The healer's was dark but for candlelight beyond the curtain as consciousness returned to Rosalyne. She shifted underneath her fur, pain gnawing at her stomach and throbbing in her ankle (which she realised had been bandaged).
The clinic was never quiet. The movement of bodies seemed familiar as if memorized in her sleep. The clink of glass on wood, a low groan, hushed soothing, and the ever rustle of fabric.
And Dys' sweet whisper.
Rosalyne vaguely registered the knotted kinks in the lady's mind as sleep rocked Rosalyne in its arms.
Dys was talking to Lucas, fuzzy, as though it were a dream.
«Do you think I am pretty?»
«The lady knows that she is.»
Dys tittered, words slightly slurred, «That is no answer.»
Rosalyne's eyes cracked open. Dys leaned expectantly toward Lucas, a grey wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
The soldier sat between Dys and Rosalyne with arms crossed around his middle. «It is the only appropriate one,» Lucas said gruffly not meeting Dys' impish grin.
Dys laughed in full. «Well, Lucas, I think you are very pretty.»
The expression on Lucas' face was absurd, red mottling his cheeks under his beard even in the low light. He looked half tempted to clap a hand over her mouth if it didn't mean he had to touch her.
He glanced furtively at the still form of the jaquelle and, satisfied she was not awake, glared at the lady. «Her highness would not approve of such behaviour, her ladyship.»
Dys smirked at him. «She is asleep.»
Lucas hunched his hulking form further, lifting his shoulders and looking to the jaquelle once more. «Well, I do not approve,» he grumbled, and, turning back to lecture her further, said, «I know her ladyship's mind has not recovered but, really, she should be more watchful of her reputation given the lies she spouted before the court and gods — What possessed you to tell everyone we were lovers?.»
Dys gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled her eyes. «Her highness said it was best.»
He clenched his fists, leaning closer as he lowered his voice to an insistent hiss, «It's is most condemnable to even suggest. Her ladyship would never demean herself so crudely. I cannot believe her highness would—»
Before Lucas (or Rosalyne) could so much as process what was happening, Lady Maelyn du Dys grasped his face and pulled it down to hers, kissing the tip of his nose with the enthusiasm of a child.
Lucas froze, mouth open, face pink, knuckles white against his thighs.
Dys giggled, brushing her fingers under the shadows of his eyes. Her face softened. «I would do it again.» Her smile relaxed into something tender and she lifted her chin to brush her lips against his cheek.
Lucas' hands flexed but didn't move from his legs, eyes shuttering for a moment before pulling back and clapping a hand to his beard as though she'd branded him.
His voice cracked as he tried to form her title, but Dys simply smiled and slipped under her covers again, closing her eyes. «Goodnight, Lucas.»
It was a long moment before Lucs dropped his hand, reaching out to brush a hair from her brow before thinking better of it and turning his back to sleep.
§
After a night of sleep and warm soup from Naila, Rosalyne set to work smoothing the wrinkles in Dys' mind.
YOU ARE READING
The Jack of Hearts (House of Cards Book 1)
FantasySince the reign of her grandfather, the Aertisians have been at war with the United Clans of the Cluvani. But when her father's prophecy declares that the Jaquelle of Aertisia will bear the heir to the Cluvani throne, her destiny is transformed. Yea...
