Elara. Castle Randal It was as if she had not slept in years. The novelty of being in her own chambers had worn off in a matter of short weeks, replaced instead by visceral fear coursing through her veins at all hours. The dead of night was the worst, the hours after the exhausted collapse had worn off but before it set in again. Elara did not dream as much as she hallucinated. Derrick standing before her bloody or dead; the image was seared onto the part of her brain which made her dreams, both in sleep and the waking ones. It appeared in the cold hours of midnight and lingered after dawn. She awoke in cold sweats. She wasn't sure if they were from a terror that had startled her awake, or a lingering waking dream that hadn't yet fled. It had been nearly six months since they'd left. Six months of the night terrors, and she'd shared them with no one. This time, Elara was sure she had been asleep when the gruesome dreams came. The images were so vivid, in perfect horrible color against a nondescript background of murky faded grays, so clear in her mind's eye that they could not have been conjured up in the space beyond the four posts of her bed. She'd awoken with a start, clammy with sweat. She drew a shaking hand along her neck, pulling the strands of hair off her prickling damp skin, and startled; her hands were even icier than her skin beneath the perspiration. Elara rolled onto her side and pulled the coverlet up higher, tucking it over her body and curling her hands between it and her chest. She pressed her eyes closed, willing herself to believe the insides of her eyelids were a blank canvas meant to stay that way. Noise startled her awake the next time, either minutes or hours later. Elara opened her eyes to the darkness as she felt her mattress dip on one side, and a hand on her shoulder. "Your Highness, you must come with me," panted the intruder, a voice she recognized as belonging to Master Keynes. She rose to sit, adjusting her nightdress even though Keynes nobody could make out anything more than her silhouette in the darkness. He took it for dawdling, adding insistently, "Really, Highness, you must come now." Elara was already out of bed with her heavy robe around her and slippers on her feet before the gruesome images from sleep came surging back, full force, and she gripped the doorframe of her bedchamber. Derrick. Blood. Clammier than even her own hands. "Your Highness?" Heloise asked, touching her arm as Elara blinked back the apparition. She did not respond to the lady's maid, brushing past her to join Keynes at the far door. He led them by candlelight out of her chambers and through the castle. Elara had her arms wrapped around herself. She kept her head up and only blinked when it became too painful not to. She caught noise as they reached the servants' quarters, and the back entrance to the castle. The doors had been flung open, and Elara estimated at least five voices and the whinnies and grunts of as many horses. There was a group of no more than ten waiting in the courtyard outside the doors, illuminated by a half dozen torches and pale moonlight. Elara had taken only a few steps beyond the threshold when she found herself set upon by William, divesting himself of his armor while approaching her. Elara was rooted to the spot. She had seen neither Derrick nor William since they'd departed nearly half a year earlier, and the sudden apparition in the dead of night turned her blood to ice. "What's going on? What's happened?" Elara implored William as he drew closer, arms crossed tightly over her shaking chest. "William, what's happened?" she repeated. She realized as William tossed the breastplate of his armor carelessly aside that he was out of breath. One of the torches cast light across him; there was blood everywhere. Smeared across his brow, staining his tunic, coloring his ungloved hands. He didn't speak to her until they were face to face. "He's hurt," William said, panting still. "Badly hurt." William said more about where they had been, how they had been attacked, but Elara did not – could not – hear him. She pushed past while William caught his breath and saw one of Derrick's tall, broad guardsmen carrying something in his arms, silhouetted against the night by the torches. They drew closer, and Elara immediately recognized her brother's form, limp in the guard's arms, curly auburn hair matted with blood. She could not muster the voice in her throat to scream. She froze, met the guard's gaze as he moved swiftly past her, felt her feet turn in a circle until she once again faced inward. Then she ran, chasing the guardsman back inside Castle Randal. She felt William fall in step at her heels. Blood pounded in her ears; it was all she could hear. She arrived at the entrance to Derrick's chambers moments behind the guardsman and her brother, and saw the court physician was already at her brother's bedside. They must have awoken him as they had her. "All of you, out," the physician ordered, as he beckoned to his assistant for help. "You'll do him no good hovering around. Out, I said!" Elara felt William at her side; he took her arm to guide her away. Her gaze lingered on Derrick as William pulled her from the room. Please, live. She wasn't sure who she was praying to. She had lost a brother once before; she