Hajin let his head go back against the rim of the tub while the hot water climbed to his chest, so the muscles along his spine finally gave up their argument with him.
'Warm water,' he thought, sinking until it came up under his chin, 'I had forgotten what this does to a spine.'
His last few days ran past behind his eyes without any order to them, the forest, then the road, then a throne room where a man he shared blood with had stood twelve feet away pretending otherwise.
'He stood there with a court face on,' he thought, pressing a thumb into the bruise under his ribs, 'though the moment our eyes met I could feel how much he wanted me gone.'
'Will I be okay?' he wondered, with the question sounding smaller in the quiet than he wanted.
'The King's protection has limits,' he thought.
A family like the Flints did not need to attack anybody openly, however bright the royal badge looked.
