The days following our clandestine meeting in the ladies' room stretched with calculated distance, each hour measured against the risk of drawing suspicious eyes.
Veyra and I passed in corridors with the practiced indifference of strangers, our gazes never meeting, our paths crossing only when the natural flow of the estate demanded it.
This deliberate separation weighed upon me with particular cruelty—having found an ally, being unable to acknowledge her felt like another form of imprisonment.
Each passing day brought its own torments.
Rheakar's summons arrived with increasing frequency, sometimes at midday, sometimes deep in the night, as if unpredictability might somehow accelerate conception.
These encounters had reduced to mechanical transactions that I endured by fragmenting my consciousness, sending my mind elsewhere while my body remained trapped beneath his weight.
Between these violations, solitude became both sanctuary and prison—empty hours in elegant chambers where I counted the roses carved into the ceiling molding.
"Your dedication to duty is admirable,"
Rheakar observed one evening, adjusting his clothing with casual indifference after another fruitless encounter.
"Though one might expect more enthusiasm from a woman so eager to negotiate terms for her return."
"Enthusiasm has little bearing on biological function," I replied, pulling the sheets higher around myself. "Perhaps if you spent less time with your other women, your seed might prove more potent."
His laugh carried no warmth.
"Jealousy doesn't become you, my dear. Though I confess, this new sharp tongue you've developed has its appeals. Perhaps those years in exile gave you more than just false confidence."
The arrangement, perversely, suited my purposes—his divided attention meant more time alone, more opportunity to maintain my secret rebellion.
After each encounter, I would wait until his footsteps faded completely before reaching for Martha's precious vial.
Yet the liquid level dropped with alarming speed, each dose bringing me closer to an inevitable crisis when the potion would run dry.
Lucien's continued silence amplified my growing anxiety. No letters had appeared on my windowsill, no whispered messages through palace corridors.
I existed suspended between immediate danger and distant rescue, uncertain whether his silence meant careful planning or discovered conspiracy.
When Veyra finally materialized in my doorway well past midnight, keys glinting in the moonlight streaming through my windows, relief flooded through me with such force that my knees nearly buckled.
She wore a dark cloak over her nightdress, her face pale but determined in the silver light.
"Now?" I whispered, though my body was already moving, reaching for my own cloak.
"The guards have been drinking—Rheakar's celebration of some minor victory has worked in our favor. They're at their posts but barely conscious. This may be our only chance for weeks."
She paused at my threshold, assessing my readiness. "Can you climb? The window would be safer than risking the door guards, even drunk as they are."
The descent from my chamber window required muscles I hadn't used in years, my fingers seeking purchase on stone that seemed deliberately smooth.
Every scrape of fabric against the wall, every tiny dislodged pebble, sounded catastrophically loud in the midnight stillness.
When my feet finally touched ground, Veyra was already moving, leading through shadows I hadn't known existed in my former home.
The journey through shadow-draped corridors carried the weight of multiple dangers.
Each footfall had to be measured against creaking floorboards, each breath controlled to prevent any sound that might pierce a guard's drunken stupor.
We moved like ghosts through the estate I once commanded, now reduced to sneaking through servants' passages and forgotten hallways.
The dungeon air struck like a physical blow—fetid with unwashed bodies, old blood, and despair made tangible.
My stomach revolted, but I pressed forward, following Veyra deeper into this hell beneath the estate's elegant facade.
Torchlight flickered against damp stone walls, creating dancing shadows that seemed alive with malevolent purpose.
"Korin," Veyra called softly as we approached the furthest cell. "Brother, you need to wake. I've brought someone to see you."
The figure chained to the wall stirred slowly, as if consciousness itself required enormous effort.
When Korin raised his head, the torchlight revealed a face marked by weeks of systematic brutality—one eye swollen nearly shut, lips cracked and bleeding, bruises painting his skin in shades of purple and yellow.
Yet when recognition dawned, when his good eye found mine through the bars, something luminous transformed his ravaged features.
"Lyanna?" My name emerged as barely a whisper, as if speaking it might shatter the illusion. "You're really here?"
I stood frozen at the cell's threshold, paralyzed by the visible evidence of his suffering.
Every mark on his body was there because of me, because he had chosen my freedom over his safety, because he had refused to reveal my location even under torture that had nearly killed him.
"Luna, won't you even give me a hug after six whole years?" The words carried dark humor despite the pain threading through his voice, an attempt to ease my obvious distress.
"Your back…" I managed, seeing the whip marks layered across his shoulders, some scarred, others still raw. "Your ribs… I don't want to hurt you more than…"
"You won't hurt me any more than the pain that tore me apart after your escape," he interrupted, the admission so raw it stole my breath.
The confession shattered my restraint entirely.
I crossed the space between us in a heartbeat, dropping to my knees beside him, my arms finding him with infinite care despite the urgency burning through my veins.
Korin’s pained growl as I touched his damaged ribs couldn't prevent him from pulling closer to me with whatever strength remained, burying his face against my neck as if my scent alone could heal months of torment.
"You still smell like moonflowers," he whispered against my throat.
The observation was so unexpected and tender that tears spilled down my cheeks.
"In the worst moments, I tried to remember that scent. Sometimes I thought I'd imagined it, that you were just a dream of something better."
"I'm here," I whispered back, my hands carefully avoiding the worst of his wounds while trying to offer whatever comfort touch could provide. "I'm real, and I'm so sorry. Everything you've endured, everything they've done to you—it's because of me."
"No," he said firmly, pulling back just enough to meet my eyes with his one good one. "It's because I chose to be more than Rheakar's weapon. That choice was mine, and I would make it again, even knowing the cost."
The embrace deepened, time becoming elastic in that dungeon cell, seconds stretching into eternity while simultaneously racing past too quickly.
I memorized the feeling of him against me, alive despite everything, unbroken in all the ways that mattered despite the body that bore such terrible evidence of his suffering.
"Um, sorry to interrupt," Veyra's voice came soft but urgent from where she maintained watch. "I really didn't want this moment to end... But we have unfinished business to discuss."