Chapter Ten: Court Whispers

Lyra’s POV

Elowen hadn't said much.

She'd arrived at the healer's house within minutes of Mira fetching her, examined the crescent mark beneath my collarbone with careful, steady hands, and gone very quiet in a way that frightened me more than shouting would have.

"Not yet," she'd murmured, mostly to herself. "It's not time yet."

"Not time for what?" I'd asked.

"For anything you're not ready to hear." She'd patted my hand, gentle but immovable. "Rest first, child. We'll talk properly soon. I promise you that."

That had been two days ago. Since then, I'd been given a set of rooms in the palace's eastern wing, comfortable enough that I almost felt guilty accepting them, and told, in the vaguest possible terms, that I was a "guest of the crown" until further notice.

Nobody had explained what that meant exactly. I was starting to suspect nobody planned to, at least not soon.

"You're frowning again," Darius said from his post beside my door, arms crossed, watching me with the same steady attention he'd shown since the border. "Rooms not to your liking?"

"The rooms are lovely." I sighed, glancing back at the door I'd just stepped through. "I'm just not used to being someone's assignment."

"Get used to it." He fell into step beside me without being asked, matching my pace easily despite his size. "Cassian assigned me as your personal guard yesterday. Wherever you go inside these walls, I go too, unless you're behind a locked door with someone he trusts."

"That sounds less like hospitality and more like a very polite prison."

"Could be both," Darius said, entirely unbothered. "Doesn't make it less necessary. Whoever sent those watchers to the border knows exactly who you are now. That's not a risk Cassian's willing to leave unguarded."

I didn't have a good argument against that, however much the constant presence of a guard chafed against instincts built from years of being overlooked rather than watched.

We walked together through a wide corridor lined with tall windows, morning light spilling gold across polished stone floors. Courtiers moved past in small clusters, richly dressed, murmuring among themselves in the particular way people did when they wanted to be certain everyone nearby noticed they were talking, without quite wanting to be heard clearly.

I caught fragments as we passed.

"...brought her here himself, if you can imagine..."

"...an exile, from Mooncrest of all places..."

"...rejection mark barely healed, and already living in the eastern wing..."

Heat crawled up my neck. I kept my eyes forward, the way Elias had taught me years ago. A Beta's daughter carries herself with dignity, even when she's terrified. I hadn't expected to need that lesson again quite so soon, in quite so grand a hallway.

"Ignore them," Darius said, low enough that only I could hear.

"Easier said than done."

"Most things worth doing are." A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his scarred mouth. "For what it's worth, half of them are just bored. Court gossip is the closest thing some of these people have to entertainment."

"And the other half?"

His smile faded slightly. "The other half are wondering what you mean for their own standing. Whether you're a threat, an opportunity, or nothing at all. Best not to give them an answer either way, until we understand it ourselves."

We turned a corner into a smaller gallery, quieter than the main hall, and I nearly walked straight into two richly dressed nobles deep in conversation, clearly unaware — or unconcerned — that their voices carried further than they intended.

"...simply doesn't make sense," one was saying, an older man with silver threading his dark hair. "The King himself, riding out for border poachers, returns instead with some exiled pack girl in tow? That's not how Cassian operates. He sends soldiers for matters beneath his personal attention."

"Unless it wasn't beneath his attention," the second noble said, a woman with sharp, assessing eyes that flicked briefly toward me before returning to her companion, as though she'd known exactly how far her voice would carry all along. "Which begs the question — why would an exiled Beta's daughter warrant a King's personal intervention?"

"Political maneuvering, perhaps. Or worse." The man's mouth twisted with distaste. "He's always been unconventional. But breaking protocol for an unknown exile, with no bloodline, no alliance to offer? That's reckless, even for him."

Darius's hand found my elbow, steering me firmly past them before I could hear whatever answer the woman offered. My face burned, humiliation and anger tangling together in a way that felt uncomfortably familiar, an echo of the Moon Ceremony I hadn't fully escaped after all, just wearing different faces and grander hallways.

"Don't," Darius said quietly, once we'd rounded another corner, out of earshot.

"Don't what?"

"Let them see it land." His voice stayed even, steady. "Whatever they say, however they say it. The moment they see it wound you, they'll keep aiming for the same spot."

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one they're discussing like a political inconvenience."

"No," he agreed. "But I've spent a long time being discussed like something worse. Mercenary, killer, a man not fit for polite company. Court gossip doesn't stop just because you ignore it. It just finds fewer places to land."

I didn't have a response for that, not really, so I let the silence sit between us until we reached the small courtyard garden Darius seemed to favor for these walks, quiet and mostly empty at this hour.

"I need a moment," I said, gesturing toward a stone bench near a small reflecting pool. "Alone, if that's allowed."

"I'll be at the gate." He nodded toward the archway behind us, close enough to hear if I called out, far enough to grant the illusion of privacy. "Take your time."

I sat by the water's edge once he'd gone, letting the quiet settle over me, trying to shake loose the nobles' voices still echoing in my head. Reckless, even for him. No bloodline, no alliance to offer.

I leaned forward slightly, studying my own reflection in the still water beneath the morning light — tired eyes, silver-black hair still slightly tangled from weeks of travel, the same face I'd worn my entire life.

Then, for just a heartbeat, my reflection's eyes weren't pale gold at all.

They blazed pure, molten gold, bright enough to look almost lit from within, before fading back to normal so quickly I nearly convinced myself I'd imagined it.

I froze, heart hammering, staring at my own trembling reflection in the water.

"That wasn't nothing," I whispered to myself, voice shaking. "That was not nothing at all."