It was strange. And stranger still that she didn’t protest much.
She concocted no schemes. What was there to scheme against? A good husband? A good king? Only lazy and tyrannical rulers needed to be overthrown, and Bane was neither.
And never before had she realized how much tension she’d lived with. Always having to be on her guard. Always protecting herself. Tightening her shoulders. Making her head ache. Hurting her stomach.
Yet Bane would protect her. She might not trust him with her heart but she trusted that he would protect her from harm. So that tension seemed to be slowly melting away.
He also asked her opinion about everything. The hopes she had for their kingdom and the people who would soon arrive there. The laws she wanted to keep and those she wanted to abolish and those she wanted to make. And he not only asked. He listened. Her responses seemed to matter. Even when they disagreed. Maybe especially when they disagreed. He would probe deeper into her opinion then, but never seemed to be seeking an error in her thinking so that he could disregard what she said; instead he seemed to be searching for common ground and a path forward.
Never had she felt so respected.
Every night, she slept long and deeply—and awoke feeling rested. She couldn’t remember ever doing that before. Even in the rose chamber, which was spelled to make her content, something within her was screaming for escape and knew her contentment was false, and she awakened feeling still exhausted and tired of the life she was living.
But while sleeping in his arms, nothing felt false. Perhaps because she felt safe. And she was more than content.
Echo had always wondered what happiness felt like.
Apparently, it felt like this.
She just hoped it didn’t vanish the moment they left the ship.
They disembarked at a small port town located a week’s journey south of Crolum’s royal city. Bane lifted her up onto his horse and then settled into the saddle behind her, promising to teach her to ride as they went.
The streets were empty. The buildings were abandoned. No children played. No people worked. No dogs barked. Everything was utterly quiet, but for the cawing of the seabirds and the distant rush of the sea.
The undying beasts had been like locusts. But instead of devouring vegetation, they devoured meat. They’d not even left corpses to rot. All that remained were the bones that littered the town.
Bane’s voice was a low burr against her ear. “Cold?”
He must have felt her shiver.
“No,” she whispered.
“Uneasy?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She felt safe. But she also didn’t. “Could it be because we’re in Crolum—we feel the magic that created the curse and it’s unsettling us?”
“I think it’s the quiet,” he said. “It makes our blood burn.”
That was how he often described the venom within him. As if it was a fire within his veins.
“But I don’t have venom.”
“You have instincts, though. And in the forest, when everything becomes so silent, it means a predator is near. And it’s easy to tell our minds that the predators are gone and there’s no need to worry. It’s not so easy to override our natural instincts.”
She suspected his natural instincts were stronger than hers. “How much do you think the venom has changed you? Deep down, I mean.”
“I don’t think it changed anything deep down. I think what what it did was drag everything deep down inside of me nearer to the surface.”
Oh. But she was unsure how to respond to that.
Perhaps her silence made him uneasy, too. “That’s probably terrifying to hear after I’ve told you that I’m violent. And dangerous. And always have been. But you have nothing to fear from me, my wife.”
Of course not. His goodness was bone deep, too, so she didn’t fear what burned within him.
She feared what burned within her. Not venom.
Just…him.
At sunset, they stopped at an abandoned inn. The public rooms had been stained with blood and scattered with bones; the bedchambers were untouched, though the bedding was dusty and the air stale. After supper, Bane took her hand—as if they were still bound by the ribbon—and put a finger to his lips in a signal for quiet before leading her through the darkened kitchen. They stopped just outside the door.
“Listen,” he whispered into her ear.
She did. To the singing of crickets. The croaking of frogs. And a rustling from the overgrown garden that, after several minutes of waiting from them to emerge, proved to be a drove of hares.
The scourge had not killed everything.
When she turned to him, Bane’s smile mirrored hers.
“There are likely more animals that survived in the woods and fields,” he murmured. “But we’ll have to outlaw hunting until the wildlands and the forests recover. If our people want meat, they’ll need to bring livestock.”