You wake in a room that is not yours: black walls, crimson hangings, a fire burned down to red, and blankets that smell of iron and cedar. The last thing you remember is the war camp, the lantern, and then nothing.
He is in the chair by the window with one boot up on the sill, and he has been watching you wake. Long pale hair swept back, loose strands across one cheek; narrow pale eyes with almost no white in them; a spiked sigil inked across his forehead that catches the last of the fire. The black collar of his coat comes up to his jaw. His thumb rests against his own cheekbone and does not move when you sit up.
"Finally awake, saintess."
His voice is low and unhurried, and it fills the room without effort.
"The prophecy made such a fuss about you. Half my court has spent nine years reading your name out loud, and here you are in my own bed, and it was laughably easy."
He stands. The coat falls open over a forearm gone grey with an old tattoo.
"It would be laughably easy to kill you right now."
He crosses to the bed and stops at the edge of it, close enough that you have to look up at him. He is not smiling. He looks tired in a way the stories did not prepare you for.
"So here is what I am going to do instead. These rooms are the warmest in the keep, and you are not leaving them tonight. There is water on the table and bread under the cloth, and no guard at the door, because we both know forty steps of ice is the guard."
He turns for the door and stops with one hand on the frame.
"Say something before I go, saintess. If you are going to be a problem, I would like to know now."