The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper

Author:Isabel Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Waking, Branwyn was again unsure where she was. This time she was in a bed, though: warmth above her, softness beneath, and a pale-blue canopy before her slowly focusing eyes. She could focus her eyes, which was an excellent sign. She remembered why that pleased her, which brought the rest of the immediate past back, though her memory of those crucial few hours remained a blank.

She inhaled slowly, evaluated, and exhaled again. Pain was still in residence around her knee and one side of her head, and was a fainter presence along her backbone, but it was maybe a quarter of what it had been. She could reason around it. She could simply live with it, as long as she had to, the way she lived with the silence in her mind and the worry, beneath her conscious thoughts, about whether that would ever end.

Moving was still difficult. Branwyn sat up gradually, with an occasional hiss of pain when her knee became too involved in the process. The bruises she could see—she was still naked beneath the blankets—were faint purple-yellow, and the places where her skin had split from the impact had healed over to pink lines. A few of her muscles, particularly those in her back, were still healing, and her knee was swollen and disinclined to flex.

Judging from what she knew of her healing rate, and the faint light through the windows, she’d slept at least twelve hours. She wondered how badly her reputation had suffered in the process.

There was nothing she could do about that.

A small table by her bed drew her attention before she could start earnestly brooding. Branwyn saw a clear flask of wine, its pale color likely a sign that it was heavily watered. A plate beside it held sliced brown bread, pears, and a wedge of pale-violet cheese. Next to that sat a heap of folded white cloth with a note on top.

I didn’t want to wake you just to have you dress. The shirt should fit until one of us finds better clothes. I should be back within a few hours of whenever you read this. Please don’t leave the room, for everyone’s safety. The servants won’t come in, but I can’t keep them out of the house without rumors starting.

There was a blotchy mark, where the writer had clearly considered adding more, but then only a signature: Zelen Verengir.

“Gods love you, Zelen,” she muttered to the empty room, “for thinking I could even try.”

All the same, she smiled, the first time she’d done so out of anything but the darkest of mirth since she’d woken up in the alleyway. Zelen was alive and well enough to write: that was good news.

He also trusted her enough to leave her unrestrained. Logically, Branwyn wasn’t sure whether that was good or not, but it was pleasant to know.

All three of the occasions when Branwyn had put her faith in him had been out of her control: the assassins and the demons had attacked

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