refused to do it again. Keynes closed the bedchamber door behind them all. Elara turned around to face the group that had assembled in the antechamber; William, Derrick's guardsman, Keynes, and a few of Derrick's household attendants. Keynes turned to the latter and said, "Fetch the privy council. Please be discreet." Two of them made swift exits. William nodded to the guard, who followed, bowing at the neck to Elara as he passed her. Elara was cold and numb. She approached the third attendant and said, "Please, get Lord Ingraham some water to wash with and something to eat," indicating William. If he looked up at her or spoke to her in thanks, or even lifted a brow in surprise at the rare use of his title from her lips, she did not notice. "And something clean to wear," Elara added, catching sight of the bloodstains on William's tunic, wondering if any had gotten on her arm. She didn't look. She crossed the chamber to a low bench by the far wall, sitting upon it as the attendants left to fulfill their requests. She saw Keynes approach William and ask him to explain; an attack on the southern road, three of their pages dead, one guard lost. They had come to Castle Randal with haste, and had nursed Derrick's wounds as best they could for the journey. "What happened to him?" Elara said, not realizing she was speaking aloud and not in her own head until William turned to acknowledge her voice. He looked just as shocked to hear it as she was to know she'd said it. "He has a nasty gash on his leg," William started hesitantly, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. "He lost a lot of blood, mostly from that. And he took a bad blow to the head, though I didn't see it to know how. He hasn't been conscious since we got him out of there." Elara had not known Derrick was completely unconscious. The knowledge made her insides turn. "Thank you," she said, looking away from William and staring instead at the tapestry on the far wall. She focused on a spot at its center, and concentrated on breathing. One attendant returned accompanied by a maid. They placed a tray of bread, cured meats, fruit, and wine on the writing desk in the chamber. The attendant had a clean gray tunic hung over his arm, a large bowl of water held in his hands. Wordlessly, William followed him into another of Derrick's chambers to wash and change. He glanced at Elara, but she wasn't looking. Alone now with Keynes, Elara rose and poured wine into a goblet for herself. She heard Keynes breathe in sharply as if to object, but he said nothing. She drank deeply. The privy council began arriving soon thereafter. The nine counselors were either hastily dressed in proper attire or, like Elara and Keynes, in robes over their nightclothes. None of them hid their surprise well at being summoned to Derrick's chambers, only to find Elara and Keynes and a locked door to the king's bedchamber. When the last of them arrived, Keynes addressed them, "His Majesty has been seriously wounded. The physician is seeing to him now. We cannot know more until then, and the physician has requested we not pry." There was a murmur of agreement accompanying the inevitable shiver of shock that coursed around the room. Elara's hands shook; she could see the vibrations on the surface of the wine in her goblet. She nearly startled altogether when a heavy hand closed over her left shoulder. She looked to that side and saw William standing next to her, now wearing the clean tunic, hair and face still damp from washing. Elara met his gaze briefly, then looked back to the rest of the room, as if to say she was alright. He lowered his hand and moved to the tray of food. She wondered how he could stomach it, almost envious. Another half hour passed before the door to Derrick's bedchamber opened, and the physician slipped out. All of them were staring at him. The physician sighed, adjusting his own heavy robe before speaking. "His Majesty is still unconscious, I'm afraid," he began, and Elara's knuckles tightened to whiteness around the stem of her goblet. "His leg will heal nicely, but his head... it seems to have been a terrible blow. We cannot know when he will wake and what condition he will be in if he..." "If?" Again, Elara found herself speaking without realizing it had happened at all. The rest of the room turned to look at her. She knew what little color had lingered through the night had drained from her face entirely. The physician looked right at her, as if addressing her personally. "I cannot predict these things, Your Highness. My assistant and I will stay with him through the night. That is all we can do now, I'm sorry to say. But he is alive. We can rule nothing out." Elara offered, "Thank you, doctor. Please alert Master Keynes if there is anything you might need." The physician nodded to her and slipped back inside the bedchamber, shutting the door. She set down her wine goblet, hands resting against the heavy fabric of her robe. Elara was accustomed to behaving as mistress of the castle in Derrick's absence, but this was... different. When she looked at Keynes, he took pity. "Gentlemen, we ought to give them peace," Keynes said, nodding towards the king's locked chamber. "We will adjourn to..." He trailed off, perhaps realizing just as Elara did that neither of them knew where to