Chapter 22: Sanctuary
The walk from the warm kitchen to the east chamber was a journey through cold shadow. The gatehouse was larger inside than it looked, with a narrow stone hallway that swallowed the lantern light. Clara followed the shifting shapes of Kellen and Freir ahead of her, her hand trailing along the rough wall for support.
Her body had decided it was done. The broth had warmed her core, but her limbs were turning to lead, each step a conscious, dragging effort. The ringing in her ears returned, a high-pitched whine that made the world feel muffled and distant. She saw Freir glance back, his face etched in concern by the swinging lantern he carried.
“Almost there,” he said, his voice softened.
She nodded, but her feet tangled. She stumbled into the wall, her shoulder bouncing off the stone with a dull thud. She didn’t fall, just slumped against it, breathing hard, her eyes closing of their own accord.
“That’s it,” came Freir’s voice, closer now. The lantern light swayed, then steadied.
She felt his hands on her, one under her knees, the other behind her back. There was no protest left in her. She let her head loll against his chest as he lifted her. The world tilted, then settled into the rhythm of his stride. He smelled of sweat, iron, and the cold night air. It was the best smell in the world because it meant he was here, and she wasn’t walking anymore.
She drifted. The sound of a door opening. A rush of cooler, still air scented with lavender and dust.
“Is this really… one room?” Kellen’s voice, tight with something she was too tired to name.
“You heard me,” Freir replied, his chest rumbling against her ear. “We’re not splitting up. Not tonight.”
She forced her eyes open. The room was vast, a grand guest chamber meant for dignitaries, not fugitives. High ceilings melted into darkness. Three large four-poster beds stood against different walls, each shrouded in dark velvet curtains. A fire had been laid in a monumental fireplace but wasn’t lit, leaving the space in deep, chilly gloom.
Freir carried her to the bed closest to the fireplace. Kellen was already there, pulling back the heavy quilts and linen sheets with sharp, efficient motions. The mattress groaned slightly as Freir laid her down. The sheets were cold, startling against her skin. She shivered violently.
“Get in,” Kellen said to Freir. It wasn’t a suggestion. “She needs warmth from both sides. She’s in shock. She’ll never get warm alone in this vault.”
He was already stripping off his own weapons belt and outer tunic, moving to the other side of the bed.
Freir didn’t argue. He toed off his boots, shed his sword and dagger, and slid in beside her on the right. He was a solid line of heat. He turned on his side, curling around her back, his arm coming over her waist to pull her firmly against him. “Easy,” he murmured into her hair. “Just sleep.”
Then Kellen was on her left. He moved differently. Slower. More deliberate. He lay on his back, but then turned his head to look at her. In the faint light from the hallway lantern he’d placed on a table, his gray eyes were unreadable. He lifted his arm. An invitation, not a demand.
Clara shifted, rolling slightly onto her back and then towards him, needing the heat more than she needed to understand the strange tension in his body. She tucked her head into the space between his shoulder and chest. His arm came down around her, heavy and secure. He was warm, but his breathing was carefully controlled.
She was cradled between them, a peninsula of safety in a vast, dark room. Freir’s heat at her back, fierce and encompassing. Kellen’s at her front, steady and solid. The weight of their arms was an anchor, pinning her to the present, to this safe harbor.
For the first time in over a week—since the screaming match with her brother, the shove, the awful plummeting sensation down the marble stairs, the seizing pain and the devastating, silent aftermath—her body truly unclenched. The constant, thrumming fear that had been her heartbeat since their escape sputtered and faded. The deep, aching emptiness inside her, both physical and emotional, was held at bay by the pressure of their embrace.
She was still healing. Her body was a map of old bruises and new ones, of a profound, hollowing loss it hadn’t had a second to grieve. It had been running on frayed wires and sheer terror.
Not anymore.
A sigh trembled out of her, so deep it felt like it came from her feet. The last string holding her conscious mind taut simply snapped.
Sleep didn’t come. It crashed over her. A black, silent tide with no dreams, no memories, no fear. Just obliterating nothingness.
Freir woke with the dawn.
Light seeped in through a high, narrow window, painting gray bars on the far wall. He was instantly aware of three things: the persistent ache in every muscle, the steady rise and fall of Clara’s breathing under his arm, and the fact that Kellen was already awake.
He could tell by the man’s breathing. It was too even. Too controlled.
