Thread of Darkness

Ch. 35: you're awake

She'd done this before, Brigid thought.

She smoothed Ryne's dark hair back. He was shivering slightly, his pale face gleaming with sweat; the candlelight hollowed out his cheekbones. She'd sat with Arthur like this too, after he was stabbed with a poisoned blade four years ago; she hadn't realized how much Ryne favoured his father until now.

Same long eyelashes. Same cruel, upturned mouth, as if Ryne was sharing a private joke with himself.

Brigid lowered her hand.

Of course, she thought, turning to the shelf, Arthur had been awake in his final days; he'd held several council meetings at his bedside. He'd been cold with fever and asked Brigid to bring him two wool jumpers from his closet.

"I don't want them to see me shivering," Arthur had said, "and think that I'm afraid to die."

Brigid poured a mixture of dream somnium and honey into a cup, stirring it with a tiny silver spoon. Ryne's breath rattled in his chest. It sounded like chains, she thought, the way that the manacles in the castle prison clattered in winter winds.

Her only son.

She allowed herself to feel it for a moment — that terrible, crushing grief — and she closed her eyes. A sob caught in her chest. Gods, she hated Arthur. Hated her husband for keeping this secret from her, for entrusting it to John, of all people. She could have protected Ryne if she'd known. Could have ensured that he never went into that godsforsaken room.

She picked up the phial with trembling hands.

There was a knock on the door.

Brigid straightened her shoulders. "Enter."

She knew it was Camille. There was nobody else in the palace that knocked like that: soft, tentative, like she was kneading bread and she was afraid to knock the wind out of it. Her future daughter-in-law slipped through the door.

"How is he?" Camille asked.

She was wearing a lilac day dress with flutter sleeves, her blonde hair done up in a riot of pearl clips, lavender, and small white flowers. The tiny bows on her shoes matched her gown. Brigid sat down again.

"Better," Brigid said.

Camille's shoulders relaxed. "That's good news, isn't it?"

It wasn't. Brigid knew that. She could remember Arthur improving the day before his death, eating candied nuts while he played a game of chess with Ryne. But she looked at Camille and said, "I would think so."

Camille pulled out a glass vase. "I picked these in the gardens." She arranged a spray of white daisies. "I thought it might make the room smell less..." She waved a hand. "Well. Like it smells."

Like dream somnium, sweet as burned sugar. Like body odour. Like windowless death and rot and decay. They both thought these things, Brigid knew, although neither woman said it. She picked up a spoon.

"I've sent out letters to the ruler of every kingdom," Brigid said. "They've been informed that your wedding has been moved to this week."

Camille stopped fluffing the flowers. "They'll never make it in time."

"Perhaps that's for the best," Brigid said.

"What if Ryne isn't awake yet?"

Brigid paused, the spoon extended halfway to Ryne's mouth. Sometimes she forgot how naïve Camille was. How enchantingly hopeful. There was not, Brigid knew, a chance that Ryne would wake up before the wedding; there was a large chance that he would not wake up at all.