gather in the middle of the night. Not without raising alarms, not without their king. "My rooms are just nearby," Elara heard herself say. "My sitting room is open to you." They rose, expecting her to lead, but Elara found her eyes fell on William, who it seemed had only partaken of a little food after all. Their eyes met, a gulf of sadness between them, their clammy hands, their roiling stomachs. She slightly tipped her head towards the door, tiny movements they had once employed on the road. She wasn't sure if the nod of her head had meant come, as in come with us, or stay, as in stay with me. But William clearly understood that whichever it was she brokered no argument, and he nodded, following along with the councilors as Elara led the way to her chambers. The sitting room was amply lit when they arrived; who had told her maids to do so, she couldn't know. "Please, sit," she offered to the councilors, but herself remained standing. William awkwardly took a seat near to the low-burning hearth, out of the way. "I am sorry we could not all convene under better circumstances," Elara admitted, straightening up to her full height. She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands to stop herself crying. "Given the circumstances, Your Highness, it is quite important we manage things immediately and effectively," Towson said, taking the floor from Elara. She willingly relinquished it. "There is still a war on. His Majesty's condition must not lead us to falter." "He would not want us to falter on his account," William interjected. He spoke fiercely, in the weighty tone she'd only witnessed in the dungeons of Tyron's Keep. It stirred the councilors, many of whom had never seen war like he had. But while all assembled knew that he better than any of them, Elara included, spoke as Derrick's voice in the king's absence, it made him no less their inferior. William seemed to realize his speech was not desired, no matter its stirring qualities, that his presence was for Elara's benefit alone and only at her will. He bowed his head and fell silent. Sensing the need for a peacemaker, Elara spoke candidly, "Unless you would all tell me otherwise, I believe we can save the strategy and the minutia for the morning." She paused, her gaze centered vacantly on one of the lamps on the back wall. "For now," she refocused, "it must be decided how to proceed, in my brother's absence." "Begging pardon, Princess," started Towson again, "but I should believe it obvious." The aging councilor glanced around at his peers, many of whom nodded. "His Majesty did declare you his heir, Your Highness. It has been so ratified in our records. You will serve as regent until His Majesty is well." Elara felt older then. Weary, like she had aged a decade in an hour. She was not a little girl being asked to look after her own room, her belongings. She was a woman compelled to do her duty, and her duty was to serve as princess regent in Derrick's stead. She did not say anything for a long time. Neither did the councilors. She bowed her head in thought, hands still clenched at her sides. She had taken charge of the castle in Derrick's absence, but never all of his responsibilities, not even a fraction. And she had watched both Derrick and their father as kings in practice, but that did not amount to a working knowledge of regency. I declare you my heir, with all the rights and responsibilities Father accorded to me, he had said. And she had agreed. Finally, Elara looked up at the men assembled in her chambers. "You all honorably serve my brother, as you did my father. I pray that you will do the same for me," she said. Towson rose along with Benedict, her father's two most trusted advisors in his lifetime. "It will be our honor to serve you, Your Highness," Benedict said, to a chorus of agreement from the others. Those who were still sitting rose to their feet. William did too. "I am very grateful," she answered calmly. "We will reconvene in the morning. I hope to bring better news of my brother's condition to you then." She dismissed the councilors, watched William turn to leave with them. "Lord Ingraham," she called for him. "A word?" He stopped. The lingering surprise at her use of his title was apparent on his face. He halted a few paces in from the door as the councilors filed out. The weariness on his face and in the droop of his shoulders... Elara was sure she had the same. Elara approached her two lady's maids who had been waiting at the door to rejoin her after the council met. "I must have a word with Lord Ingraham," she said to the two women, brokering no argument. "Please, go rest. I will snuff the lights myself." There was a moment's hesitation before the lady's maids curtsied to her and left down the corridor for their own quarters. Elara pulled the heavy chamber doors shut and locked them, then turned inward to face William. She started speaking immediately, still carrying some of the poise from the council meeting. She'd made up her mind. "I want you to serve on the privy council." The look of surprise lingering on William's face multiplied, expanded across his features. "I...forgive me, Your-- Elara," he caught himself in the forced formality. "I do not know what I can offer you here, that I cannot better offer you on our front lines." There was a