Harbor (On the Wind #3)

36. Tybalt

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

TYBALT

M y toes ached.

I’d had fevers before in my life, even the kinds that made my joints feel tight and painful. Never before had I been so aware of my toes.

With a pout on my face, I stretched them out beneath the covers on my bed and made a small, dissatisfied huff. At once, the bed sank beneath Orestes’s weight. He sat on the end, and before I’d even voiced a complaint, his gentle hand curled around my ankle. He dragged his blunt thumb up the arch of my foot.

I bit my lip against a whimper, but only because there was a child in my room.

A child .

That had never happened. Well, not since I’d been a child, which was not a time worth thinking about and I preferred to believe that I’d never been that small and vulnerable. The very idea was appalling.

Orestes rubbed my foot and tipped his head to the side. “More?”

I nodded, shimmying down beneath the covers so that I could prop my heel on his thigh.

I might have only a blurry sense of having arrived at the palace, promptly fainted, and a bath made all the more enjoyable for getting to lean back against Orestes’s broad frame, but this was rather nice. I was trying not to think too particularly about how I’d gotten up to my room. Orestes must’ve carried me, and with his wound, he shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t think of anyone in Urial who’d be quicker to act on my behalf.

Even being ill was not so bad, when he was there fretting over me. I wanted to curl up in his lap and let him pet me like a cat. I didn’t even mind our young audience, so long as he stayed closer.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, nudging my other foot closer to Orestes so I might have his attention spread evenly between them. “Are you ill?”

Orestes shook his head. “No sign so far, and Olive was kind enough to share her arnica with me, so the wound is healing even faster.”

The girl looked up from her drawing then, her eyes wide over a nervous smile.

That was her name, then. Olive. My... sister, at least by law.

She only held my eye for a second before she shrank back down and turned her attention back to the parchment in her lap. She didn’t take up drawing again. Nervous little thing, she was.

“That’s very kind, Lady Olive.”

She only glanced up at me once more, reddened, and bit her lip.

When she turned away, I grimaced at Orestes. “I don’t think she likes me very much,” I whispered.

He shook his head, something coming over Orestes’s face that was strange in Urial—a kind of boundless empathy and care. Perhaps it was just that she was little, but it struck me as horribly sweet.

He was too kind for this place, and while I should have sent him away from it, instead I only pressed my feet down in his lap so that he was trapped here with me.

“Her father passed,” Orestes said below his breath. “She’s been quiet since.”

“Oh...” So it had nothing to do with me at all. Perhaps that was a good lesson, little as I wanted to think that things happened beyond the sphere of my influence.

Or as much as I wanted to assume I’d earned every unpleasant interaction in the Urial castle based on my poor character and general indecency.

Perhaps logically, it didn’t make much sense that a child would even know my reputation, beyond simply that I was uncouth and ridiculous.

Much as I wanted to mull over how I’d offended everyone in my own damn kingdom, my list of crimes wasn’t that long. I held onto Orestes’s arm and sat up. As I did, my hips ached far worse than they had after even his roughest treatment, but when I leaned against him for support, it wasn’t so bad. I stretched out my neck to look across the room and try to catch a glimpse of her work.

“Are you drawing, Lady Olive?”

Without looking up, she nodded.

“May I see it?”

She wiggled in her seat for a second before she frowned, snatched the parchment off her lap, and carried it over to my bedside.

On it, she’d drawn a bird, dark around his body and wings. She hadn’t colored in his head. He looked very much like Orestes had in that form.

“Did you see him above the palace?”

Olive smiled at me, but her lips were pressed tight between her teeth as if she wanted to keep it secret.

Lady Penelope, who’d been arranging a tray on the other side of the room, answered for her. “We were taking a walk in the garden last week when we saw him.”

Against my arm, Orestes went stiff.

“That’s amazing. I’ve never seen such a magnificent bird so close to here before.” Orestes need not have been so tense; I had no intention of giving his secret away. “But sometimes, when I go out into the forest, I see all sorts of amazing beasts. I saw a moose as big as a cabin once. Gave my horse, Biscuit, quite a fright, but he wasn’t interested in us. It’s nice... out there away from the castle.”

Olive’s eyes widened. She blinked at me slowly.

“I love to ride out. If you’d like to join me one day, if—if your mother’s all right with it...”

The queen pursed her lips, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she hesitated to leave her daughter alone with me, or if—well, I knew that caged look in her eyes. Maybe one day away from the palace wasn’t enough for her either.

“We could all go together,” I offered. “A family picnic.”

Queen Penelope tipped her head to the side questioningly. “A family picnic?”

“Well, those of us who like the outdoors.” I didn’t say that my father didn’t seem to anymore.

“That sounds like a lovely plan,” she said. “And you, Orestes—will you still be here to join us?”

Now, it was my turn to flinch, but as soon as I did, Orestes’s arm slipped around my waist and he squeezed me against his side. Strangely, that relieved some of my aches and pains instead of exacerbating them.

“As long as you’re not planning to drag me out in another snowstorm,” he said jovially.

I scoffed. “You haven’t seen a proper storm yet, darling.”

He shivered, and I tucked closer against his side. If he could keep me upright, I’d keep him warm, and we might—we might have something.