Not this night

After bidding good-night to your more prominent guests (and making a point to also take your leave among the guests of lesser status, so that they know they are just as welcome in your hall), you leave the celebration behind and ascend the stairs of your tower.

"Captain Navarre," you say as you take the last flight, "remind me please to speak with Master Lucius about having some kind of pulley-lift installed in the castle. There are nights such as this when there are simply too many steps."

"Yes, Sire."

"I am jesting, of course," you assure him, "but... perhaps not entirely."

"Shall I summon Liam for you?" the Captain asks as you reach your bedchamber at last. "Or, anyone else?"

By that, you know that the Captain means Lady Valerie, and you consider briefly that her company might indeed be welcome, but in truth you are simply exhausted. "No, thank you Captain," you reply. "I can deal with this infernal breast-plate myself, if you would be so kind as to loosen the buckles."

"Of course, Sire. And, good-night."

Navarre lets the straps through the buckles so that you may let the heavy breast-plate drop into a chair, and the relief of discarding it is immeasurable. The Captain then leaves you alone that he might stand guard at the parlor door, and before long you are in your nightclothes and in bed.

With the candles blown out, Trina's face swims before your eyes.

She said quite clearly that she wished to never speak again of that intimate moment shared between you... but you begin to wonder if you will be able to grant her that wish. Perhaps in some way you have always felt drawn to her, but without even consciously intending to, you have always put such thoughts from your mind. It would not have been right, after all, for you to offer such attentions to one of your guard; she is sworn to obey you, and to court her in any way would have placed her in a very difficult position. There are kings who would not think twice about taking advantage of their authority in such a way... but that is not who you are.

Over the course of the next hour, you toss and turn, and wrestle with these forbidden lusts. {if Maid of Steel = 1}And, it does not help matters to recall the warnings given by Talaitha... if Trina is indeed the "Maid of Steel" of whom the fortune-teller spoke, then disaster waits for you at the end of that path! Normally, you would put little stock in the word of fortune-tellers, but as you teeter on that realm between sleep and wakefulness, her prophecies do not seem so farfetched.

{endif}Your last conscious thought is to wonder whether sleep will ever come... and then it finally does. But with sleep, there come dreams...