Page 26 of The King's Man 4

A long shiver runs down my middle. I clench my stomach and untangle my fingers from his. “No.”

“Your heart is racing.”

“You . . . hear that?”

“Feel it.”

I can too. It’s pounding against my ribs, and when I concentrate on my chest, I feel another rhythmic thumping close to it. Not my own. My whisper cracks, “Areyoubothered by it?”

“No.” His ‘no’ is said simply and feels vastly different from my own.

My heart betrays me by racing more. “It’s nothing to do with how close we are. I’m... panicking. This is not the first time I’ve been trapped in a coffin. It’s... bringing that back.”

Quin is quiet for a long beat. “Cael...”

His voice is too soft; unbearable.

I clear my throat. “To reinvent myself through crude healing, I’ll need better tools. A set of acupuncture needles, stitching needles, small sharp knives, portable brewing pots.”

It’s a lifetime before he responds, but he does, and relief sweeps through me. “Anything you need.”

His leg jerks, bumping mine, and he hisses. I can’t feel auras of pain the way I used to through magic, but I know it’s there. He shifts and so do I. On instinct, our hands briefly meet against his cramping thigh and I hesitate a moment before massaging his muscle alongside him. It takes a few minutes and some tightly-gritted grunts, but the worst of the pain subsides.

“I was too rough rolling you in here,” I say.

“You’re fine. It’s been doing this at random and inopportune times since the beginning.”

The beginning. “When was that? What was it like? How did you cope?”

A teasing lilt warms his voice and thickens the air around us. “Want the intimate details of my childhood, Cael?”

“P-purely from a healing perspective.”

“I used to love exploring. Nicostratus and I were masters of sneaking out, and we’d walk and run everywhere. Our guardshad a hard time catching us, and we were often punished, but to be free... it was always worth it.”

There’s a wistful quality to his memory that has my stomach tensing at what’s to come.

“As we got older, ten or eleven, we began to understand more of the complexities of the royal city. My father and mother had been shielding me from many dangers I was unaware of.”

“There were people who wanted you dead.”

“Mm. I started to see those around me in different lights; I became more wary. When I went outside the boundaries, I pretended I was someone else. Sometimes I’d wear my aklo’s clothes, or pretend I was a nobleman’s son, or a merchant’s. A performer.”

“Was it always the high duke after you?”

“He was there, starting his quiet schemes, but back then, it was my father’s second wife that posed the greatest danger.”

“Nicostratus’s mother?”

“A heartbreaking realisation.”

“What did you do?”

“Refused to let anyone tear me and my brother apart.”

“She poisoned you right after you saved him from drowning.”

“He’s told you.”

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