula is warded as all hells, and they’ve refused Ezra’s outreach for communication. There’s talk about using Reyna’s sister’s body as some sort of bargaining chip, but I’m not sure that anyone wants to resort to that yet.” Dion shrugged half-heartedly and sighed. “I also admittedly have done little work as of late”—he glanced at her with a raised brow—“but I’m sure I’d know if anything major came up.”

It was hard not to feel a slight twinge of shame, that she’d let herself become his burden again, even though she swore to herself that any semblance of a relationship they had was over.

Maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted.

Or maybe she was just desperate for comfort.

But it was strange to see Dion sitting beside her so casually, with a mug of tea clasped between his hands and half-smiles lifting his tired face. She hadn’t seen this version of him in such a long time.

“I’m okay if you want to do some work, you know,” she said, instead of the other half-dozen things in her head that might upset the peace. “I’ll have to be alone and awake at some point, and I feel alright today.”

She genuinely did. This was the longest she’d been awake since the day she panicked and things weren’t back to normal by any means, but far better than they were. Light and sound were tolerable now, and those were remarkable improvements.

Dion seemed to wage some internal battle as he looked back at the fire.

“I have a disgusting amount of paperwork to sift through.” A hearty, resigned sigh left him and he stood. Cyril didn’t even want to imagine the sort of administrative nightmare this all had become. “Send someone for me though, if you change your mind. I’ll just be holed up in one of the offices.”

“I will, don’t—oh fuck right off.” Cyril swatted at Dion as he stepped past her and ruffled the absolute hell out of her hair.

He laughed the entire way to the door.

Chapter 66

Cyril made serious use of her time spent awake and alone.

The last time she had a long, leisurely soak in the bath? She wasn’t sure, but the warm water and gentle steam felt fucking amazing. She just had to put a bit of extra effort into avoiding any overlong glances at her thigh, or her side.

The lace trim of the night slip she picked to wear afterward dipped down just below the last tendril of angry, raised pink tissue on her thigh. Those brutal, jagged scars weren’t something she was quite ready to look at.

Dinner comprised what had become her usual—chicken and vegetables, all simply cooked. This time, she enjoyed it from the balcony.

Her suite was comfortable, and the hospitality the Kallans had given her was more than she could ever thank them enough for, but those four walls felt closer than they ever had before.