Chapter 27: The Panther's Vigil
The house slept. It was a different silence from the palace’s—thicker, populated by the settling of old timber and the sigh of wind through broken slates. Jovi lay on his back in the narrow bed assigned to him, staring at the water-stained ceiling. The panther beneath his skin was restless, a low thrum of energy in his blood that had nothing to do with hunting.
He had fixed the ropes on her bed. He had given his word for a walk at dawn. These were simple, concrete actions. They did not explain the pull.
He rose, soundless, and pulled on his trousers. The hallway was a tunnel of darkness. He moved through it on instinct, past the closed doors behind which his brothers slept—Cai’s even breaths, Marcus’s occasional mutter, the deep silence of Oscar and Kael’s rooms. He stopped before her door.
His hand hovered. Knocking felt wrong; it would be an announcement, a request for permission he wasn’t sure he had. He was the eldest. This was his territory, in a way. The reasoning was thin, even to him. He pushed the door open.
The room was bathed in the weak blue light of pre-dawn seeping through the single window. It caught the dust motes dancing in the air, the shape of the repaired bed, and the small, curled form upon it.
Elena was asleep, but it was not peaceful. Her breath hitched in short, sharp gasps. Her hands were fisted in the thin blanket, knuckles white. A fine tremor ran through her. A soft, desperate sound escaped her lips—not a word, just a choked exhalation of fear.
Jovi stood frozen in the doorway. The panther within him went still, then bristled, its focus narrowing to the source of her distress. An enemy. But there was no enemy here. Only the ghosts she carried.
He crossed the room in three strides and sat on the floorboards beside the bed, his back against its frame. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t speak. He simply made himself a solid, warm presence in the dark. He angled his body slightly toward the door, a sentinel facing the perceived threat, though the threat was memory.
Her whimpers continued. “No,” she whispered, the word ragged. “Please, don’t…”
He knew who she was pleading with. The Emperor’s face flashed in his own mind—a cold, polished mask of cruelty. Jovi had bowed to that man. He had believed his lies. Shame, hot and acrid, coated his tongue.
He let out a breath, a conscious, slow sound, hoping the rhythm of it might seep into her dreams. “You are safe,” he murmured, so low it was almost inaudible. “The door is shut. The house is standing. You are safe.”
He wasn’t sure she could hear him. He said it again.
The tension in her body did not leave, but the frantic whispers ceased. Her breathing deepened, slowed, caught in a ragged pattern of after-sobs. She uncurled slightly, one hand relaxing its death-grip on the blanket. The first true grey light of dawn began to define the room.
Jovi stayed. He listened to her breathe. He listened to the house wake: the creak of a beam, the distant cry of a morning bird, the slow crescendo of light.
Elena stirred. It was a gentle shift, the natural turn of someone rising from deep sleep. Then she went rigid. She had sensed him.
He didn’t move. He waited.
Slowly, she turned her head on the pillow. Her stormy eyes were wide, blurry with sleep and the remnants of terror. They found him, sitting on the floor beside her, his knees drawn up, his arms resting on them. His black hair was messy from sleep, his shirt rumpled.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other. She didn’t shrink back. She didn’t pull the blanket over her head. She observed him with a wary, exhausted clarity.
“You were having a nightmare,” he said finally. His voice was gravelly from disuse.
She swallowed. Nodded once. Her gaze flicked to the window, then back to him, a silent question.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he offered, which was true, but not the whole truth. “I was walking. I heard you.”
She processed this. Her fingers traced the tight weave of the blanket. “The door was closed.”
“It was.”
Another silence. She understood. He had entered. He had stayed. “You didn’t wake me.”
“I have startled prey before,” he said, the words leaving him before he could filter them. “It never ends well. Fear needs space to settle.”
Her eyes held his. “I was… back there. In the white room. Before the trial.”
He knew the room. A sterile antechamber where petitioners waited for judgment. He had waited in one himself. “You are not there now.”
“No.” She pushed herself up to sit, drawing the blanket around her shoulders like a cloak. She looked small. Young. The silver of her hair was tarnished by the dim light. “You stayed on the floor.”
“It was adequate.”
A faint, almost imperceptible line appeared between her brows. “You are a lord of this house. You could have taken the chair.” There was no accusation in her whisper, just confusion.
“The floor was closer,” he said, and it was the most honest thing he’d said all night.
She absorbed that. Looked down at her own hands, then out the window where the world was slowly turning gold. “You missed our walk. Dawn is here.”
“The woods will keep. They have kept for a hundred years.”
She nodded. The ordinary cadence of their garden conversation was returning, a rope bridge over the chasm of the night. “The seeds,” she said. “Did the rider go?”
“Yes. Cai saw to it. He included the honey you mentioned. For your tea.”
“Thank you.”
The normalcy was a fragile construct, but they were both committed to its assembly. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet just inches from where he sat. She didn’t flinch from the proximity.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, not looking at him. “For disturbing your rest.”
“Do not apologize for ghosts,” he said, standing in one fluid motion. He suddenly needed the space, the ceiling height. “They are not of your making.” He walked to the window, looking out at the overgrown garden, the path they would later walk. “We will go after you break your fast. The light is better in the beeches after the sun has climbed a little.”
“Alright.”
He heard the soft rustle as she stood. He should leave. The ritual was over; the night’s watch was done. Yet his feet remained rooted.
“Jovi?” Her voice was barely there.
He turned.
She was standing by the bed, the blanket still held around her. Her gaze was steady on him, the storm in her eyes quieter now. “Thank you. For not waking me.”
He gave a single, slow nod. It was enough. He left then, pulling the door shut softly behind him, leaving her in the gentle dawn of a room that felt, for the first time, like it might become a shelter.
Back in the hallway, he leaned against the wall, running a hand over his face. The panther within him had finally stilled, its restless pacing calmed by a simple, completed task: the watch had been kept. The territory—this strange, new territory that included her silent fears—felt more secure.
From behind her door, he heard the faint, shuffling sounds of her beginning her day.