slight tremor in his voice, an awareness that when he had last been in battle things had gone horrifically wrong. "I cannot accept." Elara pursed her lips. She maintained the distance from William and sighed. "I thought you might say that," she admitted, her poised resolve breaking. "I do not want to force you, believe me I don't. But what you and I have been through..." Elara continued, walking closer. "I cannot forget that. And I need you with me now. I trust nobody as I do you, you know that. Nobody but Derrick, at least," she concluded, finding it was harder to breathe having said her brother's name. And the idea of watching William leave again? Knowing he might never return, and that Derrick might never wake... the possibility broke her. William too seemed to break. "I'm so sorry," he breathed, striding toward her. His apology was a surge in her direction, his bright blue eyes darker, rimmed with obvious exhaustion, not to mention war-weariness. And the slight silvery sheen of tears. "I'm so sorry, Elara," he repeated, drawing closer still. They were soon only an arm's length away, their gazes aligned. She wanted to tell him off for apologizing. She wanted to tell him he bore no fault for what had happened to Derrick, that he owed no apology to her. She wanted to stop the unnecessary apology from touching her deeply anyway. Instead, Elara walked past him, across the room closer to the threshold of her bedchamber. Her head spun. "He only ever made me his heir as a precaution," she said at last. She crossed her arms over her chest. "It should never have come to pass, it..." She turned around, eyes misting over. Her voice was hoarse, thick. "Never like this," Elara said, little more than a rough whisper. William strode cautiously toward her again. He looked more defeated than ever before, even when they had communicated through iron bars at Tyron's Keep, his body caked with dungeon grim. When he was close, Elara looked up to him, cracking again. "I can't do this alone," she admitted through tears. "You are all I have of my brother, what he would want, what he would tell me to do..." "You don't need his help," William interjected, his tone surprisingly soft, hands extended towards her. "I have known you practically your whole life, and I--" He seemed to contemplate it for a moment, before deciding to hell with treating her like glass, or like precious cargo as the councilors did. He took hold of her upper arms. "Listen. Derrick would not have made you his heir if he did not believe in you. He does. He thinks more highly of you than of anyone. As do I." Elara did not have the heart to argue with him. "So you will stay?" she offered, tone calm if quiet. The subsequent pause hung heavily between them. She knew what she was asking of him. So did he. That he would not return to battle, not right away. They both knew he was needed at the front, that Elara's request was the most selfish thing she could ask, especially now with the kingdom in her hands. But leaving her alone... "I will try," William at last relented, his affirmation almost a prayer, a response to her clarion call. "I have faith in you. I cannot stop you from having the same in me. In our men still fighting out there." "And I do have faith in you," Elara echoed. "In your men out there, in your mind in here." She found William's eyes, held them unwaveringly. Again she saw the defeat, the failure. "This is not your fault," Elara told him, softer now. It had been the two of them like this before, alone in the dungeons, having to embrace an undesirable conclusion. She leaned slightly into the pressure of his hands on her arms; both of them were shaking. Elara knew that William took responsibility for keeping Derrick safe in battle, for not only being his closest friend but also his most trusted comrade in arms, his champion. And whether by his own fault or not, he had failed. William's hands trembled, and he seemed to break, body suddenly wracked with sobs. He sunk to his knees before her, head hung in defeat and hands clenched at his sides. "Fault or no, please forgive me," William said, voice thick. "I failed him, and you." She stood astonished, a caged cry quivering silent in her chest. Gently, she touched William's shoulder, and he grabbed at her with both hands, clinging to her robe just below her waist, to her legs beneath, bowed head hovering near her abdomen. She'd glimpsed William's emotionality before, but only that: glimpses. She considered it something of a privilege. But never had it been like this. Desperate, raw, and painful. Elara bent her knees, lowering herself to him. His fingers uncurled from her legs, though his hands lingered in the space on either side of her, quivering. Elara spoke gently, almost a whisper, "You never could fail me, William." It was silent between them but for the sound of their breathing. Elara placed her hands on William's unstable shoulders. He responded by resting his forehead on one of hers, fingers finding the loose fabric that had pooled around her folded legs. The shaking of William's shoulders beneath her own trembling hands soon broke Elara too. The physician's "if" echoed over and over, the image of Derrick bloody and unconscious seared deeply into her mind, her heart, and Elara felt herself collapse even though she was already