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The wooden foot of the chair scraped on the floor, breaking the silence in the grand library as Heron budged to adjust his position on the hard seat. A pile of old scripts on the diplomatic relationships between Ceres and Owynis lay untouched above his table.

The issue of the decree on his transactional marriage with one of the daughters of the Owiny Regent led his tutor to put aside all his reading assignments on the internal politics of Ceres. They were replaced by material relating to the Island anchored in the Bacias sea.

Heron had counted: a thousand and four pages to read through before the arrival of his promised.

He had entered the flame-lit library before the solar-arc had reached its zenith point. The bell of the domain had already sounded to announce sundown. Still, he had hardly gone over the history of the first expedition to the former Ceri colony. The only things he could juggle in his head were the marriage to come, the stranger from the grove of the domain, and when he needed to adjust on his chair, the pain the dry wood caused on his buttocks.

"If Lord has finished reading, may I get those?" Tutor Arai, the head librarian, was standing behind him. The tall man stepped to Heron's side. His lips were two straight lean lines pulled tight on the corners of his mouth, matching eyes just as narrow.

"Lord has hardly made any progress today, I noticed," Arai said, already maneuvering around the table to pin thin fingers on the books and drag them from the center to the edge. "I suppose one needs to read at least half as fast as I do to finish all these in a day. I dared think I had a challenge earlier. Guess not, alas." He tucked thin strands of gray hair behind his ear.

"Never thought it was a competition," Heron said, determined to keep the impression of focus on the scripts.

"Is anything not a competition in life?" Arai shrugged. "Lord's been winning at brooding, I suppose."

When Heron raised his brows at the daring tutor, he added, "With all respect, of course."

Arai inspected the library from the sealed entrance of reinforced double doors to the shelves of the Great Onus far in the back of the vast room.

"Still not the busiest spot in the domain, I have to admit." He eyed the rows of books carefully organized inside shelves carved on the walls. "Really, people haven't a clue what they miss. I appreciate the few regulars who come here for instruction."

He organized all the scripts into a neat pile, then snatched the one left from Heron's hands, locking eyes with him as if daring Heron to voice contradiction.

"They're so few that I do get used to them. And when they're sad, well, I can feel it. Suppose the books taught me that. I am quite conscious of my position as a simple-blooded, but I was young once." He moved the pile of scripts and organized them one by one inside wooden drawers, "I can recognize all restlessness and lack of focus. Plus, you've been kicking the chair's leg all day. We have all been there unfortunately. Lord might be in some kind of trouble, I would guess."

Heron shook his head. "It's none of it, tutor."

Arai insisted. "I reckon the life of a Monarch in the making must be isolating. In your case, especially, without Lady Servyna –"

Heron stared at Arai. The tutor kept a semblance of mild detachment as he spoke about Servyna's death, as if discussing trivialities like the whether.

Heron's teeth were ground and hands balled into fists with veins sticking out.

"Don't talk about her." He regretted the words as soon as they were uttered, then battled to keep a semblance of calm and countenance. Still the shock in Arai's face spoke for Heron's anger. In an attempt to honor his manners in front of his tutor, Heron softened his tone, "I'm afraid you're mistaken. Although I appreciate your offer to help, tutor." Arai nodded simply, studying Heron with an expression half curious, half pained.

As for his chair, "I will leave it alone," Heron promised, already standing. "The sun shine on you tomorrow, tutor."

Heron walked past the man before he could speak again and trailed along a way cornered by bookshelves and a table stretching up to the entry hall. By noticing the extent to which Heron's worries were corroding him, tutor Arai had won. But it was in nurse Amyra Heron needed to confide.

Outside the library, the sky was darkening. Heron traversed the grand courtyard enclosed by the four main edifices of the domain to enter the southern edifice, which harbored the sickhouses of the domain. The path was a dim arcade of dark stone opening into a smaller courtyard, where a crescent-shaped building cut off the carpet of grass, with floors dotted with doors at ground level and oval windows above.

The nurses stood in the center of the courtyard in leaf-green robes, gathered around the stone fountain still half-frozen by The Chill.

Heron fixated his eyes on the small crowd until he attracted the blue stare of the youngest of them. He waved a hand to catch her attention and Amyra reciprocated with a discreet nod.

She carried her conversation with the nurses for longer than Heron liked, only coming to meet him once their gathering had dissolved.

She bowed, addressing Heron by his title, "Lord Or Lomeon." The spirits forbid the heir had a simple-blooded as an acquaintance. After Heron waved the bow off, she raised her head, tightening the fabric of her thick robe around her. "I can't see any wounds," she said. "Mainor went easier on you this time?" She gave Heron her skeptic eyes, the slight tilt of her head adding to her expectancy.

"I won this redcircle," Heron said. "I am disappointed all the tattlers haven't yet brought to you the news."

"Don't be," said Amyra. "I know you won while tackled down. And apparently almost lost your hand."

"Well, you can see I am whole," Heron retorted.

"Then what brings you here this time?" Amyra asked.

