Ludwig grunted as his eyes opened, the sound low and rough as if dragged up from a chest that remembered stone. The velvet carpet cradled his cheek with a softness that felt almost mocking after the feeling of bone being crushed in a fist. Threads of red and black blurred against his vision until they steadied into pattern. He breathed once and tasted dust and oil and the faint ghost of incense that clung to the chamber walls. Groaning, he pushed up on one palm, then the other, and rose to a sit. The bed waited at his back, familiar now in a way he did not like, and he let his weight sink to the edge of it. He turned his head to the right.
The Knight King stood where he had stood when Ludwig last woke, still as a statue and as present as a shadow that knows its place. The helm did not tilt. The pale blue within the visor did not flicker. Only the silence between them held the shape of an unasked question.
