Chapter 90: The Lake and the Duke
Lyria's POV
I did not go to my chambers.
I told myself I would. I told myself it was the sensible thing — to go back, to lie down, to attend to my back with what little I had available, and rest before the next thing that required me to be upright and present and managing.
My feet took me to the lake instead.
The abandoned wing received me the way it always did — in silence, without question, without the particular quality of awareness that the rest of the palace had. The crumbling walls and the overgrown paths and the smell of old stone and growing things. The lake hollow ahead, the water catching the afternoon light in flat grey sheets.
I sat on the bank.
And I stared.
