Page 68 of Broken Vow

Walk as though you own the air you breathe. I lifted my chin and stepped forward.

* * *

I covered the length of two corridors before they discovered me.

Four guardsmen rounded a corner abreast, their lanterns held high. They froze as their light fell upon a woman wrapped in a torn wall-hanging, walking the inner palace in the middle of a frantic search for intruders. Hands went to sword hilts. Sharp voices demanded my identity, ordering me to halt.

For a single breath, my resolve flickered. There were four of them, one of me, and a makeshift gown. The old cold dread stirred beneath my ribs, and the fox shifted, seeking an opening.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.”

The voice came from behind the guards, cool, composed, and faintly amused. The men turned as Lady Vasstent approached.

She glided down the corridor without haste, grey-haired and immaculate. She looked at me wrapped in the velvet drape, the corner of her mouth twitching with quiet amusement.

“How extraordinary. This is the second time today I have had the pleasure, Lady Marenne. The first time you were walking between two of the finest captains in the realm, and now here you are, dressed in a tapestry.” Her gaze drifted over me with calculated leisure. “A most unusual attire for a young woman wandering a palace filled with armed men. A lady does not roam the inner sanctum at midnight half-clothed without cause. Were I inclined toward suspicion, I might wonder whose quarters you departed in such a hurry. The distinguished captains’, perhaps, or even a far more illustrious bed chamber. But I am not a suspicious woman, Lady Marenne, so I shall simply admire your audacity.”

She paused, letting the implication hang in the air, before turning her cold focus onto the guardsmen.

“And you four. Four full-grown guardsmen of the imperial watch happen upon a lady in distress, unclad and alone, and your instinct is to surround her and bark commands rather than offer a cloak? Is this the standard of the guard under your master’s command? Go search for your intruders, and leave a lady’s modesty to those equipped to handle it. Move.”

They withdrew with hasty, awkward bows, thoroughly cowed by her authority.

“Now,” she said, her tone softening into something far more dangerous. “You are in considerable danger, child, and I am exceptionally well suited to assist a young woman in your position. Come with me. We will find a quiet, warm space out of sight, where you can tell me everything, and I can ensure your safety.”

“Thank you,” I said, cutting her off before she could continue.

She paused, unused to being interrupted.

“Thank you for the intervention, which I did not request, and which I will remember. But you may spare yourself the rest. I have spent far too long being passed from hand to hand by people who believed they knew best what should become of me. I am done with it. I will manage my own fate.”

Before she could react, I reached out and unclasped the heavy grey travelling cloak from her shoulders. She remained still, too astonished to prevent it.

“I have need of this. I will ensure it is returned to you.” I swung the fine wool over the velvet drape, drawing it tight around myself. It was warm, fine, and carried her scent. “Lady Vasstent.”

I turned and walked away down the corridor. I knew without looking back that she remained motionless. It was beneath a woman of her standing to pursue a half-clothed girl through the halls, though I sensed the restraint cost her something. I did not care. I had her cloak, my own feet, and my own mind. For the first time in weeks, I was moving toward a destination of my own choosing.

* * *

I recognized the great hall before I reached its threshold.

I had been here once before. Not on the floor where I now walked, but high above in the shadows of the mezzanine, a small, terrified creature peering down through a carved screen at a man on a distant dais. That had been the first time I ever saw his face.

This time, I entered on his level, and he was there.

He stood alone near the cold dais, holding a forgotten cup in his hand, his head bowed under the weight of whatever haunted his nights. At the sound of my bare feet against the stone, he turned, his expression set to reprimand whichever servant had dared intrude.

Then he saw me.

The cup slipped from his fingers, shattering on the flagstones between us. Neither of us looked down at the broken clay.

I watched the realization sweep over him in waves. First came disbelief, a flat refusal to accept what his eyes showed him. Then recognition, followed by something I had not prepared for: a terrible, naked relief that flared and vanished like a dying spark, the look of a starving man shown bread, quickly buried beneath discipline. Finally came fear. His eyes darted past me to the empty doorway and back, calculations spinning behind his gaze. A living woman he had discarded, standing in the heart of his palace while his bride’s envoy walked the halls and his witch worked below, was not a miracle. It was a disaster.

I saw him reach for the cold mask he wore upon the dais, trying with an effort that made him tremble to pull it back into place.

Then he saw the change in me. It was not merely what the fox had left behind, nor the subtle shift in how I held myself. What cracked his composure was the fact that I was standing straight, looking directly into his eyes without flinching. The frightened girl who had loved him in the grove was gone, and a stranger was wearing her face. The mark glowed faintly beneath the grey wool, drawing his gaze, and his expression shifted into something unreadable.

I had prepared a thousand words for this moment. I had rehearsed them along the road, in the dark, through every sleepless night since I was cast out. Sitting across from him at last, on his level, with the mark burning over my heart, only one question remained.