Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,6

know that while this pain is unbearable, I’ve survived worse.

So much worse.

“It’s a yes or no question. Yes, I’m blind or no, I’m not.”

“Actually, it’s more of a wait and see.” There’s a tiny pause, and then Dr. Matthews adds, “You’ve transient post-traumatic cortical blindness. Most likely from blunt-force trauma, based on the scarring on your skull.”

My mouth grows dry. “I don’t know what that means.”

“There was a case, not that long ago, where a woman fell from a six-story building. She suffered a break in her tibia, as well as calcaneal fractures. Doctors found she had no external injury to the head. Two hours after she was brought to the hospital, she had a complete bilateral loss of vision.”

I clutch the table, trying to stave off the swirling nausea. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Your eyes were unresponsive when Godwin carried you in. To cut a very long story short, Miss Carrigan, your MRI matches the woman’s case study.”

“I don’t—” Clearing my throat, I angle my face toward Dr. Matthews. “I don’t understand. If I’ve lost my sight, shouldn’t it hurt? Shouldn’t I feel something?”

“The woman experienced no other symptoms, not even headaches. You may, however, see dark streaks across your vision or even floaters. No, no, don’t—” He stills my attempt to jump down from the exam table with a hand on my shoulder. “It’s alarming, yeah? It will be. It’ll be disorienting and require adjustment on your part, but things should clear up.”

“Things should clear up?” It takes every bit of self-control not to snatch the bandage from my face and throw it to the ground. “Don’t you mean that things will clear up?”

“That’s where the wait and see element comes in. The woman’s vision returned to her completely on its own within a matter of days, and I imagine yours will do the same. What’s truly a miracle is how you managed to find yourself here at all,” Dr. Matthews hums, as if the entirety of my diagnosis is nothing but medical curiosity for him. “With the impacted infarcts in the Broadmann area 17, you shouldn’t have been able to—”

“Clarke’s car drove on autopilot,” Godwin interjects, and I can almost visualize him crossing his arms while he coolly assesses me. “The queen was under firm instruction to come here if anything ever happened to Clarke. There wasn’t a damn thing Miss Carrigan had to do besides sit in the driver’s seat.”

He says here as though it’s a place of known notoriety.

Last night, I saw nothing of this so-called palace. Leaving Margaret in the passenger seat, I’d stumbled from the car in search of the owners. Holyrood, Margaret called them. While she never divulged anything else, it’s becoming abundantly clear that these people—these people who also knew Clarke—are in some way tied to the Crown.

Guardians, maybe.

And, if not guardians, then at least allies in a war ripe to explode at any second. Someone killed Clarke, and someone shot Margaret, and someone set Buckingham Palace on fire. If that’s not an act of war, then I don’t know what is.

I tilt my head, listening.

Guardian or not, Godwin’s voice is a match for the man that I already met. The man who promised to shoot me if I failed to give him my name. And here I am . . . without my sight, without any knowledge of where I am, completely at his mercy.

“Bring me to Margaret.”

The air around me thickens at the sound of a single footstep. Heavy, commanding. Deadly. “No.”

“You have no right to keep me here.”

Another step, and this time Godwin doesn’t stop until I feel the texture of soft fabric against my bare knees. Beyond the material lies a land of hard flesh that doesn’t so much as twitch when I angle my leg to keep him at a firm distance.

“I have every right,” comes his husky, velvet baritone. I feel the grip of the sea at my feet, a tempting seduction to let the current drag me under. And then I’m drowning, those waves sucking me so far deep beneath the surface that I can barely breathe when Godwin’s calloused fingers find the table beside mine. “Matthews, leave us.”

The surgeon hesitates. “She needs the rest of the glass removed.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

It, not her.

No, this man—Godwin—has no concept of compassion. Which is only fitting because I’ve already spent a lifetime of going without. Father taught me that particular lesson the hard way. And if Godwin is anything like