Page 20 of A Kingdom's Heart
My heart lurched. I kept my gaze fixed on the wound, afraid of what he might see if I looked up. “It seems we do.”
He gave a small, almost disbelieving laugh. “You said maybe never.”
The sound of it caught in my chest. I didn’t answer. My fingers worked at the cloth, steady but tense, wringing more water from it than needed. Anything to keep my hands busy, anything to avoid
his eyes.
He filled the silence with a softer voice. “I thought I’d never see you again. You didn’t tell me you were a castle healer.”
“I didn’t think it was important,” I said, forcing the words out evenly.
“Not important?” His tone sharpened, not cruelly, but with an edge of disbelief. He leaned forward slightly, the movement smallbut enough to make my pulse quicken. “Even after I told you I’d be knighted?”
I drew a slow breath. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was just worried because of the storm.”
“I see,” he said simply.
The words were soft, but something in them made my stomach twist. It wasn’t anger, not yet. More like disappointment that cut quieter and deeper. He didn’t believe me. He was right not to.
The truth was, I had lied out of panic. I always did when I slipped beyond the castle walls. It had become instinct to hide who I was, to protect myself from the risk of being reported to my father’s guards. If someone ever recognized me and sent word back to the castle, the punishment would be severe.
But now, standing before him, that lie felt utterly ridiculous. I hadn’t been thinking at all that night. Not when I gave him a false name, not when I told him half-truths about who I was. He had told me he was to be knighted, and I still hadn’t realized what that
that meant.
A knight of Elarion would live within the castle walls. He would guard its gates, dine in its halls, walk the same corridors I did.
And now here he was, sitting right in front of me.
The weight of it sank in, heavy and cold. There would be no easy way to keep this secret now. All it would take was one careless word, one servant calling me by name, and the truth
would surface.
I pressed the cloth to his shoulder again, trying to hide the tremor in my hands. The wound was deep but clean, a sharp gash along the muscle. I could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric, steady and strong beneath my fingers.
“Hold still,” I said quietly.
He didn’t move. The torchlight threw a soft glow over his face, catching on the dark strands of his hair and the faint curve of a smile that wasn’t quite there. His eyes were calm, unreadable, but they held mine longer than they should have.
I wondered if he could tell how fast my heart was beating. If he could see how close I was to breaking the silence, to confessing everything before it slipped from my control.
The silence felt fragile, stretched thin between us. I needed to say something, anything, before it broke. “You should be careful
next time,” I said softly. “It could have been worse.”
He gave a faint huff of breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
“Oh, yeah? Well, guess who stabbed me.”
I frowned and looked up at him. “Stabbed you?”
He nodded once, the movement slow. “Two men. The same ones from the theatre.”
My stomach dropped. “You’re certain?”
“Hard to forget a face after they try to lay hands on a woman in front of you,” he said. His tone was even, but there was a weightbehind it. “They found me by the trees. Said I’d pay for what I did.”
I stared at the wound again, at the red mark cutting across his shoulder. “You could have been killed.”
