The journey up did take forever and there was no one in the house above. Will hoped to find assistance in the street, but while the sun was up and shining the street was empty. He resigned himself to a long walk. Everyone must be sheltering at Wurthaven still, he decided.
The half-hour walk took a full hour since they had to stop while Will gave the king some water to drink. Blood loss had rendered the king painfully weak and tired. They passed the gate to Wurthaven on their way to the palace, and Will saw that the bodies from the night before still lay scattered about. He could see the spot where he had left Tiny, but the big man was nowhere to be seen. I hope he’s somewhere safe. There were no people to be seen anywhere.
They continued on to the palace and found it similarly abandoned. Will helped the king into the palace and half-carried, half-dragged the man to his bedchamber. No servants appeared, and since Lognion looked pale and unwell, Will realized he couldn’t simply leave.
He wound up helping the king remove his boots and then propped him up in bed before going downstairs to find the kitchen. An hour later, he returned with a pitcher of small beer and a platter full of sautéed sweetmeats, primarily liver and kidneys. His mother had always told him they were best for people who had suffered a lot of blood loss.
“Did you find anyone?” asked Lognion.
He shook his head. “Eat up.”
They ate together in silence by mutual accord, and when the king was finally done he remarked, “That was well made. You cooked that?”
Will nodded, grunting around a mouthful of food.
“It wasn’t bad. Not quite as good as some I’ve had but—”
Swallowing quickly, Will growled. “I was in a hurry. Nor did I feel like putting in my best effort, considering the patient.”
The king nodded in acceptance. “I pity the cook that works for you then. For there’s no worse critic of a man than someone else who has mastered his craft.”
Will glared at him. “Do you even know what pity is?”
Lognion shrugged. “I understand it as a concept, though I’ve never felt it.”
The day dragged on, and no one appeared. Eventually, Will left and went to Wurthaven, but the entire campus seemed to be deserted without a soul in sight. A quick walk through the city market yielded similar results.
The city was empty. Will couldn’t help but wonder if he had somehow arrived at the ritual chamber after the ritual had been performed. Maybe they already wiped everyone out? He didn’t know what sort of ritual had been planned. It was possible that it was designed only to destroy people while leaving the buildings unharmed.
But if that were the case, he would have died as well. Unless they did it right after I entered the house and started down the stairs.
Returning to the palace, he asked the king, who answered, “The ritual I had planned was destructive. The city would be rubble now. They must be alive somewhere.”
Frustrated, Will stayed through the afternoon and cooked a second meal, this time with more thought and planning. Not because he wanted the king’s approval, but simply because he couldn’t bear mediocrity in food. This time the monarch was more plentiful with his praise, and Will refrained from any biting responses. Night fell, and though it was still early, the king fell asleep, victim to his recent frailty. Will needed rest too, so he retired to Selene’s bedroom.
Using her signature spell once again, he cleaned the entire chamber, freshening both the pillows and blankets as well as cleaning himself. Then he stripped and climbed in between the sheets. Despite his anxiety over the vanishing populace, he was soon asleep.
Epilogue
Will slept like a rock, but since he had gone to bed early, he also woke early, sometime just before dawn. He didn’t move at first, for there was something in the air that seemed different. Opening his eyes, he lay still, studying the room and trying to understand his strange intuition. The room looked the same, but then he heard a gentle sigh beside him.
Someone else was in the bed.
His heart leapt into his throat, and he suddenly wished he had kept his clothes on before he lay down. He could only see the back of his bedmate’s head, and while his vision was sharp enough, the dim light made it difficult to discern the hair’s true hue. He could only tell it was a very dark shade.
Not daring to move, he studied the invader, and after a brief while decided it was a woman. The shape of her hips and the slenderness of her shoulder made it plain. He quickly ran through the list of women he knew, trying to decide if one of them might suddenly leap over the bounds of propriety and do something so bold.
Laina had slept next to him once before, but this woman wasn’t blond, and he suspected she was naked. Lowering his head, he lifted the comforter slightly to make sure his assumption was correct, and saw a quick glimpse of a shapely back and rounded derriere. Definitely naked. That ruled out his sister—she was no fool. Tabitha? Her hair was dark enough, and she presumably didn’t know he was her brother, but that seemed too far-fetched.
Janice was the obvious candidate, since she had long had a crush on him, but given the way she had acted around Tiny, he thought she had already moved on. Then he remembered her white hair. It definitely wasn’t her.
Darla? The Arkeshi had dark hair, but he suspected her back would carry more scars. He simply wasn’t sure. Will decided it was time to evacuate the bed, but given how close they were, he decided to try one more thing out of curiosity. Craning his neck forward, he sniffed the woman’s hair. His nose was filled with the scent of pines and fresh mountain grass. Will’s eyes opened wide with disbelief, and then the woman sighed and scooted backward, bringing herself fully into contact with him.
“Selene?” It couldn’t be.
She turned and looked at him, her eyes glittering in the darkness. “You woke up. You were sleeping so hard I thought you might never wake.”
He kissed her, unable to do anything else. Clutching her in his arms, he held onto her for several minutes, hoping he wasn’t still asleep. Eventually, he relaxed his grip so he could look at her face once more. “Is it really you?”
She nodded. “It seems like a dream, doesn’t it?”
“How?”
“Your grandmother decided I had passed some milestone and brought me back, though I think it had more to do with the fact that my father’s control enchantment vanished. Things were also getting difficult diplomatically.”
“You can stay?” he asked.
She nodded. “You’re in charge of the worst part of my training.”
“What’s that?”
“She said you’d understand. It’s the first ‘compression.’ Do you know what that means?”
Will grimaced. “She would leave that to me. It’s dangerous and painful. You’re going to hate me before it’s over.”