The Cousin at the Window

CHAPTER 8

RHAELEN’S POV

The council chamber was a long room of gray stone on the second floor of the keep, with narrow windows that let in only a thin, cold light. Nine elders sat on either side of the heavy oak table, their dark robes pulled tight around their shoulders. Every one of them watched me walk in as if I were a problem they had been discussing all night.

I had not slept. After Maelora left my study, I had sent two guards to stand outside her laboratory and two more to the cell of the kitchen servant, who was still burning with fever and could not speak a single word.

Orren had brought me a report an hour before dawn. No one had entered the laboratory, and the lock showed no sign of being forced.

I took my seat at the head of the table. The headache that had stayed away since the girl touched my hand was slowly coming back.

“Say what you came to say,” I told them.

Elder Corvin rose from his chair. He was the oldest man on the council, thin and white-haired, with sharp gray eyes that had watched three Alphas come and go. “Your Majesty, the council has gathered early because this matter cannot wait. The Veyrden pack has made a fool of your throne.”

“I was present for the ceremony, Corvin.”

“Then you saw it for yourself. The contract named Lady Selene, and they sent an adopted girl in her place. Then they fled this fortress before the ink on the ceremony scroll was dry. They did not even have the courage to stay and answer for it.”

Elder Brannock leaned forward on the other side of the table. “It is common knowledge in Veyrden territory that the girl has no wolf at all. A wolfless orphan cannot stand beside an Alpha King, and every pack along the border will laugh at us when they hear of it.”

My hand tightened on the arm of my chair. Wolfless. I thought of the girl standing at my left side with her fingers wrapped around mine, and I wondered how a woman with no wolf could have known what to say to me.

That did not explain anything, and it only made me more suspicious of her.

“We ask that Your Majesty sign the annulment decree today,” Corvin continued. “The Veyrdens should be told that the alliance is broken, and their grain tariffs should be doubled as payment for the insult. There are other packs with daughters of good blood who would be honored to take her place.”

“The law gives the council one month from the sealing of a marriage contract,” I said coldly. “I will not break it simply because the Veyrdens broke theirs.”

A few of the elders exchanged glances. Corvin’s eyes narrowed. “Two nights ago, Your Majesty told your Beta that you would not keep a replacement bride.”

“I said many things in anger.”

I could not have explained why I answered him that way, and that bothered me more than anything the elders had said. Two nights ago, I would have signed the decree without reading it. Now I sat there with a pounding head, defending a marriage I had not wanted, for no reason I could name.

The doors at the end of the chamber opened before Corvin could reply. A guard stepped inside and bowed. “Lord Varek Draevor, Your Majesty.”

Every elder at the table rose to their feet. The man who walked in was tall and broad-shouldered, with light brown hair and a dark green traveling cloak that still had snow melting on the shoulders. He had an easy, open face, the kind that made strangers trust him the moment he smiled, and he was smiling now.

“Cousin,” Varek said, bowing deeply. “Forgive me for arriving unannounced. I was on the northern road when I heard there had been trouble at the fortress, and I rode through the night.”

I had not seen him in four years. He was a distant member of the royal bloodline, a cousin through my grandfather’s brother, and he had sent me a letter every winter since I took the throne. I had never answered a single one. Yet he was the only relative I had who had never looked at me as if I might tear out his throat.

“Trouble,” I repeated. “The wedding was a public affair, cousin. Half the territory heard about it.”

“Of course.” Varek’s smile did not change, but he lowered his voice. “Though the innkeepers along the road were talking about something else, a poisoning, I think. I told myself it was only a rumor, but I could not stay away.”

The room went completely silent. Only Orren, Maelora, and the guards at my door knew about the silver, and I had not told the council. I looked at the elders, then at the guard still standing by the door, and I decided that servants talked, and that a rumor could travel faster than a king’s temper.

“It was only a rumor,” I said.

“Then I am relieved.” Varek bowed again. “But if I may, I have forty riders waiting at your gate. Let them guard the kitchens and the healer’s laboratory, and let me help you find whoever started such a story. You should not have to carry this alone.”

“My own men are sufficient.”

“Then at least let me sit beside you at the council this month, as family.” He turned to the elders with a warm, humble look, and several of them nodded at once. Corvin even smiled.

I disliked how easily the whole room had turned toward him, but I could not find a reason to refuse. “You may stay until the council votes,” I said at last. “Corvin, we are finished for today.”

The elders rose and filed out of the chamber, murmuring among themselves. Varek waited beside the door until I reached him, then fell into step at my side.

“Walk with me, cousin,” he said pleasantly. “It has been too long, and I would like to hear how you have been.”

We walked down the long corridor on the ground floor of the keep, where tall arched windows looked out over the walled garden at the foot of the eastern tower. Varek talked easily about the roads, the snow in the northern passes, and a pack of rogues he had driven out of his lands in the autumn. I answered him in short words and heard about half of what he said.

Halfway down the corridor, a faint breeze came through one of the open windows. The pounding in my head stopped all at once, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off my skull, and the scent of wild mountain rain and crushed sweet herbs drifted past me in the cold air.

I stopped walking. Varek was still talking, but I could no longer follow the words.

Below the window, a girl in a plain dark blue dress was walking slowly along the frozen garden path, with two guards a few steps behind her. She stopped beside a bed of dead roses and touched one brown petal with her fingertip. The wind caught a loose strand of her hair and pulled it across her face.

I stepped away from the window. It was the curse, I told myself. It was only another trick of my senses, and I would not stand in a corridor staring at a servant girl while my cousin waited for an answer.

“Forgive me,” I said, and my voice sounded rougher than I intended. “I have matters to settle with my Beta. You may stay in the east guest wing, and the steward will see that you are fed.”

“You are very kind, cousin.”

I walked on down the corridor without waiting for more. At the end, beside the stairs, I stopped and turned back to tell him the hour of the evening meal.

Varek had not followed me. He was still standing at the window, one hand resting on the stone sill, looking down into the garden.

He was not looking at the roses or the frozen paths. He was looking at her, and he was smiling like a man who had just found something he had been searching for.