The Truth Kael Wasn't Ready For

The council called it madness.

Lord Varek said so loudly. Lord Hollis said so quietly, which was worse. Ezekiel said nothing at all, but the smile on his face had thinned into something I could not read. Only Kael seemed unbothered. He listened to every objection, nodded once, and said, "Ten minutes. In the east anteroom. Rhys will guard the door."

"With the Ironfang envoy?" Hollis said. "Alone? After yesterday?"

"She will not be alone. She will be with her husband and her king."

It was a masterful answer. It was also an order.

So ten minutes later I found myself standing in a small, bare, windowless chamber off the Hall of Moons, with a single lamp, a plain table and four hard chairs. Dorian leaned against the far wall with his arms folded. Isolde stood near the door in her fur-lined cloak, so rigid that she looked carved from ice. Between them was a gap of ten feet, and the bright, flawless thread that ran across it like a taut wire.

"A forged bond is a counterfeit," I said. "It looks real from a distance. It is bright, and strong, and perfect. But it never changes. It does not flicker, or fade, or shiver. It stays exactly the same, no matter what the two people feel. Like a wire painted silver."

"That is absurd," said Isolde.

"Is it?"

"There is no such thing as a forged bond. The Moon Goddess chooses our mates. It is the oldest law in the world." Her dark eyes flashed. "I do not know what game you are playing, Your Majesty, but I will not stand here and be insulted."

"Lady Isolde." I stepped toward her. "How long have you been married to Dorian Ash?"

A muscle jumped in her cheek. "Twelve years."

"And how many times have you spoken in that time?"

"That is none of your concern."

"A dozen words," said Dorian quietly.

Isolde's head whipped round.

"That is what I told the lady," Dorian said. His face was white. "Twelve years. A dozen words. And I have felt every one of them in my chest like a hook."

I do not know how to describe it. It was like pushing against a very heavy door. It gave a fraction of an inch, and a trickle of cold light ran up my wrist. My knees wobbled. But under the pressure of my hand, the silver wire dimmed. It faded from bright to dull to grey, a faint, thin shadow of itself.

Dorian gasped.

His hands flew to his chest. His eyes went wide. "It is gone," he said hoarsely. "It is... I do not... It is gone. I cannot feel her."

"Isolde?"

"I..." Her face had gone grey. "I do not understand."

"What do you feel?"

"Nothing." She stared at her husband as though seeing him for the first time. "It is quiet. It is so quiet. There is no..." Her breath hitched. "There is no tugging."

"It is only for a moment," I said, through clenched teeth. Sweat ran into my eyes. It was like holding up a boulder with a toothpick. "I cannot keep it up. But tell me. Without the thread. Do you love him?"

"No," said Isolde, instantly, and the word broke out of her like a sob. "No. I have never loved him. I have never even liked him. I hated him from the first day. I hated myself for how much I wanted him near me, and I did not know why." She pressed a hand to her mouth. Tears spilled down her cheeks. "Goddess. I thought I was weak. I thought something was wrong with me."

"I stood by and let it happen. I stood beside you every day and I never—" His breath shuddered. "I was nineteen. They told me it was an honour. They told me the pack needed it. I did not ask questions."

"You were a boy." Kael's grip tightened. "It is not your fault."

"Whose fault is it?"

The question hung in the air.

Kael did not answer. He looked at Isolde, at her tear-streaked face and her trembling hands, and then at me. And I saw it all happen behind his eyes: the shock, the fury, the beginnings of a terrible understanding.

"You are saying this is not the only one," he said.

"No."

"How many?"

"I do not know." My voice was hoarse. "I counted three in the Hall of Moons the night of the wedding. Another at the council. The assassin. The old taster. Dozens of men in the Lower Court. It is everywhere, Kael. It is in the pack, and the council, and the court. I think it has been here for a very long time."

He stood in the lamplight with his arms hanging at his sides, a tall, dark, battered man with a crown he did not want and a throne he could not leave. He had defended me in front of the council. He had risked everything on one hour of my time. And he was asking, in a voice so quiet that I almost did not hear it, whether the Goddess had ever sent him a thread.

"You have none," I said.

He closed his eyes.

"I am sorry. I looked the first day, when you took my hand. I looked again the night of the mark. There is nothing. No bond to your Beta, no bond to your guards. Not even the faintest trace of a mate." My heart hurt. "But Kael, listen to me."

"Do not."

"It is not because the Goddess is silent."

His eyes snapped open.

"I do not know what it is," I said. "But I know what silence looks like. I have seen it in the dead. It is an absence. A dark space where the thread should be." I took a shaking breath. "You are not dark. You are not empty. You are something else. Something I have never seen. And I think someone has been hiding it from you for a very long time."