Zara Veylinn's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

Zex did not stand. He tried, gripped the bench, and sank back. Sweat ran down his temple. Zara knelt and pressed her hand to his brow. The skin burned. She peeled back the linen at his side and saw the wound had darkened overnight, the edges swollen and streaked with green. The rot had reached him through the fog, or through the road, or through some small cut she had not seen. She had one witness inside the capital walls, and he could not walk. "You need to hold on until we reach the hall," she said. "One hour. That is all." "I will not last one hour standing," Zex said. His voice was thin. "I can barely sit." Zara looked around the shuttered room. The gown weighed on her shoulders. The seal ring sat cold on her finger. Outside, the streets were waking. She could hear boots on stone, a cart wheel, a bell. If Zex collapsed in the square before the court, no one would hear his oath. She needed him upright, and she needed a second body between him and the ground. She stood and pulled the ring from her finger and held it flat on her palm. The pale hound rose from beside the table. She thought of the shack, of the floorboards, of how the hound had come when she called. She spoke a name she did not know she remembered, one her mother had used once by a fire. A second shape stepped out of the wall. This one wore plated shoulders and a helm etched with old script, its blue skin faintly lit, its eyes green and steady. Vorik Zenthall. A house guard, bound to the ring, sleeping in it since her mother died. He knelt. "My lady." "Carry him," she said. "Beside me. As if he walks. He must speak at the steps. After that, you may set him down." Vorik lifted Zex under one arm, taking the weight through his own shoulder, keeping Zex's feet on the stones. The hound moved to Zara's left, its coat brightening. She opened the door. The sickly fog had crept up to the threshold overnight, curling low and yellow-green along the street. The hound stepped into it, and the fog broke apart around them like water around a stone. They walked to the palace gates in a small clear circle. Guards saw the gown first, then the ring, then the armored figure at her side, then the noble he held upright. A herald came forward, uncertain. Zex lifted his head. "I am Zex Orionis," he said, loud enough for the gate to hear. "I vouch for her blood. She is who she says." Then his knees gave, and Vorik lowered him to the step. The herald turned and ran inside. Zara stood at the palace gate with her witness spoken, her guard beside her, and the court waking to her name.