Chapter Forty-Seven · The Child Buried at Night

A servant led them down a narrower passage beyond the great hall.

Here, the scent was softer, but it had not vanished. It moved with the air through narrow wall vents, slipped between thin curtains, and settled over everything.

No one spoke.

When they reached a pair of tall white doors, the two servants posted outside bowed at once. One looked as though he had not slept all night.

The High Lord stopped.

“How is my wife?”

The servant lowered his eyes.

“She cried out through the night, my lord. After the physician left, she refused to let anyone enter.”

“What did she say?”

The servant hesitated.

“Only… ‘Leave me.’”

The High Lord said nothing for a moment. Then he made a small gesture.

“Open the doors.”

The servants pushed them inward as quietly as they could.

The High Lord turned to Haris, Lyra, and Sion.

“Wait here. I will see her first.”

He entered with the physician, and the doors closed behind them.

Haris settled against the opposite wall, his eyes on the door. Sion drifted restlessly along the corridor, stopping now and then to look out toward the balcony.

Lyra leaned against the wall beside the door and tilted her head closer to the stone.

Voices reached her, faint and muffled.

“Are you well?” the High Lord asked. “Let the physician examine you.”

“No.”

The High Lady’s voice was low but steady.

“I am not ill. Please leave me alone.”

Silence.

Then the High Lord spoke again, softer this time.

“Very well. No examination. Only something to calm your mind and help you sleep.”

Lyra pressed her ear a little closer, but heard nothing more.

Footsteps approached.

She straightened.

The High Lord and the physician came out.

“She has agreed to let you try,” the High Lord said to Lyra.

Lyra gave a small nod.

Since the High Lady had agreed to see only Lyra, the High Lord dismissed the physician, murmured a few quiet instructions to the servants, and led Haris and Sion away to give them space.

Lyra stepped inside.

The chamber was wide and bright, though the heavy curtains had been drawn shut. The High Lady sat on the edge of the bed with her hair loose over her shoulders. Her outer robe remained neatly arranged, but one sleeve was crushed in her grip.

When the door opened, she did not turn.

“My lady,” the servant said softly, “she is here.”

Lyra bowed.

“What can you do?” the High Lady asked, still without looking at her.

“I have an old remedy,” Lyra said. “It may help calm the mind.”

A pause.

“You have not been sleeping, have you?”

The High Lady let out a tired breath and gestured for the servant to leave.

“Not for a few nights,” she said. “For years.”

The door closed.

Lyra kept her voice gentle.

“May I comb your hair?”

The High Lady gave a small nod. Weariness showed in the slope of her shoulders.

Lyra stepped behind her and drew the comb through the first length of hair.

The change came almost at once.

The High Lady’s shoulders loosened. Her breath evened. Some of the strain left her hands.

“Your friend,” the High Lady said after a moment. “Where is she from?”

Lyra kept the comb moving.

“Gemariel,” she said. “She is an orphan. She was brought there from elsewhere.”

“An orphan?”

The High Lady’s hands trembled.

Lyra saw it.

“She reminds you of someone,” Lyra said.

The High Lady folded her hands together, holding them too tightly.

“No.”

A beat.

“No one.”

After that, she said nothing.

Lyra continued combing, but her eyes moved around the room.

Across from the dressing table, a covered portrait hung on the wall. A pale gray cloth covered it, too plain to draw the eye.

Before long, the High Lady’s body softened. Her eyelids sank.

Lyra helped her lie back against the pillows.

“Rest now,” she whispered. “I will not trouble you further.”

She rose and moved toward the door.

Near the portrait, she stopped.

The High Lady was asleep.

Lyra’s fingers caught the edge of the gray cloth.

Just enough to look.

She went still.

Then she let the cloth fall and left the room without another word.

In the portrait, two women stood with their arms around each other, smiling.

One was the High Lady.

The other looked exactly like Sion.

Lyra left the High Lady’s chamber.

She wandered for a while, but found no sign of Haris or Sion. Eventually, she turned into a garden behind the Citadel.

The place looked as carefully tended as the rest of Hemaliel. Every bed, every water channel, every stone step had been set exactly where it belonged. White flowers crowded the paths, jasmine most of all, their heavy scent filling the air.

An old servant knelt beside a flowerbed near a dry pool, clipping dead stems with a pair of small shears. She handled each branch as if she were tending something more precious than gold.

When she noticed Lyra, she stopped and bowed.

Lyra returned the greeting.

“I’m only walking.”

The old servant returned to the flowers.

Lyra crouched beside her.

“There is a great deal of jasmine here.”

The servant’s hand stilled around the shears.

“My mistress loved these flowers once.”

Lyra looked at her.

“Your mistress?”

The old servant pressed her lips together, as if she had realized too late what she had said.

“The former High Lady,” she said quietly. “The High Lord’s first wife. She passed many years ago.”

Lyra kept her face calm.

“His first wife?”

The servant lowered her head. This time, fear showed plainly on her face.

“Forgive me, my lady. I should not have spoken of old grief.”

“I only asked,” Lyra said gently. “If it troubles you, you don’t have to answer.”

That gentleness seemed to unsettle the servant more than pressure would have.

She glanced around, then lowered her voice.

“She died in childbirth sixteen years ago.”

She shook her head slowly.

“A pity. She was a kind woman.”

Sixteen years.

The number moved slowly through Lyra’s mind.

“And the child?”

The servant tightened her grip on the shears.

“The child did not survive.”

She said it quickly, as if she needed the words out of her mouth as soon as possible.

“They buried the child at night. No grand rites. The High Lord…” She stopped. “He saw almost no one for months afterward.”

A few other servants appeared near the garden path.

The old servant rose at once and slipped away.

Lyra was left alone.

She returned to her chamber.

Wind from the garden followed her through the corridors, carrying a scent soft enough to seem harmless.

This time, Lyra did not find it soothing.

She thought of the portrait behind the gray cloth.

The young woman in the painting.

The High Lady who could not bear to look.

The High Lord watching Sion as if he were looking at something he had lost.

And the old servant saying the child had died.

Buried at night.

Lyra did not say the conclusion aloud.

Not yet.

But in her mind, the scattered pieces had begun to settle beside one another.