"No!" Repentance yelled.
The dungeon master threw the king over his shoulder and reached for the prince.
Missed.
They heard a splash. Nothing else.
Repentance peered into the lake. The prince floated facedown, perfectly still.
"Pull him up," she said.
The dungeon master shook his head. "With what? By the time I get the hook, it will be too late. He's dead already. There's no coming back once you hit that water."
Repentance looked at Sober's door and started shaking.
The dungeon master set the king on his feet. "Can you stand, your majesty? I had no idea you were a prisoner here. No idea at all."
The king gave him a searching look, "I ordered you to arrest him."
"I was thinking how best to obey, your highness. I was waiting for my opportunity to arrest him."
The king turned away without answering. "Come, Repentance," he said, between coughs. "We need our wounds attended to."
She walked to Sober's door. She had to look.
And there he was, at just that moment, floating through the shaft of light that poured through the window in the door. Frozen. Stiff and white. His swollen eyes were forever frozen shut. Never again would he wink at her.
She shuddered, her heart screaming for a chance to talk to him one last time, for a chance to tell him goodbye.
But there he was, cold and lifeless.
Her last look was not upon the vibrant handsome face she remembered but upon a face she didn't even recognize—beaten and frozen and mottled and dead. He was past all pain, at least. His gray flannel button scarf floated around his head like a crown and trailed across his mouth and nose.
When she saw that, a foggy memory drifted into her mind. She remembered lying beside Sober in the slave cart, sharing her blanket and dreaming that his button scarf would suffocate her. And there it lay, floating across Sober's misshapen face. She felt like all the air had been sucked from her lungs. Yes, I will take the scarf, a voice screamed in her head. Oh, please. I didn't know what I was doing. I want to be his button mate. I want to take the scarf.
The king looked over her shoulder. "What is this about?"
"Sober Marsh," she said, moving aside so he could look in the window. "He was such a good man." Tears dribbled down her cheeks.
"Your farmer?"
"My friend," she whispered.
"Come," the king said. "We'll take care of what we can tonight. We'll have to wait for time to heal the rest."
"I came to save him," Repentance said. "I wanted to save him. I was supposed to save him."
"Come away, Repentance." The king took hold of her elbow and steered her from the door.
Tears washing down her face, she did again as she had done months earlier. She mouthed the words, "I'm sorry," and she turned her back on Sober Marsh.
To die as an honest man is better than to live as a liar, to die fighting evil is better than to live with your eyes and ears and heart clamped shut to the pain around you, and to die serving a friend is to die the best way of all.
~Lord Harding Banniss, Letters to a Young Man
Chapter 38
The king led the way, shuffling along, stopping often to cough. The dungeon master followed, carrying the unconscious Tigen. Repentance watched her feet as she walked, but what she saw was Sober, dead and frozen. So cold. He must be so cold.
At the top of the stairs, the king stopped to instruct the dungeon master, "Take the boy to his quarters. I'll send a doctor."
The dungeon master strode off, and the king turned to Repentance. "Do you remember where the family parlor is? Across the hall from my small library?"
She remembered the dungeon. Everything else was shrouded in fog.
"Can you hear me?" he asked.
Sober was dead.
"I'll take you," the king said kindly. He took her hand and led her through the great room and down the wide hallway to a small parlor. "Wait for me here."
She wandered to the window. Outside, the Moonlight Festival celebrants feasted and laughed and danced, completely unaware. Repentance had an urge to run into the courtyard crying, "He's dead, he's dead. The universe has been torn open and can never heal. Stop your dancing. Weep and wail. Sober is dead and there can never be joy again."
She stood at the window, tears streaming down her face.
If she hadn't run out of Lord Carrull's house without a plan, he might still be alive. Why had she run out so foolishly?
If only he'd never come to rescue her. If only they'd never fallen in love. If only she'd buttoned with him in the beginning and had never come up the cursed mountain in the slave cart.
If only, if only, if only.
How far back did she want to go with the blame? If only the overlords had never enslaved the lowborns. It was no good. Time moves forward. Going back and assigning blame all around would do nothing to bring Sober back.
She sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, letting the cold bite through her leather jerkin. She wanted to feel something besides the ache that filled her chest.
She couldn't bring him back, but she could hold him in her memory. His face, his smile, his arm resting on her shoulders as they sat reading. She closed her eyes and for a moment she thought she felt him sitting next to her. She thought she might lean over and rest her head against his shoulder.
She buried her face in her hands and wept.
The door swished open, and Repentance wiped her face and looked up.
The king hobbled in,
