Chapter 9

Adrian's POV

The King made me Lord Marshal of the North in front of the whole court. It was an honor more than a command, but it came with a house on the river, an estate below the Saltmarsh and a procession of chests that the palace stewards carried into Duskmere all afternoon while my mother stood in the hall and counted them.

By evening I had shaken so many hands that mine ached. In the Ashlands a man told you to your face that he wanted your horse. In Silverkeep they bowed and praised my courage and asked after my father's health, and I could hear their hearts quicken whenever my eyes passed over their daughters.

I went back to my rooms to change and found two maids waiting there, in new ribbons, with their hair brushed loose.

"The Luna sent us, my lord, to see to anything you need."

"I need you to go back to her," I said. "There must be work in the kitchens."

They went red to the ears and fled. My mother came in five minutes later, as I had known she would.

"If those two don't please you, darling, we needn't speak of them again." She shut the door behind her. "But you can't go on alone. You should be thinking of a new binding, and soon. A girl with a good Pack behind her."

I kept my back to her and went on unbuckling my sword belt. "I've just lost a mate, Mother."

"You lost nothing. You released her, and she's no concern of ours, alive or dead. I gave her rites because I pitied her, not because she was owed them." She came closer. "That girl had no mother to teach her and no breeding to hold her. Look how near she came to dragging your name through the mud. A daughter of a proper house is another thing entirely."

I thought of the girl at the moonstone with her shaking hands. In my tent on the border I used to plan what I would say to her when I came home. I had meant to be kind. I had meant to learn what she liked to eat.

"A widower is no one's prize," I said.

"You're no widower. Every Pack in Silverkeep knows she was barren and asked to go. And there's talk at court." She lowered her voice and smiled. "They say the princess has looked at you more than once."

I turned around. "Don't say that again, Mother. Not in this house, not anywhere. If that kind of talk reaches the King, it will do Duskmere more harm than any wolfless girl ever could."

Her smile stayed, but her heart missed a beat.

I bowed and left her there.

* * *

Two days later, coming from the King's audience chamber, I heard my name and turned.

"Lord Marshal." Prince Evander was leaning against a pillar in the long gallery as if he had been waiting there for the light to change. "I never gave you my congratulations properly. On the house. On the land." His tone stayed perfectly polite. "And my condolences. I hear Duskmere released her before she ever took the south road. Hard luck, that."

I listened for his heart. It told me nothing. It beat as slow and even as it had at the bridge.

"Your Highness is kind."

"Not especially." He straightened. "But the King likes you, and I'm curious about anyone the King likes."

He walked off before I could think of an answer that wasn't rude.

Princess Isolde was waiting at the turn of the gallery with two of her ladies a few steps behind her. She was holding a sword tassel of blue and silver silk, and I could tell from the uneven stitching that she had made it herself.

"Lord Adrian. For your new command." She held it out, blushing to the hairline. "So you'll carry something from Silverkeep back to the north."

The ladies had gone very quiet. Down the gallery, Evander had stopped by a window to watch.

I took a step back and kept my hands at my sides.

"Your Highness does me too much honor," I said. "My mate has been dead three weeks."

The color went out of her face all at once. She closed her hand around the tassel and walked past me without a word, and her ladies scurried after her.

When I looked down the gallery, Evander was smiling slightly at the window, like a man who had been given a good seat at a play.

I went down to the yard and stood by my horse. Released first, and then dead on the road. A girl who had waited three years took up with a stable hand the winter before I came home, and then the stable hand was dealt with, and her maids were sold, and the coach was torn apart where no one was left to ask. Every piece had come in the right order. I could send one of my own men to Corran's Gap tomorrow, and he would find something. I held the reins until the leather bit into my palm, and I didn't send him.

* * *

That night at Duskmere, crossing the lower gallery, I met Posy coming up from supper in a little green coat I hadn't seen before. A branch of pear blossom was stitched along the front of it, white petals with pink at the heart, each one so fine it looked painted on.

I crouched in front of her. "Who made you this?"

"Sister Wren did." She touched a petal. "For my birthday. Before she went away." Her chin began to wobble. "I want her to come back."

The nurse behind her had already taken Posy by the hand. "Bedtime, Miss Posy. Come along now."

I watched them go up the stairs. Three years she had lived in this house, an orphan with no wolf, and I had never once asked who was kind to her. Then I went to find my father's steward and asked where Lady Wynne was, because I had not seen her since I came home. Lady Wynne was unwell, he said, and the Luna had ordered that she not be disturbed.

I went out alone to the little rooms on the west side.

The chain was still on the gate. The pear tree had dropped the last of its blossom, and the petals lay rotting on the flags where no one had swept them. I stood outside that lock for a long time, and then I pushed back my sleeve and put my thumb on the half of the vow-cord I had never cut.