The Alpha's Debt the King's Claim novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Second Dawn

Evander did not lie.

I saw him decide not to.

"I copied it from your notebook," he said. "Letter for letter. I practised your hand for nine nights to get it right."

"My notebook is in my room in Greywater. I haven't written in it for a year."

"You'll write in it a year from now," he said. "The month before you die."

The lamp seemed very loud.

My knees went, and I sat on the floor with his papers in my lap.

"You remember," I said.

"Every night."

He crouched in front of me and did not touch me.

"I rode into Greywater eleven hours too late," Evander said. "The silver ring was still smoking. You were on the floor of it, and you were still warm. Your daughter..."

His voice stopped.

He started again, flat and low.

"I held you until you went cold. Then I killed Torin Brackley where he knelt and burned his hall to the foundation. Then I went to the oldest temple in the kingdom and paid the second-dawn price."

"Which is what?"

"Eleven years of my own life. I gave them."

I stared at him.

"You gave eleven years of your life," I said. "For a healer who never knew your name."

"I owed you," he said. "That's all I can say tonight."

I should have asked more.

I could not.

A whole year of grief that nobody had lived yet came up in me at once.

I had walked into that hall carrying a dead daughter and nobody to tell.

Now there was a man on my floor who had seen the same ring and the same smoke.

"I thought I was the only one," I said.

"You aren't."

"I thought I'd go mad."

"I know."

"You agreed I could open my own door."

His eyes lifted.

"I did."

"North wing, third door on the left," I said. "I'm going to my room."

I stood on legs that barely held me and walked out past the guards.

He followed a few steps behind.

I opened the door myself, left it ajar, and went in.

← Chapter 6 · All chapters · Chapter 8 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend