Chapter 7: Silver Eyes

The royal physician pressed two cold fingers under my jaw and counted.

Rowena stood behind him with her arms crossed over the shawl.

Dane stood by the window with his back to us all.

He hadn't looked at me since he came in.

It was five weeks since the night on the stair.

Every one of those nights he had come up to the tower and told me one true thing.

She sleeps with a knife under her pillow.

She hates mirrors after dark.

She has never once let me see her feet.

Every one of those nights he'd also done something to me that I'd have paid a farm to forget.

"Well?" Rowena said.

The physician took his fingers away and wiped them on a cloth.

"She's with child, my lady."

The room went very quiet.

Rowena's face did something I hadn't expected.

For half a second it was soft.

It was the face of a girl who'd been told she could keep a puppy.

Then she smiled, bright and hard, and the softness was gone.

"How far along?"

"Five weeks. Perhaps six. The heartbeat is strong. It is..." He hesitated. "Unusually strong, my lady."

"Wonderful."

She crossed to me and laid a hand flat on my belly.

It was a small cool hand, and under it the fur of the shawl brushed my wrist.

It smelled of rot and lilies.

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