on the floor. Her hands slipped from William's shoulders and her posture crumpled. William caught her by the arms at first, then pulled her into his chest, holding her tightly as she shook. When Elara had been young, her father would gather her into his arms when something went wrong. He told her that he would make it better, and she believed that in his heavy arms he had some magic, some power over the universe that would seep forth when he embraced his daughter. There was no magic in clinging to William on the floor. She had already learned too much in her life to even try and persuade herself that there might be magic just in having hope, or even in companionship. Elara tightened her fingers in the loose fabric of William's tunic and breathed in the scent of him, still earthen and metallic from battle but crisp from a quick washing. She would rather it have been her brother embracing her upon a safe return home. But William's heartbeat was a calming rhythm against her shoulder, and Elara did not protest. The fact was, she had never protested to him. Debated, perhaps. Challenged, certainly. The trust between them was an accepted fact, not changeable. Nobody else would have held her, not in a moment such as this. And now that he had, she did not want to be left alone. "Stay," Elara said. Not come with me this time, said silently. Stay. She could tell that it shocked William, from whom she so rarely begged for anything. Elara withdrew, and tilted her head to meet his surprised gaze. "Please stay," she repeated, quieter still. Elara was not even sure what she was really asking, only that the word had come to her tongue and refused to be swallowed back down. William held her gaze. His breath tickled her face has he breathed in and out through his mouth. It was quiet. For the first time in many months, Elara's mind was still. He leaned forward first, touching her forehead with his lips. It was hardly more than a whisper against her skin. His hands were callused but gentle as they rose along her neck, cradling her face with his fingertips. When he withdrew, William met her eyes again. "I will stay as long as you need me," he affirmed with quiet fortitude. "As long as you want me," he corrected, almost sheepishly. "You and I both know that you don't need me." "That's not true," Elara said, words spilling forth before she could stop them. "I need you desperately, or did I not just..." She had meant to remind him that she'd said as much before, that she had pleaded with him to stand by her as her brother would have. If anything, that much was true; self-reliance or no, Elara did need him. In a way that transcended what others might understand. He did not hear her, or perhaps he had known it without hearing it. William's hands tightened along her jaw and drew her closer again. This time, his lips did not touch her forehead but her mouth. It was at first like a flickering ember of something, a weak summer wind passing across her lips, enough to know its warmth but too fleeting to stick, to catch fire. But the promise of heat was there, available if she grasped it. His lips hovered over hers, no longer close enough to touch. Elara tried to raise her eyes enough to find his; William seemed to have done the same toward her. They looked for what felt like forever and yet no time at all. Their breath intermingled in the small shaft of space between their mouths, growing heavier with fear and anticipation at once. Then, a silent agreement. And then he kissed her again. Or perhaps she kissed him. Harder this time, like if they tried hard enough the rest of the sad, sorry state of things would melt away. Either her tongue or his first begged entrance at the other's lips, and then they were all over each other, a clashing or a merging, something in between. William bore her down onto the carpeted floor, one hand having left her neck to sweep around her waist, gentling the descent. Elara's hands were still fists amidst his tunic, releasing only when gravity kept him near to her, over her. She let her fingers find purchase in his still-damp hair, and then he was groaning into her mouth, his own hands freely roaming under her robe, the nightdress beneath somehow too thin and too solid at once. It wasn't enough, yet too much. It was neither beginning nor ending: it just was. As they were. Two people who had endured more together than anyone should wish to, who were perhaps the only people to be capable of comforting the other. Of holding them truly. Of making them feel alive. And perhaps it was because she had never thought she wanted him that she knew so viscerally that she needed him. There was no confusing sheen of childhood infatuation, no mist of unrequited or simply unindulged lust. But there was no hesitation either, no worry, nothing but surety that William wouldn't hurt her, nor she him, and that whatever they were each looking for, it was the same. She let her hands explore his body like it was her own, like it was a piece of her, like his chest pressing to hers and his legs settling between her own were missing until that moment... But William broke their kiss, panting. "Your brother would kill me if he ever knew," he said plainly, blue eyes reflecting the low lamplight in her sitting room. Elara bit back a sigh, her head resting back against