The Wife Who Sees

Kael sent them out one at a time.

First Dorian, with a hand on his shoulder and a quiet word I could not hear. Then Isolde, who wiped her face with the heel of her hand and straightened her cloak, and swept out of the anteroom with her chin so high that she looked as if she were balancing a crown on it. The door closed behind her. The lamp hissed. And I was alone with the king.

"Now," said Kael. "The truth."

I was sitting on a hard chair with a cup of water that Rhys had brought, and my hands had finally stopped shaking. I set the cup down. "I told you the truth."

"You told me what you can do. You did not tell me how you came to be able to do it." He crossed the little room and sat on the edge of the table, so close that his knee almost touched mine. "I am not asking for a confession. I am asking for a beginning."

"She was..." I hesitated. "She was more than that. She was a protector. She was sworn to the Veyra family. When the house burned, she carried me out."

His eyes narrowed. "You said you were eight."

"I was."

"A servant carried a clerk's daughter out of a burning noble house?"

"I was visiting," I said weakly.

"Elena."

"I am not lying about the fire." That much was true, so true that the words scraped my throat. "I am not lying about the woman, or the pendant, or the years afterwards. I was a child who survived something terrible, and the woman who saved me taught me to hide."

"And to see."

"The Veyra could see threads. All of them." I drew a slow breath. "It was a gift of their bloodline. The Wardens of the north. They were the guardians of something very old, and they could tell what was true and what was false. That was why the crown wanted them gone."

She had changed her cloak. The fur-lined grey was gone, replaced by a deep black mantle trimmed in iron. Her hair was freshly braided. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but dry, and her face had hardened into a mask so perfect that I could not see through it.

The council sat behind their long table. Ezekiel stood at the end, hands folded. Seraphine lounged on the left in a chair of carved oak, one slim foot swinging idly, watching the proceedings the way one watches a play. When I walked in beside Kael, her gaze lifted to mine and her lips curved in a small, private smile.

"Majesty," said Lord Varek, rising. "The Ironfang envoy has an announcement."

"Then let her make it."

Isolde stepped forward. She did not curtsy. She stood with her feet planted and her hands loose at her sides, and when she spoke, her voice rang off the glass.

"I came to this court," she said, "in good faith. My father sent me with a letter and an olive branch. We have been accused of attacking the king's men in the lower town. We deny it. We have always denied it. And I am here today to tell you that Ironfang has never lifted a hand against the crown."

Dorian Ash had stepped out from the shadow of the pillars. He was pale and unshaven, with his hair standing up in tufts and a rawness in his face that I had never seen. He walked, slowly and unsteadily, across the black marble to the centre of the hall. He did not look at Isolde. He did not look at the council.

He dropped to his knees in front of the king.

"She is right," said the Beta of Valmoor. His voice carried clearly through the silent hall, trembling with the effort of every syllable. "The queen. She is right. The bonds are forged. I felt it. I felt it break."

"Dorian," said Kael, low. "Stand up."

"I cannot." His hands were clenched on his thighs. Sweat ran down his temples. "I have to say it. I have to say it now, while I still can." He lifted his head and looked straight into Kael's eyes. "Majesty, I know who forged mine."