Freir lifted his head slightly. Clara was still turned towards Kellen, her face hidden, one hand curled loosely against the duke’s chest. Kellen was staring straight up at the canopy above them, his profile sharp in the dim light. He hadn’t moved his arm from around her.
“You get any sleep?” Freir whispered, his voice gravelly.
“Some,” Kellen replied, just as quiet. He didn’t look over. “You?”
“Enough.” Freir carefully extracted his arm from around Clara, wincing as a stabbed muscle in his back protested. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was icy. “We should check on Jared. And get a plan.”
Kellen gave a single nod. Then, with a care that looked unfamiliar on him, he began to slide his arm out from under Clara. He moved inch by inch, pausing when she made a small, distressed noise in her throat. Once free, he deftly rearranged the quilt around her shoulders, tucking it securely. He sat up, raking a hand through his dark hair.
They dressed in silence, pulling on clean clothes Alric had left on a chest at the foot of the bed—simple wool and linen, sturdy and anonymous. They buckled on their weapons, the familiar routine feeling surreal in the quiet opulence of the chamber.
Freir glanced back at the bed. Clara hadn’t stirred. She was a small mound under the dark quilt, only the top of her head visible. The absolute stillness of her sleep was profound. It wasn’t rest. It was recovery.
“Let her sleep,” Kellen said, following his gaze. His voice was low. “As long as she needs.”
They left, pulling the heavy door shut with a soft click.
The world outside the room was a different kind of stillness. The gatehouse was quiet. Alric’s wife was in the kitchen, tending a large pot of porridge. She nodded towards the main room.
Jared was awake.
He was propped up on a pallet by the hearth, his face ghastly pale but his eyes clear. He tried to sit up straighter as they entered, a grimace twisting his features.
“Don’t,” Kellen said, striding over. He knelt, pressing the back of his hand to Jared’s forehead. “Fever’s broken. That’s something.”
“The Princess?” Jared’s voice was a dry rasp.
“Safe. Asleep,” Freir said, pulling a stool over. He studied the guard. “You remember any of last night?”
Jared’s brow furrowed. “Flashes. The gorge… screaming. Someone stitching me back together. That was you?” He looked at Kellen.
“It was.”
“Hurts like a bastard.”
“It should. You nearly died like one.” Kellen’s tone was blunt, but he reached for a cup of water and held it to Jared’s lips. “Drink. Slowly.”
Over a breakfast of thick porridge and strong tea, they plotted. The estate was a two-hour ride. Isolated. A good place to regroup, for Jared to heal, for Clara to… to just stop running for a few days.
“We’ll need a cart for him,” Freir said, nodding at Jared. “And a story for anyone on the road.”
“Hunting party accident,” Kellen said without missing a beat. “My cousin took a bad fall from a horse. A simple, boring truth that invites no questions.”
It was mid-morning when Alric came in from the yard. “Cart’s hitched. Whenever you’re ready, your grace.”
Freir stood. “I’ll get her.”
He returned to the chamber. The bar of sunlight from the window had climbed, now falling directly across the bed. Dust motes danced in the golden beam.
Clara was in the exact same position. She hadn’t moved a millimeter.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the old wood creaking softly. He watched her sleep. The tense lines that seemed permanently etched between her brows were gone. Her lips were slightly parted. She looked younger. Frail in a way that had nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with finally being allowed to be fragile.
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Clara.” His voice was barely audible.
No response.
“Hey. Time to wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered. A deep, protesting sigh escaped her. She tried to burrow deeper into the pillow.
A faint, real smile touched his lips. He’d never seen her like this. Unarmed. Unguarded. Not performing, not surviving. Just sleeping.
“Come on,” he said, a little louder, his hand gently shaking her shoulder. “We have to move. You can sleep in the cart.”
She pried one eye open, then the other. They were clouded with confusion, then a dawning, astonished realization. She was safe. She had slept. The world outside this quilt still existed.
“Freir?” she whispered, her voice thick with disuse.
“Yeah. It’s me. It’s morning. We’re going to Kellen’s estate.”
She blinked, slow, like someone emerging from a deep dive. She pushed herself up on her elbows, the quilt pooling around her waist. She looked around the huge, empty room, at the two other untouched beds. Remembering.
“How long did I…?”
“Long enough,” he said softly. He handed her the simple dress and over-robe Alric’s wife had provided. “Can you move? Any pain?”
