She ate a spoonful, though the taste didn’t register. The memory of discoloured skin still hovered behind her eyes.
“I don’t know yet,” she said, her tone careful.
A beat passed. She could feel his gaze on her, though she kept hers on her bowl, watching the surface tremble with each roll of thunder. Then—sudden and searing—a bolt of lightning lit the dining hall, stark and white. A ripple of startled whoops followed, punctuated by a few uneasy laughs.
Alexander calmly pierced a piece of fish with his knife. “I was concerned when the rain started. You shouldn’t have gone to the village in that weather.”
JingYi didn’t look at him. “Sickness doesn’t wait for clear skies. Tedric carried the medicine chest. I carried my share.”
He turned toward her. “You’re not made of iron, Princess.”
She set the spoon down, voice cool. “No. But I’m not salt either. Rain doesn’t dissolve me.”
Their eyes met. It wasn’t comfort, and it certainly wasn’t flirtation. It was a test—an instinctive tug between two animals learning how to coexist without wounding. His gaze didn’t soften, but it didn’t challenge her either. He simply held her there, as if measuring the limits of her endurance.
And to her own surprise, she looked on.
The heat from the hearth licked along the back of her legs. The velvet gown felt tight, the sleeves clinging to her arms. Even the weight of her braid at her nape felt too much. The flush crept up her neck and across her cheek. Languid. Inescapable.
Without the suppressants, everything was amplified. His nearness, his scent, the low timbre of his voice—all resonated deep in her blood, a hum she couldn’t silence.
She turned her face away, lifting her cup with deliberate calm. The wine had gone lukewarm. She drank it anyway.
Across the hall, the conversation flowed in waves. Somewhere, a serving boy dropped a platter. Someone laughed. But up at their table, silence sat between them like a second course neither had ordered.
Alexander’s voice came low enough that only she heard. “If you suspect danger, you will tell me.”
The rise at the last word made it sound like a question. She looked up and realized his gaze hadn’t left her.
“I will,” she said softly, “when I understand what it is.”
She was used to uncertainty in healing. Some medicines had to be tested, monitored, adjusted. But this felt . . .different, like reaching for something that wasn’t just missing, but taken deliberately. And if she said the words aloud—if she gave shape to the suspicion—it would become real.
His jaw ticked, but he said nothing more. He reached for his goblet, took a sip, and turned his attention to the far end of the hall where Tedric was laughing at something a steward said, shoulders loose and smile easy.
She turned back to her plate, ate another spoonful, and let it linger on her tongue.
This time, she tasted the soup.
CHAPTER 27
ALEXANDER
He searched for her after supper. The need to find her, to see with his own eyes that she was well, gnawed at him. The realization, as he moved through the halls, gave him pause.
When had her well-being become a priority that overrode protocol, that sent him checking dark corners? When did the princess, the political bride, become JingYi in his mind—a person whose absence felt like a space the castle couldn’t fill?
He started with her bedchamber, then his. The kitchens. The old library, though its ceiling had collapsed three years ago and was in his list of repairs, once he gathered the funds for it.
He’d asked everyone, even Darion—who responded with a grunt and a glare that said more about marital matters than any words ever could. The battlements crossed his mind, but the spiral stairs were steep and narrow. The thought of her climbing them in the dark sent a jolt of alarm through his chest.
The rain had finally stopped, and the moon emerged from behind the clouds. His legs took him down to the courtyard, the formal gardens, and finally, the kitchen herb plots beyond the west wing.
There, at last, he found her, crouched beside a raised bed overgrown with rosemary and browning thyme. Her hem brushed the wet flagstones. She looked like part of the garden itself—rooted, weathering wind and season. Her fingers sifted through the leaves, pale and precise, inspecting each stem like it still deserved its place despite the cold.
“You’re difficult to find,” he called out.
She didn’t startle, only looked up slowly, moonlight casting her face in silver, shadow catching beneath her lashes.