Page 10 of The King’s Man #5

He smirks and gestures towards the door. “Come on, Haldr.”

We walk in silence up and down the meditation grove, stormblades on alert, watching our every limping move. I keep looking at Quin, who basks under vibrant splotches of moonlight, chin and nose upturned, eyes closing briefly.

He knows.

Yet, he’d called me Haldr . . .

“You’re thinking very loudly,” he says, and looks at me.

I blink. “I have a story.”

“I can work with stories.”

“Good. I want to know how it might end. This has been on my mind all day. ”

His lips jump at the edges.

“Nothing like that.” I stop where the moonlight shimmers over all his angles. “Imagine there’s... a really cruel family member ruling over the land.”

His rumbling sigh borders on frustration and amusement. “You really aren’t good at disguising your stories.”

“Just listen. This man, he suddenly sends some of his palace people away for a... cooking competition, insisting they take part.”

“Cooking...” He shakes his head in despair. “At least there is no wolf and his beady-eyed wyvern this time.”

A flash of something slips in and out of my mind before I can grasp it. “What?”

“Nothing.”

I wave it away. “Why would this man do that? What’s his agenda?”

“I can’t say precisely, but it won’t be anything good.”

I grimace. “Your wyvern. Did you send it for more information? What do you know about the welfare of the rest of your family?”

Does he know about the island?

“I’m aware. It’s why I was rash, leaving the mountain.”

“Is she . . .?”

“Alive. For now.”

I steer him with purpose back to the meditation cottage, passing grim-faced and muttering stormblades. “Rest.”

He’s stabilised the worst of his injuries. He needs freeing from this place. I need a plan .

I grab my things and stop before the door at an exaggerated cry. My head snaps around to Quin clutching his leg, not an ounce of real pain shading his expression.

I swallow a laugh. “For someone who acts as much as you...”

“Come. Take another look?”

“I can see from here. You’re fine.”

“If you don’t massage me, it’ll be worse and I’ll wake up rigid.”

“ . . .”

“ . . .”

“I’ll check on you in the morning.”

He stops all pretences of pain. “Will you?”

“Unbelievable.”

“Bring breakfast.”

I do. And I bring ingredients for dinner the next evening too. For the next three days I spend as much time in the tiny cottage, playing chess and listening to marginally improved flutette melodies, as I do perfecting my alchemy with my aunt.

“You’re daydreaming again,” she says.

“Thinking,” I correct. “Hypothetically, if you were held in a cottage surrounded by a centuria of soldiers and were incapacitated, how would you break free?”

She whacks me over the back of my curacowl.

“What’s that for?”

“Both your impossible question, and the fact you’re even thinking about it.” She hits me again. “Do you want your head on a spike at Ragn’s grand bridge? ”

“It was a hypothetical—”

“It was a plan for treason.”

“I’m only half Skeldar.”

“Fine. Half your head will be impaled.”

I wince, and silently return to my newest tincture. “What if I could somehow convince Prins Lief to let him go?”

She laughs, and the crisp sound of it has me looking at her and cocking my head. “He has respect for you,” I murmur. “Could it be he appreciates you on a deeper level?”

Her laughter fades. She busies herself stirring her simmering pot.

“Stop it,” she tries to jest but her voice is strained. “I’m fifteen years his senior.”

“That’s nothing. With the allure you’ll always look the same age. And with his responsibilities, he’s lived a mature life longer than most.”

“Enough.”

This time, I obey. But it’s a point of conversation with Quin the next morning.

“I’m not imagining it, am I? There’s something between them.”

“If you’re seeing it, it must be very obvious.”

He can’t see my growling expression but he must sense it because he laughs. He takes his cane and rises from our breakfast. “Am I healed enough to bathe?”

I shoot to my feet.

He raises a brow .

“... I’ll ask stormblades to attend to you in the communal bath.”

“I don’t want stormblades.”

“I . . .”

“I can take care of myself.”

“But . . .”

“Unless you want to be there? Haldr.”

At first my breath gets caught in my chest, then I narrow my eyes at his lips. Haldr. A reminder these moments are fleeting. They’ll pass. We can pretend, but eventually we must go back to being strangers.

I step away from him. Back up to the door. He watches but doesn’t chase, doesn’t call me back. He only drops his head when he thinks I can’t see him anymore.

I kick up clumps of grass on my way back through the grove and stop at the sound of his wistful flute melody carried on a breeze.

The melody becomes my phantom companion across a waking town and only disappears, abruptly, when I arrive back to a pensively waiting Megaera.

“Finally.”

“What’s wrong?” I glance towards the bedrooms.

She shakes her head. “The boys are fine. It’s your aunt. She looked afraid.”

My nape prickles and I hurry across the courtyard. “What did she say?”

“Under no circumstances are you to go to the castle. Even if the prins asks. She left just before the parade.”

Castle. Parade. The words knot in my throat and a painful bolt of understanding slices through me. The king has returned. He wants to meet the one with Lindrhalda’s touch.

My aunt—

I run.