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pair of female guards who’d stopped at a respectful distance from him. ‘Stay here until she wakes. If the news is good, fetch me immediately. If it isn’t’—his face darkened—‘then finish it swiftly.’

He stepped away from the bed and strode off through the small crowd which parted for him, and Siraay’s eyes followed him briefly until he had left the room.

Then, keen to understand what was happening, she climbed the steps up to her bed and looked down upon the form that lay stretched out there.

Her jaw dropped. Lying there, blankets piled up to the waist, sweat evident on the forehead despite the light clothing the slim figure had been dressed in, was … herself.

Siraay’s hands rose up involuntarily to touch her cheeks. They felt solid to her. She lowered her hands, looking at them, then pivoted. Loce was closest. Nervously reaching out to him, her hand shaking, she tried to touch his shoulder.

Her hand passed straight through him, and Siraay gasped again, snatching her arm back as if her fingers had been burned. Cradling her hand, she glanced back down at the bed. It was true, then. She, or her real body, was lying there before her. And this form … she looked down at the body she had thought was real.

But the body she now occupied did not exist in the real realm.

Looking back at the unconscious form on the bed, Siraay thought she spied dark bruises and cuts on one cheek and lip, the face pale beneath the injuries and sweat.

She took a step closer to the bed, meaning to go right up to look at herself, but was forced to pause when someone else stepped in front of her, cutting her off.

Pyron.

Siraay felt anger rise within her as she watched the chief archon look down at her, sunlight from the windows reflecting off his silver mask, then he glanced away as the sound of a pair of heeled feet beat out a sharp rhythm upon the floor.

‘Oh, she still hasn’t come around, then?’

Siraay’s anger at Pyron faded a little as this new voice drew her attention and her disdain. She turned her head.

Archon Atalia stood a few paces away from the bed, looking innocently at Pyron.

‘No, obviously,’ responded Pyron in a low voice.

Siraay was intrigued to hear the irritation underlying the chief archon’s words as he spoke to the other archon.

‘Has Lord Chezran been to see her?’ the female archon asked, shifting her focus back to scrutinising the Siraay.

The stiff set of Pyron’s shoulders confirmed for Siraay that, for some reason, Pyron was annoyed by Atalia’s probing questions.

Archon Renhed stepped in, however, motioning for the healer and other no-longer-necessary attendants and servants to leave the room, which left just the two guards, Trelar, Atalia, Pyron, Loce, and Renhed herself. ‘He has,’ the female said smoothly. ‘The healer advised that, after fighting through the night, the lady may collect her strength enough to wake in a matter of spans.’

Atalia didn’t seem to know what to say to that, and she was quiet for a long moment, her face carefully controlled. Eventually, she asked, ‘And she will be well, once she awakes?’

Siraay shifted her gaze back to Pyron’s face. Below the edge of the mask, his lips seemed to be thinning the more Atalia talked.

‘The healer does not know. But Lord Chezran has set guards in case the outcome when she awakes is not … desirable.’ Renhed said this delicately, but Atalia seemed to straighten at the news, her eyes widening.

‘There is some doubt, then?’

Siraay angled her chin over her shoulder. Was that eagerness she could hear in the archon’s voice? She looked away, disgusted at the archon’s lack of subtlety. She should have crushed Atalia when she’d had the chance.

‘Yes,’ continued Renhed. ‘The healer says that—’

‘Begging your pardon, Archons, but would you mind discussing this in another room? My lady requires her rest, if she is to recover.’

Siraay turned in disbelief at the quiet but firm voice that carried through the room.

Trelar had edged closer to the bed, and although she appeared pale, her mouth was set as she met the stares of the four members of Chezran’s inner circle.

Stunned silence pervaded the space for a moment, and Atalia was glaring across at Trelar, seemingly debating what to do with the servant who had just dared order them from the room.

But Trelar was saved by one of their own.

‘The lady does need rest. Let’s go,’ Loce said, nodding his head towards the door as he put his words into action, pausing just once to look back at Siraay’s body and the motionless Pyron before he swept the two female archons out of the room with him.

The double doors swung closed behind them, leaving Trelar and Pyron alone in the room with the two guards.

Trelar eyed them nervously as she hovered on the other side of the bed.

Pyron seemed to notice this and directed his blue-eyed gaze at the pair of female guards. ‘You two—position yourselves over by the door.’

One of the guards glanced at Pyron uncertainly. ‘We were ordered by Lord Chezran to—’

‘I know what you were ordered to do,’ snapped Pyron. ‘And you can carry out your orders from that side of the room. I’m certain the lady is not about to wake in the next few moments.’

The guards hesitated for an instant but then obediently moved away from the bed, striding down the steps to cross the room and take up their posts to either side of the doorway.

Siraay watched them go, thinking it was a healthy choice with Pyron in such a seemingly rotten mood. Maybe Lord Chezran had been furious with him for being captured and injured by the Resistance soldiers. She almost smiled at the image. Until she remembered that she was in a very sticky situation herself.

‘Do not leave her side.’ Pyron’s quiet voice as he spoke to Trelar drew Siraay’s attention back to him and the limp form bundled up in her bed. ‘If her condition alters in any way,

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