She shifted, testing her body. The old bruises from the palace, the deeper ache from the miscarriage, the fresh stiffness from the cold and the fight—it was all still there. But it was muted, softened by that blanket of uninterrupted sleep. Her mind felt clearer. Sharper. The raw, ragged edges of her nerves had been smoothed.
“I can move,” she said. And for the first time in a very long time, it felt true.
And for the first time in a very long time, it felt true.
She took the clothes from his hands, her fingers brushing his. The wool was soft, worn from many washings. Freir stood and turned his back, giving her privacy, staring at the cold fireplace. She heard the rustle of the quilt, the shift of the mattress as she moved.
She swung her legs out from the warmth. The floorboards were like ice. She stood, a bit unsteady, the room tilting for a second before righting itself. She pulled the rough linen shift over her head, the fabric whispering against her skin.
Then she bent to pick up the simple dress.
A fist of pure, white agony clenched deep in her belly.
It wasn’t the muted ache she’d carried for days, the constant companion since the palace stairs. This was different. Searing. Metallic. It ripped a gasp from her throat, so sharp she bit her tongue. The dress slipped from her numb fingers.
“Clara?” Freir began to turn.
“Wait,” she choked out, squeezing her eyes shut. She pressed a hand low against her stomach. The pain was a live wire, sparking down into her thighs. The deep, restful sleep hadn’t healed anything. It had just switched off the numbing shock, letting the full, brutal truth of the damage scream into the void.
She’d been bleeding for a week. A slow, stubborn trickle she’d ignored amidst the running and the fear. The ride, the walking, the cold, the fight—it had all been gasoline on a fire she was desperately pretending wasn’t there. Her brother’s shove. The sickening impact on the marble. The miscarriage, swift and solitary and devastating in her rooms.
Then, two days later, the Crown Prince’s visit. His breath stinking of wine, his hands correcting her grief, his weight a brutal punishment for her failure. The court physician afterward, his cold, clinical touch making everything worse, his tonics meant to stop the bleeding only sealing the infection inside.
She thought she’d walked it off. She’d been wrong.
She forced her eyes open. She had to get the dress on. She fumbled for it again, her breaths coming in short, shallow pants. Every movement sent fresh, bright bolts of pain through her core. She managed to get it over her head, her arms trembling.
As she straightened, pulling the skirt down, she felt it. A warm, sudden trickle down the inside of her thigh. Not the old, slow seepage. This was a fresh, insistent flow.
Her legs dissolved.
There was no stumble, no graceful sag. Her muscles simply switched off, abandoning her. She hit the floorboards with a hard, sickening thud, her head glancing off the footboard of the bed.
“Clara!” Freir was across the room in an instant, skidding to his knees beside her. “What happened? Are you hurt?” His hands were on her shoulders, her face.
She couldn’t answer. The pain was a tidal wave, drowning her. She curled onto her side, knees drawn up, a thin, wounded sound escaping her clenched teeth. Humiliation burned hotter than the agony. She’d survived the gorge, the mercenary. She was taken down by her own body.
The door burst open. Kellen stood there, his eyes scanning the scene in one lethal instant—Clara on the floor, Freir crouched over her, the panic in the air. He was inside and closing the door in two swift strides. “What is it?”
“She collapsed. I don’t know—”
Kellen nudged Freir aside with a knee. His touch was different. Probing. He didn’t ask her questions. He gently pushed her knees flat, his fingers going to the pulse in her neck. His gaze cataloged everything: the waxy pallor of her skin, the sweat at her temples, the way her hands were fisted against her lower abdomen.
Then he saw the stain.
A dark, spreading bloom on the inside of her thigh, vivid against the pale grey of the dress. His fingers stilled. His eyes lifted to hers. In that frozen moment, the last piece of the puzzle he’d been assembling—her frailty, her brother’s hatred, her seclusion—slammed into place with a clarity that turned his stomach to stone.
This wasn’t exhaustion. This was injury. A specific, brutal kind.
“Freir,” Kellen said, his voice low and utterly controlled. “Get the wife. Now. Tell her we need supplies. Clean linen, hot water, honey, and yarrow if she has it. And the strongest spirits in the house.”
Freir didn’t move. He was staring at the blood, his face blank with a kind of delayed horror. “Is she…”
“Go!” Kellen’s command was a whip-crack.
It broke Freir’s trance. He launched himself toward the door.
