Page 85 of A Court Bright and Broken

And I was engaged to be married now, so I shouldn’t even be thinking of sleeping in the same bed with another woman, even chastely.

Or staring at her as she slept.

Going back to the settee, I grabbed the poker from its position leaned against the hearth and prodded the fire, adding a new log.

It was going to be a long night.

As it turned out, morning arrived much earlier than expected.

Chapter 22

Missing

Stellon

The sky was barely showing color when a loud knock startled me awake.

I sprang from the sofa where I’d spent several uncomfortable hours cramped and contorted in fitful sleep and staggered to the door in the adjoining sitting room.

The servants would never dare wake me in such a manner unless the palace was on fire. As I smelled no smoke, there had to be some other sort of emergency.

Glancing back over my shoulder at the small lump under my bed covers in the next room, I slid aside the bolt and opened the door a crack.

“What is it? What’s going on?” I asked the guards waiting outside.

“Lady Wyn is missing, Your Highness,” one of them, Ser Keane, answered.

“What?”

Ser Quillen, the other knight assigned to guard her, held up a delicate pearl-and-crystal-covered shoe—unmistakably one of the unique pair Wyn had worn to the ball.

“This was found on the lawn, Your Highness.”

“After it was brought to us, we entered her room to see if she was all right,” he said. “She was gone. We knew you’d want to be notified.”

For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, my mind in a daze. Then I snapped out of it, a burning sense of urgency filling my veins and removing the last traces of sleep inertia.

“Give me a moment to dress.” I closed the door again and hurried to my wardrobe, pulling on some clothes, then went back to the sleeping chamber.

Raewyn hadn’t even stirred at the sound of our voices. She was truly exhausted.

I went to my writing desk and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. Taking my quill in hand, I wrote her a note in case she woke before I could return.

Thank the Grand Star she was literate.

I hope you slept well. I’ll return soon. Stay here and do not open the door for anyone. – S

Leaving the note on the pillow beside her, I took the key from its hook just inside the doorway and left my suite, locking the door behind me.

Then I turned to the guards. “Where exactly was the shoe found?”

“Not far from the castle wall, Your Highness,” Keane answered. “Practically beneath her window.”

My hand rose to my temple where a rapid pulse throbbed. “And she was not in her suite? Or perhaps down in the breakfast room?”

“No, Your Highness. She is nowhere to be found in the palace,” he said. “All her belongings are gone as well. We questioned the guards who found the shoe. They said none ofthe patrols saw her last night. No one has seen her this morning either, inside or outside the palace.”

“What could have happened?” I asked, mainly of myself. “Kidnapping?”

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