Zara Veylinn's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

Zara did not wait for the herald to speak again. She lifted her skirt in one hand and ran for the side door, the pale hound at her heel and the guard in plated shoulders behind her. The star-map skirt dragged on the tiles and caught once on a bench, and she tore it free without looking. Nobles turned to watch her go. She did not care what they thought of a queen running from her own hall. Zex had been breathing an hour ago. If the stories about the hound were true, an hour was too long, but a few minutes might not be. She reached the palace step and dropped to her knees beside him. His face was already grey. The steward had folded Zex's hands on his chest the way people did for the dead. Zara pushed the hands apart and pressed her ear to his mouth. Nothing. She turned to the steward and asked how long. The steward said a runner had been sent the moment Zex stopped breathing, and the runner had been fast. Four minutes, maybe five. Not more. Zara pulled the ring from her finger and set it on Zex's chest. The pale hound stepped close and lowered its head over him. She spoke the old words her mother had made her memorize in the shack, the ones she had never said out loud until now. The hound's translucent body brightened. A cool light spread from its muzzle down through Zex's shirt and into the skin beneath. The darkened wound at his side lost its black edge. His chest lifted once, shallow, then again. He coughed. He opened his eyes and looked at her without recognition for a long moment. Then he saw the ring on his chest and the gown and the hound, and he understood where he was. He tried to speak and could not. Zara took his hand and told him to be quiet. Behind her, the guard in plated shoulders had turned to face the hall. Nobles had followed her out. They stood on the step in their court colors and watched a dead man breathe. The man in the red sash was the first to kneel. He went down slowly, on one knee, and drew his sword and laid it flat on the stone in front of Zara. A woman in green followed him. Then two more. Not all of them. Not even most. But enough that the herald, standing in the doorway with the sealed box still in his hands, said the word aloud that no one had said inside the hall. He called her queen. Zara kept her hand on Zex's and did not stand up. She had a living witness again, and she had swords on the stone, and she had the names of the ones still standing to remember for later.