Chapter 8

Wren's POV

My hands went cold on the blanket. "Did he see you?"

"No, my lady, no." Briar shook her head hard. "I was across the square by the chandler's. He rode past with half the city running after him. He looked..." She hesitated. "He didn't look like a man the King had just honored. He looked like he had a stone in his boot."

I made myself sit back. It was foolish, the way my body had answered his name, as if it still belonged to Duskmere.

"How he looks is nothing to do with me."

"I only meant—"

"What did you mean, Briar? That he's sorry? That he's going to ride out to Little Fallow and find the barren wife he hardly knew, who lay with a stable boy and died at Corran's Gap?" My voice had gone colder than I meant it to. "He's the Luna's son. Whatever he looks like, he believes what she told him."

Briar's eyes filled. She looked down at her lap.

I let out a long breath and reached for her hand. "Don't talk about him again. That's all. What matters now is bread and a roof, and getting this one born."

She nodded and wiped her face with the heel of her hand. Then she untied her bundle and shook out a length of soft undyed cotton.

"I bought it with the egg money," she said shyly. "It isn't fine, but it won't scratch. I thought we could start on some little shifts."

I rubbed the cloth between my fingers. It was soft. I thought about how small a newborn's shift was, and I had to look at the window for a moment before I said, "Thread the needle, then. We've a lot to do."

* * *

Evander's POV

The players in my water garden were halfway through the second act when Isolde gave up pretending to watch them and tugged at my sleeve.

"Evander. You rode in with him yesterday." Her cheeks were already pink. "What is Adrian Vale like?"

"Why should it matter to you what he's like?"

"You know why." She twisted her fan in her lap and dropped her voice. "I saw him at the palace this morning, coming out of Father's study. He isn't like the boys Mother keeps pushing at me. He doesn't talk to hear himself."

"He has a war record my father admires," I said. "He's also bound to a mate. Had you forgotten?"

"Bound!" She sat up. "To a wolfless barracks orphan whose grandfather threw himself in front of a claw so his family could collect on it. Everyone knows Duskmere only took her out of obligation. And she knew she wasn't fit for him. She couldn't even give him pups. She asked to be released, and then the coach taking her south was torn to pieces by rogues at Corran's Gap. They never even found her. The Duskmere Luna paid for the rites herself." She drew breath. "Hadn't you heard?"

I set my cup down. "You know a great deal about it."

Her heartbeat stuttered and picked up. She looked at the stage.

"Everyone knows," she said. "You're the only one who sits in this house watching plays."

I didn't press her. A girl of her age doesn't learn the private shame of a Pack's heir by listening at court; someone had told her, someone from Duskmere. A wolfless wife who waited three years to admit she was barren. A Rejection, and a convenient death on the road the very next day, with Duskmere praised for its generosity. And now the same family was setting its sights on my father's favorite daughter.

It was all very tidy. I had never trusted tidy stories.

"The play's ending," I said.

Isolde looked at the stage, where the players were bowing, and at me, and decided not to push her luck. When she had gone, I stayed by the rail and watched the carp nose at the lilies, and I thought I might have someone look into the dead girl's last weeks at Duskmere when I had time.

Theo came along the path at a half run. "Your Highness. Word from the palace. His Majesty wants you tomorrow morning." He swallowed. "His chamberlain says it's about a marriage."

* * *

My father received me in his small study, without his crown, in the gray coat he wore when he wanted me to think of him as an ordinary father.

"You're twenty-seven next month," he said. "Your brothers had pups in the nursery at your age. Lady Sabine has a niece, Celia. Gentle, well taught, pretty enough. I could settle it this week."

I kept my eyes respectful and my voice mild. "I'm in no hurry, Father."

He laughed. "No hurry. Your mother hasn't slept for worrying about you. Is there no one at all?"

So I lied to him.

I let a moment pass, as a man does when he isn't sure he should speak. "There is someone. Last winter, when they hit us on the south road, I was hurt worse than I let you know. A woman in the Lakelands took me in and nursed me. We were together some weeks." I looked at the floor. "She is carrying my pup. When she learned who I was, she wouldn't come to court as a second consort, and she wouldn't be shamed as a prince's mistress. She left the token I gave her and disappeared. I've had men looking ever since."

My father's face went through gladness to fury in the space of a breath. "A pup of the royal blood, hidden in some lake village? Why wasn't I told?"

"I thought I could bring her round."

He studied me a long time. Then his anger went out of him.

"The match with Celia waits," he said. "Find this woman. Find her, and bring her to me. If she bears you a son, she'll have the rank of consort, and I'll hear no more about it."

I bowed and went out into the sun on the palace steps, rather pleased with myself. It was a good story. It would hold the court off for a year.

Then, out of nowhere, something else came up through it.

A thin shoulder under my hand in the dark. A woman crying very quietly, trying not to. And a scent I had never found anywhere since, though I had walked into every perfumer's shop in Silverkeep looking for it, rain on wild orchids, cool and faintly sweet.

That was the Longest Night. There had been an ambush, a blow to the head, and then three days I had never been able to account for, until my guards found me half frozen in an alley in the snow. The physicians blamed the head wound.

I stood on the palace steps in full sun, and for a moment I could smell rain.