Chapter 8: Not in the Terms

The fever started at nine that night, and by midnight I was shaking under three blankets.

Every joint in my body ached.

My skin felt too small, and the lamp was too bright, and I could smell the wet stone of the walls and the lamp oil and the cold snow on the roof.

I could smell everything.

Lucan came in through the open door and found me sitting on the floor with my forehead against the window glass.

"The healer said fever," he said. "She didn't say you'd be out of bed."

"It's hot," I said. "I need air."

He opened the window, and the winter poured in, and I drank it like water.

Then he sat down on the floor beside me with his back against the bed and wrung out a cloth in the basin.

"Come here," he said.

I leaned my head on his shoulder, because it was the nearest cool thing.

He laid the cloth against my neck.

I closed my eyes.

He was warm, and he smelled of cedar and rain and something I had no name for, and my whole body turned toward it.

"You're shaking," Lucan said.

"It's the root leaving."

"I know."

His hand moved over my hair, slowly, and then stopped.

"The terms," he said, to the room.

"We're in private."

"We are."

I turned my face up.

His mouth was a breath from mine, and his eyes were nearly gold.

I could hear his heart, and it was going as fast as mine.

I knew I could close the distance in one second.

"Your Highness," I whispered, "this isn't in the terms."

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