it,” Sev said, shaking his head earnestly. Really, with the state his arm was in, putting on his tunic in the morning pushed his limits. He was fortunate to be posted to the estate, but even still, there were weapons to wield, doors to open, and duties like cleaning armor and sharpening blades to attend to. He was a soldier, after all.
After poking and prodding at his swollen joint, Hestia shook her head with obvious affection and returned to her tray. She added seeds to the heavy stone bowl, grinding them into powder along with the flowers, then poured in water from a jug. “You men are all the same—refuse to heed the healer’s advice, no matter how practical.”
Sev bowed his head, behaving appropriately chagrined.
“I remember—oh, nearly thirty years ago now—when young lord Cassian was bedridden with phoenix fever, he stayed in this very room,” she began, and Sev listened intently. He didn’t know that Hestia had served the previous governor as well. “Didn’t matter that he was burning up, covered in sweat and not keeping food or fluids down; he still snuck out that window”—she jerked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the window Sev used to send his letters to Cassian in the present—“every gods-cursed night, shimmying up a drainpipe and onto the roof. He’d climb halfway across the estate on those tiles just so he could spend a bit more time with his phoenix.”
Sev’s pulse jumped at her words, but she spoke them at the exact moment she’d taken a washcloth to his shoulder and clearly assumed his reaction was due to the cool water against his hot skin. Her brisk touch grew gentler, but Sev’s thoughts were elsewhere—on the window and the drainpipe and the roof. He tried to picture it, the rough layout of the estate and how every wing and courtyard—like the one Rolan had private meetings in—were connected by those bright terra-cotta tiles.
“The creature was just a hatchling then,” Hestia continued, oblivious to Sev’s revelation. “Barely able to fly—and it’s a good thing, too. If he’d have been older, no doubt Cassian would’ve flown him and fallen to his death. On my watch, no less. Governor Lucian would’ve had my hide. I told him to put locks on the outside, but he had a soft spot for his only child. Luckily, Cassian survived the fever unscathed.”
Sev wrenched his mind back to the present and scrabbled for a response. “Luckily, or because of your expert care?” he asked, smiling sweetly.
She snorted. “Take that charm and flattery elsewhere, Sevro,” she said. “It is wasted on me.”
But Sev didn’t think it was. Her treatment was careful and thorough—no cutting corners or rushing through—and she seemed happy and content as she chattered on about Cassian and his son, Tristan, and how all young Ferronese boys loved to run around wild and barefoot, no matter their birth. As she spooned the poultice paste onto a square of bandage and applied it to his shoulder, Sev listened, understanding that Hestia was really talking about her own sons, and doing it this way allowed her to remember them with less grief.
Finally his poultice was in place, and Sev allowed himself a small stab of guilt at all the hard work Hestia had put into it and his plans to rip it off almost as soon as she left the room. He’d hear it from her tomorrow when the swelling was worse than ever.
She apparently sensed something in Sev’s edgy, slightly agitated mood, and favored him with a long look as she prepared to leave. “Another night alone in your rooms, Sevro?” she asked. “No plans to take a stroll into the city, or spend time in the soldiers’ mess?”
Sev shook his head—he never truly spent his nights alone, but he obviously couldn’t tell Hestia who visited him through the secret passage.
She frowned, then nodded, as if coming to a decision. “I’ll send something for the pain so you can sleep,” she said, standing in the open doorway, tray in hand. “Have a good night—but no… overexertion, okay, Sevro?”
She left, and something in her expression made Sev think she knew exactly what he planned to do—but how could she? A few minutes later he realized his mistake.
Another knock sounded—Hestia’s promised sleep aid—and Sev shrugged into his unlaced tunic to answer it, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Kade wasn’t emerging from behind the tapestry before opening the door.
It wasn’t an assistant, however, but another of Hestia’s handsome serving boys.