Page 51 of Severe Husband Warning

When I finally return to my chambers, moonlight has taken the place of the hearth fire, spilling across the floor until it catches upon Calla's lute resting beside the window.

Its case still rests beside the window where she left it before everything between us became tangled beneath duty and fear. Dust has yet to gather upon the polished leather. One silver clasp catches the moonlight spilling through the glass.

I kneel beside it before I fully realize what I am doing.

My fingertips brush the worn handle she has carried across markets, noble halls, and city streets long before our paths crossed.

The instrument has always represented the part of her that refuses to surrender to the world around her. Wherever Calla goes, she leaves behind the quiet conviction that something broken can still be mended. I did not recognize how deeply that belief had woven itself into these chambers until tonight, when her absence leaves them feeling colder than the stone from which they were built.

Somewhere along the way, I began believing I could shield that part of her from the world beyond these walls. Looking at the lute now, I find myself confronting the arrogance of that belief.

My hand lingers against the worn leather of its case while the chambers settle into silence around me. I cannot shake the feeling that whatever fragile harmony Calla and I had begun to build has been stretched taut beneath the weight of duty, each passing day testing whether it will endure or finally give way.

25

CALLA

Ihave not left the tall window of my chambers since last night. And now, the first light of dawn filters through Galmoleth's endless storm.

The room is as immaculate as it was the day Rothgar first brought me here. Obsidian floors gleam beneath intermittent flashes of lightning, and silver-leafed branches shimmer softly in the corner.

My thoughts return, again and again, to the conversation we left unfinished.

Rothgar had believed everything I told him about the abandoned western spire. I never questioned that.

Not yet.

We need evidence.

If I move too soon, Malakor walks free.

The reasoning is impossible to fault. I understand the politics better now than I did when I first walked into his gardens with nothing but desperation to bargain with. An accusation against a spire lord cannot rest on instinct or outrage. It requires proof that can withstand scrutiny from demons who have spent centuries perfecting the art of dismantling one another.

Knowing that changes nothing for the people still trapped beneath that spire.

Remaining inside these chambers while they continue to suffer... How is that any different from surrender?

My gaze lands on the silver-leafed plant beside the hearth. Rothgar left it before departing for the palace, an awkward kindness from a man who has never found comfort easy to express. Its branches have been trained to grow into a perfect shape, beautiful only because someone decided exactly where they belonged.

At last, I push myself to my feet before hesitation can persuade me to stay.

My cloak still hangs where I left it. I fasten it around my shoulders, pull on the worn boots that still carry red dust from the human quarter, and slip quietly through the corridors without giving anyone the chance to ask where I’m going.

It takes little effort to slip through the abandoned service passage I’d discovered weeks ago. When I emerge into the lower streets, whoever has been assigned to watch over me is almost certainly searching the wrong corridors.

I do not allow myself to wonder how long it will take them to discover I’m gone.

I keep my head down as I weave through the familiar streets, resisting every instinct to linger. Each passing moment is borrowed.

I find Cora’s stall exactly where it’s always been.

Cora is bent over a basket of mended clothes when I reach her stall. The sight of her there—alive, unchanged, still carrying on with the ordinary work of her day—loosens something in my chest.

She glances up at the sound of my footsteps, and the worry on her face eases the moment she sees me.

“Calla.” She says my name with something very close to relief.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” I admit.