Alone with her, Kellen’s icy composure didn’t waver, but his hands gentled. “Clara. Listen to me. I need to know. Is this from the fall? From Jared’s man?”
She shook her head, a frantic little motion against the floor. Tears of pain and shame welled, spilling over. She couldn’t say it. The words were ash in her mouth.
“The palace,” he stated, not asked.
She gave one jerky, agonized nod.
His jaw tightened so hard a muscle popped. He didn’t press for details. The evidence was speaking a language he understood all too well. “How long?”
“A week,” she whispered. “Since… since the stairs. It got worse after…” She couldn’t finish.
He didn’t need her to. “The physician saw you?”
Another nod.
“What did he do?”
“Tonics. To stop the bleeding. It… it burned.”
A cold, murderous fury settled behind Kellen’s eyes. He knew exactly what those tonics were. Cheap, corrosive styptics used on battlefield wounds, not on… this. They would have sealed the surface while corruption festered underneath. “He was no physician.”
He carefully slid his arms under her. “This will hurt. I am sorry for it.” He lifted her from the floor and laid her back on the bed with a surgeon’s precision. The stain was darker now, a blatant accusation on the linen.
Freir returned, Alric’s wife on his heels with a basket of supplies, her face grim and knowing. She took one look and nodded to Kellen. “I’ll need to see.”
“Freir, out,” Kellen said, already pulling clean rags from the basket.
“Like hell,” Freir snarled, his hands in fists. “What’s happening?”
“Out!” Kellen roared, the sound raw and violent in the quiet room. “You are no help here. Stand guard. Let no one in.”
The fury, so rarely unleashed, was shocking. It wasn’t anger at Freir. It was a dam breaking. Freir saw it. He saw the blood, saw the devastating focus on Kellen’s face, and took a stumbling step backward. He retreated to the door, his eyes locked on Clara’s pale face. He left, pulling it shut behind him.
The wife’s hands were steady as she helped Kellen. “The dress, your grace. We have to.”
Clara cried out when they moved her, a soft, broken sound. The fabric was pulled away. The full extent of the old bruising, the yellowed marks on her ribs and hips from earlier beatings, was laid bare alongside the fresher, more delicate trauma. The older woman let out a hissed breath. “Saints preserve.”
Kellen worked. He cleaned with the hot water and the sharp, clear liquor. His touch was impersonal, efficient, but his breaths were measured against a rising tide of rage. This was calculated destruction. This was a body systematically broken, then violated, then patched with neglect.
Clara turned her face into the pillow, the humiliation complete. The pain was a blazing sun at her center. She heard the clink of instruments from his kit, the soft tear of linen.
“The infection is deep,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone. “The old blood has pooled. This will not be a kindness.”
He did what the palace doctor had not. He opened the sealed, poisoned tissue to let it drain. Clara’s scream was muffled by the pillow, her body arching off the bed. The wife held her shoulders, murmuring meaningless comforts.
When it was done, when the poultice of honey and yarrow was applied and fresh, clean bindings were secured, Clara was shaking uncontrollably, drenched in sweat and tears. The pain had dulled to a throbbing, manageable roar, the worst of the pressure released.
Kellen sat back on his heels, wiping his hands on a clean rag. He looked exhausted, aged. The wife covered Clara with a fresh blanket, tucking it gently around her shoulders before gathering the soiled linens. She gave Kellen a solemn nod and slipped out.
Silence pooled in the room, heavy and thick. Kellen stared at his own hands, resting on his knees. They were steady. He wished they weren’t. He wished they were shaking with the need to break something, someone.
“He will die for that,” he said quietly, the words precise and final as a judge’s sentence. He wasn’t just talking about the physician.
Clara didn’t answer. She was empty. Stripped bare in every possible way. The secret she had carried, the private, rotting wound, was now known. Seen by the last man who had any reason to care for her.
He stood. He didn’t look at her. He walked to the window, staring out at the grey morning. His back was rigid. “You will not walk. You will not ride. You will be carried to the cart, and you will remain still. Do you understand? Your body is not negotiating. It is surrendering.”
He finally turned. His gaze was no longer hungry with discovery. It was haunted by it. “When I believed you were a manipulator, I resented you. Now I find you are a crime scene. It is not an improvement.”
It was the brutal, ugly truth. She was the living evidence of her family’s rot. He left the words hanging in the air, sharp as the instruments in his kit, and went to get Freir.