Page 254 of The Mercy of Dawn

The fresh, early autumn air felt liberating.

Cyril sat out on that balcony, wrapped in a thin blanket, until darkness settled in and she found herself dozing. The second or third time the muted rustling of birds in the trees jolted her eyes open, she headed back into her room.

Sleeping turned out to be a difficult thing.

She tossed and turned for hours. Every noise made her uneasy, and her damn body couldn’t decide if it was hot or cold.

First, she froze.

So Cyril got out of bed, rubbed at that dull, persistent ache in her chest, added an extra log to the fire, and tucked herself back in.

Her skin was damp with sweat an hour later.

She hauled her ass out of bed, again, and opened the window beside her nightstand.

It cooled her off too much.

So, she left the fire roaring and the window open, grabbed another blanket, and resigned to flipping the covers on and off all. Damn. Night.

The temptation to knock on Runa’s door became hard to ignore.

But, eventually, some combination of the soft rustling of leaves beyond her window and the gentle crackle of the hearth finally lulled her to sleep for a few hours.

And then the heavy scent of rain filled her room.

Cyril swore, repeatedly, as she slid out of bed and went to close her window. But the sky was clear, a wash of inky black dotted with glimmering starlight, and the ground looked dry.

Head injury, she reminded herself, as she crawled back into bed.

It must not have even been another hour when the universe decided that sleep was no longer on the program, and a knock rapped at her door.

Her legs didn’t want to carry her out of bed with any urgency, though.

The memory of the last time someone came knocking at her door before dawn was impossible to ignore. But the knocks echoed again, a soft trio.

Not loud.

Not urgent.

No voice came with it.

So Cyril took a few slow breaths and eased out of bed, walking over to the door on uneasy legs. This was not the same, she told herself, as that day she tried so hard to forget about. Cyril hesitated still, with her hand hovering on the doorknob, but the knocks started again, and she pulled open the door.

With his hand still poised to knock, Mikael smiled at her and said, “Hi, wrath.”

Chapter 67

Mikael hadn't been sure if there was ever another time the sight of those looming sandstone and steel gates ever brought him so much relief. He saw it in Ari too, in the immediate sag in the captain’s posture once they rounded the last bend in the road.

And it wasn’t for a lack of time spent away from home, either.

Even in Mikael’s relatively short tenure with the guard, their trips number in the dozens. From training exercises to assignment rotations, he spent weeks upon weeks away from home every year. Often by choice, when the palace and his duties, and even his own family, felt suffocating.

The trips usually just didn’t involve bearing such devastating news.

Mikael also never had someone he was desperate to get home to before.

He struggled to sleep most nights with that last glimpse of Cyril's face in his mind. Her eyes tear-filled. Her face battered. Her body broken.