Allissa
The nursery wing corridor was lamplit and warm … and silent. The first guard lay crumpled at the mouth of it like a dropped coat.
The second lay three steps past him. The two on her door had fallen where they stood, one still half against the wall. No blood. No wounds. Their chests rose and fell, slow, even, deaf to the world, four of the best soldiers in my kingdom sleeping like children while her unofficial fifth guard screamed past them through a door that should have been open two fingers wide and stood gaping.
Cold came out of my daughter’s room. Cold in midsummer.
I don’t remember crossing the corridor.
The window stood open. The curtains breathed in and out of it, slow, like the room itself was panting. Beyond them, the northern sky hung clean and starry, and below it,
