THE MAN WHO SOLD ME

Isabella

Under the King's guardianship, I was moved to a suite beside his wing, and my nightly vigil was cut to one hour under a priest's supervision, which made every minute with James more precious and more dangerous.

The new suite was larger and the walls were thicker. A guard stood outside my door at all times.

"You will be safer here," King Marcus told me when he showed me the room. His voice was firm. "This wing is under my personal watch."

"Am I safer, or am I more watched?" I asked.

"You are both," he said. "Under the old covenant, no charge can be brought against you without my assent while you are under my protection. That is the law."

"And my nightly vigil?" I asked.

"You will keep one hour each night in the tower," he said. "Under a priest's supervision. That is all I can allow. The court is afraid of what happened in the cathedral."

"I understand," I said, although I did not.

The priest who supervised my hour in the tower stood near the door and never spoke. He watched my hands.

"You have one hour," the priest said each night when I entered.

"I know," I said.

James lay still while the priest watched, and I could not say what I wanted to say.

"Isabella," James whispered once when the priest looked away for a moment. "Did they hurt you after the Rite?"

"No," I whispered back. "The King moved me beside his wing."

"Are you safe there?" James asked.

"I am watched," I said. "That is not the same as safe."

"One hour is not enough," James said.

"I know," I said. "Every minute is more precious and more dangerous now, because they count the minutes."

The priest coughed, and I stepped back from the bed.

Two nights later a cart arrived at the gate with a man beaten nearly to death, and the guards recognized the Luna's father.

I was sitting in my new suite when the knock came. A palace guard entered quickly.

"Luna," the guard said. "A cart has arrived at the gate. The men at the gate say they know the man inside. They say he is your father from Silver Creek."

"My father?" I said. I stood up. "What happened to him?"

"He was beaten," the guard said. "He is in the infirmary. The healers say he may not live through the night."

I expected to feel nothing. I had told myself for weeks that the man who raised me had sold me to the palace and had lied to me about my mother. I told myself I hated him.

Instead I stood in the infirmary doorway and could not make my hands stop shaking.

"Isabella," the head healer said when she saw me. "You should not be here."

"He is my father," I said. "I need to see him."

"He is badly injured," the healer said. "Come inside, but do not touch him yet."

I stepped inside. The man on the bed was thin and his face was swollen. His coat was torn and bloody. I almost did not recognize him. The man who raised me was always loud and red-faced from ale. This man was pale and still.

"Is there ale in his blood?" I asked the healers, because I needed to know.

"No," the younger healer said, checking her notes. "We report without comment. There is no ale in his blood for weeks. No tremor in his hands. None of the drunk who sold you."

I stared at his hands. They lay still on the blanket. They did not shake.

"That is not possible," I said. "He always drank. Every night he drank."

"Not for weeks, according to his blood," the healer said.

He came to consciousness long enough to open his eyes. His eyes found my face.

"Isabella?" he said. His voice was hoarse and broken.

"I am here," I said. I stayed in the doorway. I did not move closer.

"Noah," he said quickly, with a terror that does not match the man from the tavern. "Where is Noah? Is Noah safe? Did they bring Noah?"

"Noah is in Silver Creek," I said. "Noah is safe."

"Are you sure?" he asked. His hands tried to grip the blanket. "They said they would take Noah if I did not bring you. They said the seal was failing and they would take him."

"What seal?" I asked. I stepped closer now. "What are you talking about?"

He looked at me and his eyes filled with tears.

"I called you by the name I promised your mother I would never use unless it was failing," he said. "Do you remember the name your wolf spoke?"

I froze.

"You called me by the name my wolf spoke," I said. "How do you know that name?"

"Your mother gave you that name," he said. "The one you have never heard from any human mouth before now. Your mother told me to call you Isabella in the village, to keep you hidden, but your true name is Liora."

"Liora," I repeated. The name settled in my chest and my wolf pressed forward.

"Liora," my wolf said inside me. "That is the name I spoke."

"How do you know my mother's name?" I asked the man on the bed. "You told me my mother left us. You told me she ran away."

"I lied," he said. His voice broke. "I sold you because the seal was failing and there was no other way to put you inside these walls in time. The potions from the north were the only thing keeping the seal closed on you and on Noah. When the seal started to fail, they said I had to bring you to the palace, or they would let Noah die."

"Who said that?" I asked. "Who told you to sell me?"

"The woman with the staff," he said. "The woman who never drinks. She said..."

Then the pain took him under before he could say who taught him what to fear. His eyes closed and his head fell back against the pillow.

"Get the cool cloths," the head healer said quickly. "He is burning."

I sat beside the bed and found myself doing what I did through every fever Noah ever had. I took the cool cloths from the basin and placed them on his forehead. I steadied my breath. I did not think past the next hour. I wiped his face and I held his hand to keep it still.

"I hate that I still know how to care for you," I whispered to him while the healers worked. "I hate that my hands remember how to do this after everything you did."

He did not hear me. He breathed heavily and his skin was hot.

"His fever is high," the younger healer said.

"I know how to bring down a fever," I said. "I did it for Noah for years. Keep the cloths cool. Keep his chest uncovered. Do not give him ale."

"We will not give him ale," the healer said.

I sat there for an hour, cooling his forehead, until his breathing slowed.

"When the healers stripped his coat, a folded letter fell from his boot," I saw from the corner of my eye. The head healer picked up his coat to wash it, and something fell out and hit the stone floor.

"What is that?" the younger healer asked.

"It is a letter," the head healer said. She picked it up. "It was hidden in his boot."

"Give it to me," I said.

The healer hesitated, then handed it to me.

"It was in his boot, so it belongs to him," she said. "But you are his daughter."

I took the letter. It was folded small and dirty. It bore the crescent-and-vine seal and my mother's handwriting on the front. The name written on it was Liora, not Isabella. It was dated the week my mother supposedly died.

"My mother wrote this," I said. My hands started to shake again. "This is my mother's handwriting."

"Are you sure?" the healer asked.

"I am sure," I said. "I know her hand from the few notes she left in Noah's medicine box."

I held the letter up to the candle on the bedside table. The wax seal was dark red.

The wax has been broken and pressed shut again, and when I tilted it to the candle I could see it had been resealed twice.