The healers at the king's bedside were, thankfully, already beginning to wind down their examination. The monarch had been bandaged, slightly cleaned; there was still an air of the sea about him, and still the haggard look in him of a man half-drowned, but the doctors were beginning to be done fussing about him.

It made it easier for him to brush weakly at the adviser hovering by his head. It made it easier for one hand to be lifted, briefly, toward the woman standing at the door.

His lips attempted to form words, but sound refused to come. Hopefully, she could see the yearning in his eyes as clearly as if he'd managed to call out her name.