A Warning Under the Door

CHAPTER 7

ISOLDE’S POV

Orren led me down the spiral staircase of the eastern tower and along a narrow stone corridor lit by a single iron torch.

Two guards in dark armor stood on either side of the door at the end of the hallway, their spears crossed in front of the wood. They lowered them when Orren spoke, but both men watched me with cold, suspicious eyes as I walked past, as if I might do something dangerous the moment I stepped inside.

The chamber was much warmer than the little room in the servants’ quarters. A fire was burning in the stone fireplace, and a thick wool blanket lay folded across a wide bed with a carved wooden frame.

There was a small desk beneath the window, a washing basin filled with warm water, and a heavy rug that kept the chill from rising through the stone floor. It was plain, but after the damp dust and old stone of the servants’ quarters, it felt almost like a home.

Orren closed the door behind us, but a moment later there was a knock, and one of the guards passed in a leather traveling bag. Orren set it on the bed, and I stared at it. It was the same bag the servants had taken from me.

“I thought you might want your things,” he said. “I sent word while we were on the stairs. The servants had no right to keep them.”

“They told me everything belonged to the palace now.”

“They were mistaken.” He paused, his expression stiff, as if he was not used to explaining himself to anyone. “The wife of the King does not scrub floors in a servant’s tunic. I do not think His Majesty will object.”

I opened the bag. My spare dresses were still folded inside, along with my hairbrush. Only the white dress I had worn during the journey was missing.

The communication stone was safe in the pocket of my tunic, where I had hidden it before the servants came, and I kept my hand away from it so Orren would not look in that direction.

“Before I leave, I must tell you the terms,” Orren said, folding his hands behind his back. “The council will meet at the end of the month to decide whether the marriage stands. Until then, you will remain in this tower, and you will not leave this chamber without me or two guards at your side. If the King has a question for you, you will answer it, and you will answer it truthfully.”

“And if I don’t?”

Orren looked directly at me for the first time since we had entered the room. “The King has hanged men for smaller lies, Lady Isolde. If he catches you in one, he will treat you as an enemy of the crown, and I will not be able to stop him.”

My stomach turned cold.

I thought of everything I had already told Rhaelen in his study, about the smell of the bottle and the guard at the gate. The words had come out of my mouth so easily, because the truth was impossible to say aloud. Who would believe that the voice of the King’s own wolf had told me everything?

“For what it is worth,” Orren added, reaching for the door, “I heard what you did tonight from the guards who were in the room. I do not understand it, and I do not trust what I do not understand. But that man would be dead if you had not stepped forward.”

He left before I could answer. I heard the key turn in the lock, and then the quiet scrape of the guards’ spears settling back into place.

I washed my face in the warm water and changed into one of my own dresses, a plain dark blue one that had been my favorite back in the Veyrden house.

Then I slipped the communication stone out of my tunic and buried it at the bottom of the bag, beneath my spare clothes. I sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace, pulling the blanket around my shoulders, and stared into the flames until my eyes began to burn.

When the room was completely silent, I closed my eyes and tried, as carefully as I could, to reach for the voice.

Are you there? I whispered inside my mind.

Nothing answered.

I tried again, and again, until my head began to ache. There was only the crackling of the fire and the faint whistle of the wind against the window.

For eighteen years, everyone in the Veyrden pack had told me I was wolfless, from the elders down to the youngest child, and I had believed it so completely that I had stopped feeling its sting.

A wolfless woman could not hear another wolf. Yet I had heard one several times now, once in a hall full of screaming elders and again in a locked room where no one else could possibly have been.

It had told me where to stand, what to say, and how to stop the most dangerous man in the kingdom from killing an innocent servant. Now that it had gone quiet, the silence inside my head felt much heavier than the silence in the room.

Perhaps I had imagined all of it. Perhaps grief and exhaustion had finally broken something in my mind. But if that was true, then how had I known about the silver?

I did not fall asleep until the sky outside the window had begun to turn gray.