"Nothing," Heron said curtly, his gaze shifty. His hands — once tacked behind his back to give the impression of a posture a Monarch in Prospect would adopt while addressing a nurse to the passers-by — had traveled to the back of his waist and neck, where the heat already showed evidence of an erupting flush of embarrassment.

Amyra reached for the hand on his waist, and looked at him reassuringly. "I know you, Heron," she said. "No need for embarrassment."

"The council has chosen a bride for me." It was the only thing Heron could let out. The fact that The Chill had cause his two-year long grief to resurface now appeared as it was: another proof of his weakness. He reserved that to himself.

"I'm sorry, but we knew this was bound to come," she said. "It will simply fulfill the role of producing a new heir to the Monarchy." Upon the silence that ensued, Amyra sighed, and as if willing to reassure Heron further, she added. "It's a pity I won't be here to tell you I was right all along."

"You won't?" Heron enquired. "You have three years ahead to receive your diploma as a nurse. You got in trouble with the Lady. Tell me, I will intercede to make you stay in the nursing school."

"None of it," Amyra said. "I received a letter from Tholos, from my family. They are all counting on the last Ceric I earned here for the past year. There, I won't be treating dignitaries or aristocrats or prestigious soldiers. People from the villages won't ask you for a diploma, provided you're capable to treat them well. I have learned enough to help in Dith. It'll help me support my family."

Master Salmior had never been shy about the harshest truths about Heron's preparation to the monarchy: the process was meant to isolate him. To protect him from unnecessary threats and to strengthen his character so he became stout enough to stand on his own before he could trust people with wisdom. Something had failed miserably in the process, all of it brought in the realization by the prospect of the nurse's absence.

"I can send money to your family if they are in need. How much?"

Amyra's hand left Heron's, her expression tensing. "Not all of us have been stamped nobles at birth. My family doesn't need your money. They need me."

Heron urged to reach for her hands again but refrained from it. "Forgive me," he sighed. "I understand. Still I will hate the day you return to Tholos."

"We deserve one last night together. In a tavern in the city."

"Amyra," Heron shook his head, "we cannot pass by the guards of the rampart." It sufficed the slightest thing went wrong for the consequences to be drastic.

"If you left the domain, you'd be surprised at how little the guards inspect departers,"Amyra said with purposeful tease,"the bluemen operate according to the logic that danger comes from outside the domain. Not from within."

"Well there is still a rebellion in the city," Heron pressed.

"Isn't keeping you out of the city supposed to keep your identity hidden from the revolution precisely?" Amyra said. "One of the men in the patrol that brought the Anutehi patient you sent here this morning mentioned you were projecting to rehabilitate him as a guard. Although I don't understand why you are infringing on the normal procedures to enlist soldiers, I see the opportunity for you to use him as an alibi to gain more liberty."

Heron exhaled heavily. "I lied about the man being a soldier from Anuteh. Otherwise Master Salmior would never allow him into the sickhouses. He would be now in the Prisoner's Hall."

"It's a pity you aren't very close with your brother. Otherwise, he could cover us with his mouth shut," she said. "It still stands that you are anonymous to the revolution."

"You were the one charged to take care of the man when he entered the sickhouses this morning?"

"No," she said, "but information spreads quite easily in this part of the domain. I asked questions to the escorting patrol." Amyra's expression grew serious. "I thought the prohibition to have men with you extended beyond stable boys," she commented. "You must be in serious need if you had to bring a man into the domain for it."

Heron blinked, his face hot. "I didn't bring him to the domain," he whispered, glancing sideways to assure himself they were still alone. "I suppose he's gotten through the ramparts when the guards keeping it found refuge against the cold. Although I don't know how he could have managed to climb the barricade. He doesn't seem to remember a thing before I found him sprawled on the grove."

"You found him sprawled on the grove," Amyra echoed, her face almost morphing into a grimace, "Spirits! And brought him to the sickhouses?" she shook her head. "How dangerous?"

"I don't think anyone deserves to die from The Chill."

"It doesn't justify you potentially allowing a coup to happen inside the domain."

"He's under surveillance and not quite well enough to pose any danger," Heron justified. "I'd like to see him, if —"

"You are out of your mind. I won't do that."

"Amyra," he begged. "Trust me I will have an eye on him." Heron knew a reasonable decision would be to forget about the stranger, let the nurses take over and the ridiculous proposal of a guard ignored and forgotten. But he had seen something in the man he still didn't have words to describe so he opted for a simpler argument. "I was in my chambers when I heard him call for help in the grove. I risked my life to go there," he argued. "It's natural I want to see things through."

Amyra turned to the nurses near the fountain, then to Heron. "Lady Zuna isn't in the domain tonight," she turned around. "If the other nurses can keep their silence about it, we should be alright. If they don't and I get in trouble, you'll use your status to get me out of this." Heron nodded, but she'd already turned her back to him. "If you'll follow me and watch me be a bad nurse, Lord the heir of the throne."

"The Ancients pay you with gold," Heron thanked the nurse.

"I'd rather you do it yourself."

