Page 68 of Vale of Dreams

The door swings open, and Talan leans against the doorway, his hair looking tousled. “And what, pray tell, is going on here? Did you hurt my mistress?”

My mind races. I have to take control of this situation. I need to control the narrative, to make sure that Talan finds out only the information I want him to hear.

“Your Highness—” the guard begins.

“He says he suspects me,” I cut in, rubbing my throbbing wrist. “He suspects me of not really being in love with you. He thinks I’m a fraud, apparently, and that our relationship is a sham.”

From the floor, I shoot Talan an expression that says, He’s found us out. As if we’re together in the guard’s suspicion.

Talan turns to the guard and raises his black eyebrows. “And you hurt her?”

“I didn’t mean to. I just don’t think she’s who she says she is,” the guard stammers.

Slowly, I stand, still cradling my injured wrist. “He’s threatening to report me to the king for being a fake.”

I know the reaction this will get.

Talan acts swiftly. In a blur of movement, his dagger arcs through the air. The guard grabs his neck, his blood spilling onto the flagstones. I step back, my heart racing, and stare down at the guard as he bleeds out. My legs feel weak, and my head is clouded. Guilt carves through me. The man was only doing his job, like I was doing mine. And unfortunately for me, he was fucking good at his job. But it was either him or me, and if I’d let this conversation take its natural course, I’d be the one bleeding on the floor.

I look up at Talan, my mouth going dry. For the briefest of moments, I see something unexpected on his face. Is it regret? Guilt? But before I can make sense of it, his expression settles into a mask of cool composure. Sheathing his dagger, he brushes his dark hair away from his face. “He belonged to the King’s Watch. He was good at his job. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t have someone good at his job watching me, informing on me. I need an idiot as my sergeant-at-arms. Now he’s a problem I no longer have.”

The expression he shoots me is ice-cold.

I swallow. “Right.”

“Guards!” he calls.

At the far end of the hall, two guards hurry around the corner. They stop to stare open-mouthed at the body at the end of the hall, watching the man’s blood run in rivulets between the flagstones.

“Get someone to clean this up,” Talan says. “And I’ll need a new sergeant-at-arms, one who will not treat my mistress as if she’s some sort of criminal.” He leans against the doorframe and folds his arm, a ghost of a smile playing over his lips. “What brings my mistress here, exactly? And did my chivalrous protection elevate me above ‘murderous pig-shagger’ in your estimation?”

My mouth opens and closes. This is not how I’d expected this to happen. I stare down at the guard’s body. “I’ve quite forgotten why I came.”

He opens the door to his room and steps inside, pausing to look back at me. Sunlight from the windows behind him gilds his dark, tousled hair and outlines his broad shoulders. “Are you coming in, then?”

Silently, I follow him, and he closes the door behind me.

Once inside the huge room, he leans against a column and gives me a wry smile. “How may I be of service, my faithful mistress?”

I try to remember the little speech I’d prepared, the one I’d gleaned from his thoughts. “Nivene isn’t around, and everything is so quiet. I’ve spent too much time in my room by myself.” I shrug. “Maybe I don’t like to be alone at dusk, is all.”

“And here I thought you felt nothing but disdain for me.” His voice is a quiet, silken drawl as he steps closer. “Are you after something from me, love? The sweet release of a lover’s touch, a night’s solace in my bed, to scream my name for real this time? That’s usually why women show up at my door, but I can’t say that grim spectacle was the best start to the evening.”

My heart stutters.

Fuck. I’ve been thrown off guard already. I need to reflect his own thoughts back at him. “No, it’s just that I wanted some company. It’s a feeling I get when the sun is setting, when the dying light fades to a mortal pallor. It reminds me of the intense solitude a person must feel in their final breaths, when someone is alone with their pain.”

A line forms between his eyebrows. “Oddly enough, I know exactly what you mean. Have a seat. I’m pouring myself wine, if you want some.”

I follow him across the vast, vaulted chamber, my heart beating faster. Light spills from arched windows onto a four-poster bed made of twisting, gnarled dark wood. The blankets on the bed are a velvety purple. A table and two chairs stand beneath the windows.

He crosses to a mahogany desk and uncorks a bottle of wine.

I glance up at a stained glass rose window. It’s an ouroboros—a serpentine dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of creation and destruction. This is Talan’s sigil, and it is strangely fitting for him.

A tapestry hangs on one of the walls, depicting a dark, snaking river with weeping willow trees drooping into the water.

“That’s beautiful,” I say as he hands me a glass of claret.

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