the carpet, heart hammering. It was not only disinterest that had kept them apart, of course, no matter that they had never spoken of it. They'd never needed to. They were off-limits to each other, sister and right hand to the king, friends, thick as thieves. Derrick's success as king depended on his ability to in turn depend on them. That they'd never crossed this particular line before, but now considered it, with him lying unconscious... "Do you wish to go?" Elara asked timidly. She was embarrassed now at the silent request she had made of him. The silent request of his that she'd agreed to. Her blush would be evident even in the flickering and weak light. "We would speak no more of it." "No," William countered, far from Elara's own timidity. "No, I do not wish to go, and would that we could speak of it loudly and often." He had not moved from above her, but for how he'd pulled his face back. "You asked me to stay, and gods know I want nothing more. But I swore an oath to Derrick once, that I would protect you if anything befell him. I cannot -- I will not risk sending any blow against you myself." Elara remembered well the vow he'd made her brother in the chill night outside Castle Randal when they'd stolen away into the dark, on the run before the truth of her as Derrick's heir could condemn her. And he had protected her, as much as she would allow – and more, she was sure, than even she knew. Elara looked at him almost sadly, realizing how indeed she felt. Would that we could speak of it loudly and often. The thought of it made her head spin, to have him, to keep him, for however long they could. "You cannot protect me from myself," Elara finally said. "I have suffered enough... you have suffered enough, at the will of other people. I asked you to stay, and I meant it. If any ill should befall me now, then by the gods let me be happy for it having been a risk I--" William kissed her then, deeply and desperately and wholly, his callused hands spearing into the heavy waves of her hair. Elara gave in to him, tilting her head so his mouth would have greater access to hers, his hands easier access to her neck. He in turn gave in to how she lay beneath him, grinding against her, and it was clear his body had never carried the same doubts as his mind. Elara slid her arms down and around his torso, lifting the hem of his tunic unbidden. They both shivered when her palms brushed across his lower back, the skin warm and taut with muscle. His hands were beneath her robe again, coaxing it fully open. They had not yet broken their kiss, but when Elara's hands could go no higher up his back beneath his tunic, William arched up and away, long enough to tug it over his head and toss it aside. He reached for her again immediately, head bent as if to kiss her, but Elara was swifter. She pressed a palm against his chest, stilling him instantly. "Let me see you," she implored him, peering up into his eyes. Elara put slight pressure into her hand, pushing against him – not to get him away from her, but towards something, over, down, to lay before her. Neither of them broke the look. William only dropped his hand away to her side, easing over onto his back. Only once he had laid down did Elara dare to look at the rest of him. He had always taken care to preserve his modesty when they had been in hiding, washing and changing in the semi-privacy of the woods in good weather or in the dark when she had fallen asleep. They'd had an unspoken but mutual rapport on the subject. Elara was transfixed by him now, by the ridges and valleys of his upper body, muscles honed by years of swordsmanship and archery and riding. He was lean, taut, balanced, but with a breadth to his chest and shoulders that spoke more to fighting that courting. She let her hands explore it all, first fingertips and then palms, listening to the sharp rhythm of his breath as she marveled at the mystery she'd never wanted to solve. She stopped as her hands moved up over his left shoulder. Her eyes fell to the jagged line of raised scar tissue stretching from his collarbone out and nearly across his whole upper arm. It was the blow he had taken for her, the only outward evidence of their escape from Tyron's Keep, apart from her freedom. Elara drew herself closer, leaning down until her forehead rested against the uneven scar. She tasted bitter hatred in her mouth, the metallic feeling of anger on her tongue. So you will go to Derrick and start the war yourselves, she had said. It left William scarred, Derrick unconscious, and her perhaps barren. The temptation was there to sink to the floor in agony at herself. We just have to make it right. She looked up at William, and noted he was still watching her with fascination. He had seen that regret in her face, what haunted her. The fear that she'd already harmed him too much. "Don't," William told her, softer than she'd expected. "Not tonight." He leaned up to kiss her again and she relented. His mouth washed the bitterness from hers. Then that upward lean was a surge, William sitting up with force to put his hands on her shoulders instead, fingers dipping into the sleeves of her robe and sliding them down her arms as he lowered her back down, coaxing her arms free as he rolled them over completely, his body over hers again. "Tell me," William