Chapter 43: Privacy
Allandra lasted until the third evening.
That was how she chose to frame it to herself: lasted, as if restraint were a siege, as if the eastern wing were an enemy encampment and not a stretch of hallway within her own palace. She had endured council, correspondence, reports from the northern patrols, and a private note from Hagen so politely phrased it might as well have been written in acid.
She had signed decrees. Heard petitions. Corrected a treasury projection. Refused two invitations, one hunting proposal, and a request from Everly to begin sword training with real blades because “practice ones lie about consequences.”
She had not gone to Serali.
Until now.
Daravan walked beside her in silence, which meant he was being insufferable.
Allandra could feel it. The careful neutrality. The weight of unsaid things. The way he kept his gaze fixed ahead as if looking directly at her would constitute commentary.
“You may speak,” she said, without looking at him.
“I had not realized I required permission.”
“You require it when you are thinking this loudly.”
Daravan’s mouth twitched. “Majesty, I am a soldier. My thoughts are rarely loud.”
“Your disapproval has footfalls.”
“I do not disapprove.”
“That was almost convincing.”
They turned into the quieter passage leading to the eastern guest rooms. The guards straightened as soon as they saw her.
Allandra stopped outside Serali’s room.
The lamps along the corridor had already been lit. Behind the door, Serali was awake.
Allandra knew it before she heard movement.
That knowledge sat beneath her breastbone like a live coal.
Daravan noticed her pause. Of course he did.
“Majesty,” he said.
“If you are about to remind me to be careful, save your breath.”
“I was not.”
“Then?”
He looked at the door. Then, disastrously, back at her. “I thought perhaps I would wait here.”
Allandra turned her head slowly.
“Outside,” he clarified.
“I understood the geography.”
“To give you privacy.”
The silence that followed had teeth.
The guard by the door found the opposite wall suddenly fascinating.
Allandra’s voice dropped. “Privacy.”
Daravan’s jaw tightened. “She may speak more freely.”
Allandra hated that this was reasonable.
She hated that he was trying to help.
She hated most of all that a part of her wanted the privacy enough to accept it.
“Do not go far,” she said.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
He said it too solemnly.
She narrowed her eyes. “That was almost a joke.”
“I am told I should practice.”
“Stop.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Allandra opened the door before she could change her mind.
The room was warm.
That was the first thing she noticed. The fire had been built high, not roaring, but steady. Lamps burned on the mantel, the washstand, the writing desk, and both bedside tables, leaving no corner unlit. The curtains were drawn back, the last blue of evening visible beyond the glass. A tray sat on the table near the window, mostly untouched except for a cleanly halved pear and a piece of bread torn into precise, suspiciously even fragments.
Serali stood by the window.
She wore the brown gown.
It should not have mattered.
It was plain wool, simply cut, with narrow bronze stitching at the cuffs. Nothing about it was designed to flatter. It had been chosen because it was practical, modest, and warm.
Allandra’s mind, unhelpful and treacherous, supplied: it suits her.
Serali turned when the door opened, one hand already curling toward the cord at her wrist as if she might use it as a weapon. The tether ran from a padded loop at her left wrist to the carved bedpost, long enough to let her reach the window and the fire but not the door.
Her eyes found Allandra’s face.
Allandra looked too closely.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
She knew she did. She felt the shame of it even as she searched: the quickness of Serali’s breath, the tension in her mouth, the flicker of recognition or dread or something worse. Did Serali feel steadier when Allandra entered? Angrier? More afraid? Was the line between her brows pain, suspicion, or the same impossible awareness that had been burning through Allandra for days?
Serali glanced past her toward the empty doorway.
“No shadow today?”
Allandra shut the door behind her. “Daravan is outside.”
“Ah.” Serali’s mouth curved. “Did he lose a bet?”
“He believes you may speak more freely without him present.”
“That sounds like him.”
“You know Daravan well enough to determine what sounds like him?”
“I know he has the face of a man who has never once enjoyed a chair.”
Despite herself, Allandra almost smiled.
Serali saw it.
Her own expression shifted, something quick and wary passing behind the mockery. Allandra caught herself trying to name it. Surprise? Softness? The bond?
No. Stop.
She clasped her hands behind her back.
Too far away. Stay too far away.
“How are your wrists?” she asked.
Serali lifted the tethered one a few inches. “Still attached. Despite everyone’s best efforts.”
“Lia says the damage is healing.”
“Lia says many things.”
“And Mara?”
That landed.
Serali went still in a way she tried to disguise by turning back toward the window.
“She told you her name,” Allandra said.
Serali looked over her shoulder. “Did you tell her to?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her she was allowed?”
Allandra hesitated.
There. The first trap, sprung so neatly she could almost admire it.
“I told the staff you were not to be treated as furniture,” she said.
Serali’s mouth twisted. “How generous.”
“It was inadequate.”
That wiped the sarcasm from Serali’s face more effectively than anger would have.
Allandra stepped no farther into the room. She could not. Not yet. The distance between them had the shape of discipline, and she was clinging to it with both hands.
Serali watched her for a moment. Then she looked down at the cord, at the long slack of it trailing across the floor.
“So,” she said. “Was this your idea?”
“Yes.”
“The longer leash?”
Allandra flinched inwardly. Outwardly, she kept still. “Yes.”
“Careful. Someone might confuse that with honesty.”
“I am trying to be honest.”
Serali gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “That must be very uncomfortable for you.”
“It is.”
That stopped her again.
Serali’s brows drew together. “That was not where you were supposed to agree.”
“I am discovering that honesty is less useful if I only offer it when it flatters me.”
