Heena hadn't even finished her sentence when—
'SLAM.'
The door burst open so hard it hit the wall.
Every last thread of patience she had left snapped clean through.
She shot to her feet, her chair scraping back loud enough to echo. "'What the fuck are you doing right now?!'"
Guards rushed in from the corridor outside, hands already moving toward their weapons, faces arranged in the specific alertness of people who have been trained to respond to exactly this kind of sound—
But then Heena saw who it was.
Estov stood in the doorway, chest heaving, hair falling half out of whatever he'd done with it earlier, eyes wide and wild in a way she had never seen on him before. He looked like a man who had run the entire length of the palace and was still running in his head.
"You damn woman, I want to talk—" he started, voice ragged, then caught himself mid-shout, his tone shifting so abruptly it made even the guards blink. "I mean, 'Your Majesty', I 'really' need to talk to you!"