Heron marched behind Amyra along the carved path that led to the entrance of the sickhouses. The nurse walked through a door of the building and scraped two bars of metal left lodged inside a hole carved on the wall, igniting sparks that lit a lantern of white crystal dust. A white glare swept across the way ahead.

"I've always found southern men strange but your friend is gallops ahead," she paused, and Heron thought he heard her clear her throat from behind. When the guards brought him in, Lady Zuna thought he was dying just by looking at him. The only times we've had men as pale and as cold here in the sickhouses, they were dead." She stepped onto the stairs. "We put him in a room on the third floor among the others who've been severely injured."

"He's that ill?"

"I don't know," Amyra said, "it seems he's driving Lady Zuna to madness. She visits him every evening and examines him for hours." She paused as if the thought of the stranger consumed too much energy for her to afford to walk. "Lady Zuna is urging the nurses charged to treat him to go over all the Onus of Healing in the library. Knowing the Lady, we're just a few days from the mobilization of the entire body of nurses for research. She hasn't notified the Wisemen in the capital. In case it's a rare disease, she's determined to be credited for the discovery. Give me a wounded soldier and I'll send him back to the barracks thinking he's been reborn. But if I read more of the Onus, I could explode. I will never be an academic." They halted in front of an old wooden door. "Here," she said and gently pushed the door open.

"Can you leave me alone with him?"

Amyra locked eyes with Heron, the white light rendering her eyes like blue fire. She didn't say a word and instead stepped behind; her disapproval apparent. "Tell him that once he's well, he should help when we leave for the city. After all the trouble you are giving yourself to help him, it's fair he pays you back."

Heron pulled the white curtain covering the door and managed to cast the nurse a tight smile. He steeled himself and stepped inside the room with caution, Davir's image revealing before him by bits: the white tunic of the patients of the sickhouses, light trousers half-hidden below the sheet sleeving his legs, a stern face. The whole conjured a different image of the man from the one he'd last been left with. Davir appeared healthier compared to the moment the bluemen escorted him out of the grove.

"I might have lied about you being a soldier to Master Salmior," Heron said. "He's ordered the guards to send you away from the domain as soon as you recover."

Davir grunted as he forced himself to sit. "I will take anything that will convince these women that I am well enough to get out of this sickhouse. They put something in my drink to force me to doze off." He scanned the cup resting on a desk beside the bed with a putrid grimace. "It smells like horror in here."

"I see," Heron said, doubtful of the man's sanity for a moment. "In Ceres, our nurses use medicine to help the sick."

"Then it's best you put that to the service of the sick. I'm not sick. I just—"His brows knitted and a tight grip formed around the sheets, blue veins drawn in his hand. Heron was convinced the man cursed under his breath. "My head's a bottomless pit." He threw his sheet aside, uncovering pale-white legs.

"You did remember your name," Heron said. "The Ancients forbid Salmior sends an inspector to Anuteh to investigate you. My lies can only protect you if they remain uncovered."

"You should have thought about that beforehand, don't you think?" Davir asked.

"It's amazing how grateful you are," Heron said. "And of great pertinence." He marched to the edge of the bed and stared down at Davir. "Perhaps you should show more appreciation to me. For allowing you into my domain."

"Don't expect my words to speak for my gratitude."

Heron persuaded himself out of the urge to ask for clarification. "Hopefully, the time it'll take for the truth to be uncovered is enough for you to remember whatever brought you to the domain. The territory within the barricades isn't just a part of the capital, we are our own administrative division. And you aren't legally allowed to stay in the domain. Unless—"

"Unless," Davir echoed.

"Non dignitaries like soldiers and servants can have the stamp of the council to have right to live in the domain." Heron bit the interior of his lip. He could recognize how daft his idea was. "For lack of creativity at the moment, I mentioned to my father I was interested in having you as a guard. Perhaps it could work." He shrugged. Considering the man's ill state, Heron would have the task of persuading Captain Jallon to repeal a symbolic trial for Davir to enter the Royal Guard.

Amyra's words were an enticing promise: a guard easy enough to persuade was an alibi enough to allow him more liberties.

"Why would you be interested in helping me?" Davir asked. "You stared at me like a rabbit fearful of being slaughtered this morning."

"You didn't kill me before," Heron said. "I suppose you won't now that you are placed under surveillance of the guard. Not to speak of the fact that the nurses here have enough medicine to sedate you to death."

Upon the words Davir grimaced. "Good argument," he said. "Still, you don't believe your own words."

"You're free to try," Heron said. "But remember you won't leave the domain alive." Although he kept an unfazed expression, Heron wondered if he was playing a game with a hand damp with fuel and a deck of cards on flames.

"You didn't answer my question, Lord."

"I am not doing any of this for you. That is all you need to know," Heron said. "I will arrange things to avoid a trial. In the meanwhile, you have to collaborate with the nurses to recover as soon as possible. Because I will need your help very soon."

"You aren't spending your days inside a room with women wanting to poison you with useless medicine, yourself."

The door creaked open. "Lord Or Lomeon," Amyra's voice echoed. Then a murmur followed, "The nurses are coming back."

Heron turned his back to the man. "You'll have a notice from me," he said. He followed Amyra out of the room.