After a particularly exhausting round on patrol, Uachi came back to his room to find two guards posted outside the door. He looked from one to the other with a frown. "What's the meaning of this?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Uachi," said the taller of the two. "She insisted she had to speak with you."

Rolling his eyes, Uachi shoved past the two of them. "Next time, see to it that His Grace's guest remains where she's told." He swung open the door to his room.  

Inside, Ealin was seated on the bed. The hour was late; she had lit the spirit globe in its sconce on the wall by his door. His lip curling in disgust, Uachi reached up and touched it with two fingers, and the light went out at once. "I do not use magicked trinkets in my room," he snapped.

Ealin rose to her feet at once. When her wide-eyed gaze fell upon Uachi's face, he knew that he had frightened her; she edged back away from him along the bed. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"What are you doing here, Ealin?"

She met him with silence. Bristling, Uachi swung the door shut. "You cannot keep coming to me like this. Folk will think there's something unseemly going on between us, a Hanpean soldier and the emperor's pris...guest."

Her glassy eyes downcast, Ealin whispered, "Do you care what they think?"

"It doesn't matter whether I care or not. His High-and-Mightiness will give me a tongue-lashing, and I've not had one of those since I was a boy. Leave, Ealin. Go back to your room."

"Please," she whispered. "I cannot sleep there. I have stayed there these past many nights, but the last hour of rest I had was when I stayed in here with you."

"You cannot sleep? Nor can I." He laid his hand on the doorknob, prepared to turn her out. "You are in good company during each wakeful hour."

A soft sound came to him through the gloom. At first, he thought it was a chuckle, but then, as Ealin lifted her hands to cover her face, he realized she was crying. A sick feeling of guilt settled into his stomach. Peeking through her fingers as if hoping to hide the evidence of her weeping from him, Ealin edged toward the door.

Uachi reached out, closing his large hand over Ealin's narrow shoulder. "Wait."

She shrank away from him as if his fingers had been hot coals, coming up hard against the wall with an arm raised in instinctive defense. His hand hanging in the air, Uachi met her gaze. In every aspect of her being there was terror, from her parted lips to the tremble of her hands.

"Tell me," he murmured. "What is it that causes a Starborn mage such fear, Ealin? You are among the most powerful, most untouchable class of people in this realm. What can have made you so afraid?"

"I'll leave," she said. She slid along the wall toward the door, but Uachi took one step, and she came to a halt.

"I mean you no harm," he said. "My words were hard, that I'll admit, but I must make you understand that from me, and from the man I serve—the emperor—you need fear no violence or ill treatment. I had hoped that would be clear."

She looked up at him in silence, one hand still raised.

"I suppose you would be afraid," he said. "You haven't any of your bloody trinkets to use for working spells. Without a bloodstone, you're as weak a woman as any other in the realm."

Slowly, Ealin lowered her hand; Uachi watched that hand, alert, as always, to a stranger's every move. It was without thinking that he reached for his dagger when he saw her fingertips begin to glow. Stealing a glance at Ealin's face as the energy began to crackle up her arm, he unsheathed the dagger he wore at his waist and slid into a fighting stance at once.

She had a bloodstone. Somewhere about her person, she had secreted one of those evil weapons, and Uachi had not thought to search her when he brought her back with him. He had done a great many foolish things in his life, but this was one of the worst. He leveled the dagger at her, his tone a deadly hiss. "Give it to me now."

The tears glittered on Ealin's cheeks. "I do not have one," she whispered.

"Give me the bloodstone, you deceitful wench, or I will kill you."

The sizzling power that had flickered around her hand and up her forearm died at once. She spread her arms; he could tell his threat had rattled her, but she looked him in the eye. "I do not have a bloodstone, Uachi," she said.

One swift step brought him to her across the small room. He took hold of her upper arm, ignoring her gasp of fear or pain, and placed the point of the dagger under her chin. "If you are lying—if you've brought a bloodstone into my bedchamber—I will lay you open from belly to throat," he said.

She met his gaze, her chin tilted up to avoid the vicious point of the knife. Her voice broke when she spoke with the threat of tears. "I am not lying to you. I swear it."

Uachi held her there with the threat of the blade. He slid his arm up over her shoulder and down her throat and chest, feeling beneath the high neck of the gown for the hard lump of a necklace. He rudely turned out the pockets of the dress, smoothed his hands over her hips to feel for hidden parcels, and then he wrenched up her skirt enough that he could see she was still barefoot—no shoes or stockings within which to hide any secrets. In shock, he dropped her skirt and sheathed the dagger, taking hold of her by the neck and using his thumb to force her to turn her face. Of course, he knew what he would find: when he pushed away the curtain of her soft, dark hair, her cheek was naked. She wore no marke.

"You're Arcborn," he said. "Tell me the truth, or I'll strip you to your shift to find the lie."

"You're hurting me," she replied in a shaking whisper.

He realized that his grasp on her throat was strong. Horrified, he dropped his hand at once and stepped back; the space opened up between them again, and she drew a breath, putting her hand to her neck where he'd held her. He clenched his fingers into a fist. "I'm sorry."

"You see now why I feared him, and why I hated being in that place," she whispered. "You see now why I fear the dark and the monsters that sleep in a place such as this, built on the bones of our ancestors."

"Then it's true. How have you gone unmarked?" Uachi demanded.

"The archmage had a taste for orphans," Ealin replied. She did not look up at him. "I was too young to have been marked when I came to him."

The thought of a child no more than five years old in the possession of the archmage turned Uachi's stomach. "Why did you not tell us?"

"What does it matter? I am still Jaeron's mage. Your emperor will still have my head, one way or another."

"We want answers, not blood," Uachi said. "You need not—"

"—be afraid?" She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "How can I be afraid, when you have only threatened me with a knife?" 

Shame washed over him at once. "I—"

"I'm sorry. That wasn't fair." Ealin drew an unsteady breath. "You must have thought I meant to threaten you with my power. It was not my intent. I only meant to...to tell you who I am...and to ask you for your friendship."

Uachi raked his hand back through his hair, shaking his head. "I do not know what friendship I can offer you, Ealin. I've precious little to give."

"You know it is torture to go without rest, for you said yourself you do not sleep easily. I have not slept since last I lay in this room, Uachi. Please. Let me stay here. Let me sleep. That's all I ask."

With bitter amusement, Uachi was reminded of the night he had turned on Mhera in the darkened hallway. She, too, had trusted him, after he might have killed her in instinct. Now he'd threatened Ealin, and she was asking to spend the night in his room. People were confusing. People were stupid. "I'll leave you to it," he said, edging toward the door.

"No!" She reached out at once, taking hold of his sleeve. "No. Please. Please don't go."

Uachi looked down at the hand Ealin had lain on his forearm. He sighed. "Very well." He supposed he would not sleep this night, anyway; not after this. Ealin had been right. He knew what it was like to go without rest, but he had long made a habit of it. "Lie down, and I'll sit with you through the night."

Ealin's grateful smile gave him an uncomfortable feeling of relief. He frowned, watching her creep across the room and crawl onto his narrow bed. Uachi sat down with his back to the door, folding his forearms across his knees, and gazed at her as she lay there, curled up like a child, her dark hair spilling over the white pillow.

Eesh. Ealin seemed to trust Uachi far better than the milder Matei, but I'm wondering now if her trust was poorly placed.

Then again, it seems like she has an odd effect on our Uachi. I'm not sure he'd let just anyone sleep in his bed, and he does not have a good history with mages or bloodstones, does he?

Let me know your thoughts and your theories in the comments! Thanks for reading!