The Pendant in the Drawer

Kael did not say a word.

He did not ask what I had meant. He did not demand to know how I could tell a leashed man from a free one. He only stepped past me, very slowly, and planted himself between my body and the grey-coated man at the post. His shoulders were rigid. His sword hung loose at his side.

"Let them go," he said.

"Majesty?"

"The leashed ones. Every one of them. Let them go, or I will take your head, and then I will find the hand that holds the other end and take that, too."

The man's pleasant smile did not waver. "I do not hold the leash, Majesty. I am only a messenger."

"Then you are a dead one."

"Perhaps." The thin man shrugged. "But I think you will find it difficult to kill us all without hurting people who did not choose this. That is what the lady said, is it not? He is not choosing this." His gaze slid past Kael's shoulder to me. "A very instructive observation."

My stomach turned.

The man raised one hand, palm outward, as though calling for silence. And every grey-cloaked figure in the court went still.

I do not know how to describe what happened next. The soldiers on the dais dropped their weapons. The archers on the benches lowered their crossbows. They turned, as one, like a flock of birds changing direction, and began to walk toward the stairs in a slow, silent, orderly file. They did not look at us. They did not look at one another. Their threads shone silver in the torchlight, and I saw them draw tight and pull, like strings on a marionette.

"Stop them!" Rhys barked.

"No," said Kael.

"Majesty—"

"They are puppets. If we kill them, we kill a hundred innocents. Let them go. Follow them."

It was a good order. It was the right one. But the thin man was already backing toward the shadows behind the post, with his empty hands spread and his smile intact. He ducked through a low arch in the wall, one I had not noticed, and was gone before Dorian could reach it. By the time the Beta dragged the portcullis aside, there was nothing but a narrow, empty tunnel running away into the dark.

"Gone," Dorian panted. "Goddess take him."

"And the others?"

"Up the stair. Rhys has men on them. But they just walk, Majesty. They are not fighting. They are not even looking."

Kael exhaled. Slowly, he sheathed his sword. Then he crossed to the post, cut Mara's bonds with one stroke of his knife, and caught her as she fell.

"I am all right," she mumbled, through a split lip. "I am all right. They did not hurt me. Much."

"What did they want?"

"The letter." Her eyes found mine over the king's arm. They were wide and bright and terrified. "They kept asking about a letter. A letter from a dead woman. They thought I had it."

I kept my face perfectly blank. Against my ribs, hidden in the lining of my bodice, a small silver key pressed cold and hard into my skin.

"Whose letter?" said Kael.

"They did not say."

Dawn came grey and thin.

I sat in the infirmary beside Mara's bed with my hands folded in my lap and watched her sleep. The healer's face was a map of bruises. She had been drugged with something, a mild sedative, to keep her from crying out, and it would be a day before she woke clearly. Someone had set a basin of water and a clean cloth beside the bed, and I had bathed her forehead until the cloth turned warm.

I had not slept at all.

They wanted the letter. They wanted me to reveal myself.

And I had. Not with a name. Not with a crest. But with six words I could never take back, shouted in front of the king.

That bond is forged. He is not choosing this.

The door opened with a soft creak.

"There you are."

It was Dorian. He looked as bad as I felt, unshaven and hollow-eyed, with a bloodstained bandage on his arm. He stood in the doorway for a moment, glancing at Mara's sleeping form with a tenderness he did not bother to hide, and then he came inside and closed the door.

"I thought you should know," he said. "Ironfang's delegation arrived an hour ago."

"Ironfang?"

"They want an audience. They claim to have no knowledge of yesterday's attack in the lower town." He rubbed his eyes. "Their envoy is Lady Isolde Thorne. Alpha Garrick's eldest daughter. She is waiting in the Hall of Moons with a very polite letter and a very large escort."

"Do you believe them?"

"In name only," said Dorian. "It was a political match. Arranged when I was nineteen. We have spoken perhaps a dozen words in twelve years." His brown eyes dropped to Mara, and then slid away. "I would rather not talk about it."

"I am sorry."

"Do not be. It is not your fault." He straightened. "The king has summoned the council for midday. He wants you there."

"Why?"

"I do not know. But he has been in his study since sunrise, and he has not let anyone in." A pause. "I would be careful, my lady."

I did not go to the council. I went to my room first, to change my gown.

I should have known the moment I opened the door.

The room was too tidy. The bed had been made with the corners pulled tight. The shutters had been opened. The curtains drawn back. My trunk, which I had left shoved against the wall, now stood at an angle, as though someone had moved it and put it back in a hurry.

"Looking for something?"

I turned.

Kael was standing in the open doorway.

He was alone.

He had not shaved. His black hair was damp from the washbasin, and he wore a plain grey shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and he held, in one open hand, a small round disc on a cord.

"I searched your room," said the king. "I should apologise. I will not."

"You went through my things."

"You are my wife. You are also a woman who, in the span of four days, has been the target of two assassination attempts, has stopped a captain from killing a prisoner, has healed an iron wound in a single night, and has just shouted a very peculiar sentence at a roomful of enemies." His voice was low and flat. "I did not feel I had a choice."

"I was a child," I said. "I was eight years old. There was a fire. A woman pulled me out of it, and she raised me. She is the one who gave me this, and told me where it came from. That is all I know."

"A woman."

"A servant of the house."

"And did this servant teach you to see what other people cannot?"

The room seemed to tilt.

"Kael..."

"I want the truth." His voice was very soft. "I have been patient. I have been fair. I gave you my name and my bed and my protection. I do not require your love. But I will not be lied to in my own castle by my own wife."

I opened my mouth.

The door at the end of the corridor crashed open.

Heavy boots sounded in the passage, a dozen pairs, perfectly in step. I knew that rhythm. Silver Guard. They stopped outside my door and a single voice, calm and courteous and gentle as a priest's, floated through the open frame.

Ezekiel stepped into view.

He was dressed in his formal pearl-grey robes, with a silver chain at his throat and a sheaf of papers in one hand. Twelve guards flanked him. Behind them, half-hidden in the shadows of the hallway, stood Lord Varek and Lord Hollis, their faces grim.

"My lord adviser," said Kael, very quietly. "I did not summon you."

"No, Majesty. But the council did." Ezekiel's pale eyes flicked to the pendant on the dressing table, and then to me, and something bright and satisfied moved behind them. "I regret to say we have received information of the gravest nature."

"What information?"

"That the queen is not who she claims to be." He bowed his head. "I am afraid, Majesty, that in the name of the throne, we must place her under arrest."