Amara entered first.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and wet, her lower lip caught between her teeth in the way it had been caught since she was a child of six coming to his chamber after a nightmare.
She wore a sleeping gown too thin for the season and her arms were wrapped around her own middle as if she were holding herself together.
Behind her, Vivienne followed a half-step back with her chin tucked toward her chest, fingers twisting at her hem. The sound she was making was small and fragile, caught somewhere between a sniffle and a sob.
They had been crying.
Alastair felt his heart skip in his chest, the way it always did when his princesses hurt and came to him for safety.
The boastful war commander dissolved inside two heartbeats, replaced by the father who had held these girls through every scraped knee, every broken heart, every night terror their young minds had conjured, and who had held them through something far worse these past months.