murmured to her, as his fingers trailed down her front, finding the hem of her nightdress and reversing course, sliding up her body but beneath the fabric. "Tell me to stop," he said, as if expecting it, though he hadn't stopped in the meantime. And why wouldn't he? William was one of the few who knew how she had been brutalized at Tyron's Keep. Knew the cost of the bargain she'd made to keep him safe, to give them all a chance. "And if I don't want you to stop?" Elara asked him, lifting her hips just enough to let him continue to pull her nightdress upward, wetting her lips at the look in his eye. Something like curiosity, but reverence, too. Like her body was the answer to a question he'd never asked. William was silent but for his breathing, uneven and deep, as he tugged her nightdress off. She was bare beneath it, unashamed. Her body was hers now, not something her dead husband could claim but hers, her own, to share. To offer. There were scars on her too, smaller than his and none of them lethal, but they stood out pinky-white against the warmer tone of her skin. And though he stared at her, eyes wide and bright and hungry, as if he could never see enough, William finally forced his gaze back to hers and said, "Then I won't." It was an undoing, an unleashing. Elara drew him down to her again, now skin against skin, mouth against mouth as his body slid against hers on the floor. He bent to kiss her breasts, down her body, between her legs. She hadn't known a lover's touch, not really. Had never been given anything like it, had not felt pleasure held up like an offering to her, until she couldn't bear not to feel more of him and practically begged for what had once been so painful. William's mouth clashed with hers, a taste on his tongue that must have been her own. And maybe it was that, the satisfaction of them sharing everything, he tasting like her and her surely smelling like him, that made it feel all the sweeter, but all the rougher too. They were not young people playing at love, clumsily exploring. They were not even lovers who'd waited an age to be together. They just were, the two of them each half of the same story, bound together no matter what their bodies did. Then his trousers were gone and he was inside her, neither of them hesitating, unwilling to consider stopping again. William had not known her flesh before now, but he knew her, her, her heart and her mind better than anyone. And when he brought her to pleasure, Elara buried her cry in his shoulder, biting down, realizing with an indulgent twist in her gut that it was the claiming push of her teeth that drew his release roaring through after hers. Silent tears streaked her cheeks, rubbed off on his warm skin. William said nothing, only tightened his arms around her and held her there, still deep inside her, still pressing her into the floor. It had not soothed the ache. It couldn't. Their grief was too deep, their fear too present. But it was something, a comfort nobody else could offer or even try to. And they stayed tangled together until morning, sleepless and restless, expending themselves within and around and all over one another again, and again. They had moved to her bedroom sometime in the night. When William finally pulled the blankets up and over her it was nearly dawn, bits of pale light sneaking in between the heavy coverings on her windows. "You can't stay much longer," Elara murmured, eyes rimmed red, fear still pooling in her stomach of what the new day would mean. You will serve as regent. "Is that an order, Princess?" William asked her, not yet making any move to dislodge the heavy coverlet draped across his waist. The lamp next to her bed had long since died, William's features silhouetted only against the gray light from the windows. Elara sighed, hands tightening to fists. "One I must give," she answered softly, meeting his eyes in the semidarkness. Had there been a way she knew, she would have thanked him for it all, for the distraction, for... whatever it was she was feeling. Something like gratitude, like ease. But then, Elara suspected William held the very same thoughts for her. William covered her mouth with his, kissing her deeply and lifting her upper body off the mattress with a strong arm behind her shoulders. "It will be my honor to serve you, Your Highness," he said when he pulled away, the oath the other councilors had sworn to her mere hours before. His blue eyes flashed with a passionate sincerity she recognized as essential to him, his unfailing loyalty to her family, and to her most of all, even unbidden. "Go, please," Elara found herself begging him, a calmness in her eyes. The words were ones of duty. William withdrew his arm and pulled back the blankets, swinging his legs off the bed and standing. Elara watched calmly as he dressed, finding his clothes littered across the sitting room just beyond her bedroom door. A serious look passed between them when he returned, but neither said a word. William placed a hand behind her head and drew her close, so he might lean down and press his lips to her forehead. Elara closed her eyes and concentrated to remember it. When he was gone, Elara rose and slid into her robe, naked beneath its heavy brocade. She pulled open the coverings on the windows and watched the sun rise.