Serali turned fully from the window, the tether sliding softly over the rug. The movement drew Allandra’s attention to the fragile bones of her wrist, the fading bruises at the base of her thumb, the thin line where the old manacles had bitten too deep.
Allandra forced her gaze back to Serali’s face.
Serali noticed.
Of course she noticed.
“What is this?” Serali asked.
Allandra held her eyes. “An attempt.”
“At what?”
“At giving back what little I can.”
Serali looked around the room: the fire, the lamps, the tray, the screen behind which the copper bath had likely stood earlier, the wardrobe left slightly open with the other dress hanging inside. Her lips compressed.
“The mays,” she said.
Allandra did not pretend she didn’t understand.
“Yes.”
“Mara asks if I may want tea. Lia asks if she may touch my wrist. I may bathe myself. I may choose a gown. I may have honey separate.” Serali’s voice sharpened with every example. “I may sit by the fire or the window. I may pace all the way to the desk, like a court lady with a very specific curse. I may do everything but leave.”
Allandra absorbed that.
The fire popped in the hearth.
“You are still in danger,” she said.
Serali smiled then. It was not amusement. “From whom?”
Allandra did not answer quickly enough.
Serali’s smile vanished. “That is what I thought.”
“From Lyehira,” Allandra said. “From your father. From Rania. From their agents, if they followed you farther than we know. From my court, if they learn who you are. From my council, if they decide you are more useful as a symbol than a person. From my people, if the rumors in the city grow teeth before I can decide how to blunt them.”
Serali stared at her.
The words had come too plainly. Too much. Allandra had meant to offer enough truth to steady the room, not enough to crack it open.
“You’re telling me that to frighten me,” Serali said.
“No.”
“You’re telling me because frightened prisoners are easier to keep.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Allandra’s fingers pressed into her own palm behind her back.
“Because you asked.”
Serali said nothing.
“Because I have made too many decisions about you without explaining them.”
Serali’s jaw shifted.
“And because you are right,” Allandra said, the words scraping on the way out. “A choice made inside a locked room is still constrained. I know that.”
“Do you?”
The question was quiet.
It hit harder than accusation.
Allandra looked at the cord at Serali’s wrist. “Not as you do.”
The air changed.
Serali turned away first, as if the answer had been more dangerous than evasion.
“You expect me to be grateful,” she said.
“No.”
“You expect me to calm down.”
“I expect nothing so reasonable from you.”
Serali’s head snapped back.
Allandra’s mouth betrayed her. Not a smile. Almost.
Serali’s eyes narrowed. “Was that a joke?”
“A poor one.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Become charming. It’s suspicious.”
This time, Allandra did smile.
Only for a second.
Serali looked at it as though it were a knife someone had set on the table between them.
Allandra let the smile die.
“I do not expect gratitude,” she said. “I expect anger. Distrust. Attempts to escape. Insults, apparently.”
“That is optimistic. I might also throw something.”
“I considered removing the porcelain.”
Serali looked toward the tray. “And yet?”
“Mara said you liked the etched birds on the goblet.”
The room went still again.
Serali’s face changed before she could stop it. Not softness. Not precisely. Something more startled, more exposed.
Then she looked furious.
“Mara talks too much.”
“She said one sentence.”
“One sentence is too much.”
“She wanted me to know something that mattered to you.”
“Ceramic birds do not matter to me.”
“No,” Allandra said. “Of course not.”
Serali glared.
Allandra had the absurd impulse to cross the room and brush her thumb over the hard line of Serali’s mouth.
She did not move.
Serali noticed that too.
Her gaze dropped briefly to Allandra’s hands, still clasped tightly behind her back.
“You’re standing like you think I’m contagious.”
Allandra’s heart struck once, hard.
“I am standing here because I do not want to frighten you.”
Serali’s expression shifted. “You think coming closer would frighten me?”
“I think I have frightened you before.”
A muscle moved in Serali’s cheek.
The room’s warmth seemed suddenly insufficient.
“You have,” Serali said.
The words were simple. No flourish. No sarcasm.
Allandra had known it. Hearing it was different. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Serali looked at the lamps, every one of them burning. “You left me in the dark.”
“I did.”
“I begged.”
Allandra’s throat tightened. “Yes.”
“You said there was a ship.”
That accusation was softer than the others.
Worse for it.
Allandra closed her eyes for one breath. “Yes.”
When she opened them, Serali was watching her with an expression Allandra could not read.
She tried anyway.
Pain. Anger. Curiosity. The bond? Was there any echo in Serali of the thing Lia had named? Any pull, any recognition, any instinctive reaching hidden beneath the barbs?
Or was Allandra only another captor looking for herself in the captive’s face?
“I am sorry,” Allandra said.
Serali’s mouth tightened.
“I do not mean I regret that it was necessary,” Allandra continued, before cowardice could make the apology smaller. “It was not necessary. I made it so because I wanted leverage. Because I did not understand what I was doing, and because not understanding was convenient. I am sorry.”
There it was, the apology. Not a queen sorry, a real one.
Serali looked away.
The silence stretched so long Allandra wondered if she should leave.
Then Serali said, “People keep apologizing to me now.”
Allandra went still.
“Lia. Mara, once, because the tea cooled too quickly.” Serali laughed under her breath. “You. It’s very strange.”
“It should not be.”
“No. I think that is why it is.”
Allandra’s hands ached from how tightly she held them.
Across the room, Serali wrapped the loose tether once around her palm, not pulling. Just feeling the limit of it.
“Why?” she asked.
Allandra stilled.