A faint blue light woke me a short while later. It was glowing through the fabric of my bag, and the stone inside was buzzing against my spare clothes. I knew who it was before I even touched it.

I dug it out and pressed my thumb against the surface, and the light turned solid.

“Isolde.” Caeldric’s voice came through the stone, low and sharp. “My father wants to know where things stand. Has the King accepted the marriage?”

I sat up and pulled the blanket around my shoulders. “Good morning to you too.”

“Don’t be clever with me. The elders sent word from the road, and they say Rhaelen refused you in front of the whole hall. My father is furious. He wants to know whether the King means to punish us for it.”

“The marriage hasn’t been canceled yet,” I said quietly. “Someone tried to poison the King last night. There are guards outside my door because nobody knows who to trust, and I happened to be standing in the room.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the stone. “Then you are in the middle of something that could drag all of us down with you.”

“I didn’t ask to be in the middle of anything.”

“Listen to me carefully.” His voice softened into the gentle, comforting tone he had always used whenever I was upset. “If Rhaelen believes you were sent as a spy, he will blame the Veyrdens, and you know what he will do to us. You have to make him trust you. Stay close to him, be kind to him, and make him need you. I don’t care how you do it, but he cannot doubt you.”

I gripped the stone so tightly that my knuckles turned white. “He told an entire hall that he does not take leftovers, Caeldric. I was standing right there.”

“Then change his mind. You have always been so good at making people care about you, Isolde. Use that.”

I had heard that warm, gentle voice a thousand times in my life, and it had always made me feel safe. Now it sounded like a stranger trying to sell me something. He had known exactly how much I wanted to be cared for, and he was holding it up in front of me like a tool.

“Where are my papers?” I asked.

“What?”

“The transfer of my inheritance. The release from the pack. You promised both of them to me.”

“Those will be finished once the King is secure in his trust of you. I told you that.”

“You told me my debt would be paid once I completed the marriage,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “You never said anything about making the King love me.”

“Don’t be difficult. This is for the pack.”

“I am finished doing things for the pack.” I took a slow breath, forcing the anger down into my chest. “Don’t call me again unless you have my papers in your hand.”

“Isolde, wait...”

I pressed my thumb against the stone until the blue light faded and it became nothing more than a dull gray rock in my palm.

For a long moment, I sat completely still, listening to my heart pounding in my ears. Part of me wanted to cry, but I was tired of crying over people who had never once cried over me. I wiped my face with the edge of the blanket and stood up.

If the Veyrdens would not give me what was mine, and the King might hang me for a single lie, then there was only one way to protect my freedom and my head. I had to find out who had put silver in Rhaelen’s medicine before the council met.

Later that morning, the guards unlocked my door and walked me once around the walled garden at the foot of the tower, then locked me in again.

The rest of the morning passed slowly. A young maid with downcast eyes brought me a tray of bread, cheese, and a pitcher of water, and she left without saying a single word.

I ate the bread and cheese because I was too hungry to refuse, and I told myself that nobody would risk poisoning the King’s wife while the whole fortress was on edge. The guards did not speak when I asked for something, and the key turned in the lock every time the door closed.

By the time the gray light outside the window had faded into evening, my stomach was growling. Another maid knocked, set a tray on the desk, and hurried out so quickly that she almost tripped over the rug.

On the tray were roasted chicken, boiled vegetables, and a steaming cup of herbal tea that smelled of chamomile and honey.

I sat down at the desk and lifted the cup in both hands, grateful for the warmth against my cold fingers.

Just as the rim touched my lips, I heard a soft scrape against the floor.

I looked down. A small square of folded paper was sliding under the door.

My heart jumped into my throat. I set the cup down on the desk so carelessly that tea spilled over the edge, then crossed the room and snatched the paper up from the rug. I unfolded it with trembling fingers.

The handwriting was small and neat, but the letters had been written in a hurry.

Don’t drink what they bring you.

I stared at the words until they blurred. Then I looked back at the steaming cup on the desk, at the tea that was still dripping down its side.

Outside the door, I heard quick footsteps hurrying away down the corridor. Neither of the guards said a single word.