Chapter 6 : What The Crown Does

Luca

I hadn't even reached my rooms when someone called my name.

"Prince Luca."

I turned. Councilor Hale stood alone at the end of the corridor — and that was the first thing that struck me, that he was alone. The second was that he wasn't glancing toward the guards the way people usually did before saying something they shouldn't.

"May I speak with you?"

"About the meeting?"

His mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. "Not here."

I understood well enough. "Come."

I led him into the small study beside my chambers and shut the door behind us. He stayed standing, hands folded, waiting for me to ask.

"Well?"

He held my gaze for a moment before he spoke. "I wanted you to know that not everyone on the council agrees with the King."

I said nothing, and he took that as permission to continue.

"I believe you would make a capable ruler."

The words should have pleased me. Instead they sat uneasily in my chest, heavier than a compliment had any right to be.

"My sister is the heir."

"For now."

I looked at him, waiting for him to flinch or soften it. He didn't. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"

"Nothing." The answer came too fast to be entirely honest. "I only wanted you to know that if the question of succession is reopened, you would have support."

"Whose?"

He allowed himself the faintest smile. "You'll know when the time comes."

Then he left, and I stood alone in the study for a long while afterward. For the first time in my life, someone had spoken to me as though the crown were already mine to lose rather than something permanently out of reach. I hadn't expected what that would feel like. It wasn't pride, or not entirely. It was something more dangerous than pride.

It was possibility.

I had spent my whole life preparing for a throne everyone assured me I could never touch, learning the treaties and the bloodlines and the ceremony of a crown that would never sit on my head. Now a man I barely trusted was telling me it might.

A knock came at the door, and Angelina let herself in before I could answer. One look at my face was all it took.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

She shut the door behind her anyway. "Luca."

I smiled despite myself. "You know me too well."

"I do." She crossed the room toward me. "Tell me."

I sat down heavily. "A councilor came to see me."

Her expression shifted, sharpening. "Already?"

"He said he supports me."

She went quiet for a moment, then sat beside me and took my hand in both of hers. "And how does that make you feel?"

"I don't know."

"You've wanted this your entire life."

"I know."

"But?"

I looked toward the window instead of at her. "Evelyn is fighting for me to have it. Father is fighting to make sure I never do. And now people are coming to me privately, like I'm already a piece on the board."

Her fingers tightened around mine. "Because they think you might actually win."

"Do you think I can?"

She didn't answer right away. She moved closer instead, until there was no space left between the question and her.

"You could."

Two words. They landed harder than I'd expected them to.

I looked down at our joined hands. "I don't want to lose Evelyn over this."

"You won't."

"What if it changes us?"

She turned my face toward hers, gentle but insistent. "You're still her brother, Luca. That doesn't change because a councilor decided to whisper in a hallway."

"And if I become King?"

"You'll still be the man who steals every blanket in this palace given half the chance."

I laughed, and it surprised me — the first real laugh since Hale had said my name in that corridor.

"Titles don't change everything," she said.

"No?"

"No." She kissed my forehead, soft and certain. "But people will."

She was right, and I could already feel it happening — in the way Hale had spoken to me, in the way people's eyes had followed me a beat too long after the council meeting ended. Yesterday I had been Evelyn's adopted brother, unremarkable, safe. Today I was suddenly a possible King, and I couldn't pretend the words hadn't done something to me when I heard them.

I wanted the throne. I had always wanted it, quietly, in the part of myself I never let anyone see. But wanting it had never felt dangerous before. It did now, because Evelyn wanted to hand it to me freely, and our father was willing to go to war with his own daughter to keep it out of my hands.

I stood. "I need to think."

Angelina nodded and let me go, but she caught my hand once more before I reached the door. "Then think. But don't let them make you forget who you are."

"I won't," I told her.

I meant it. At least, I did in that moment.

---

**Evelyn**

I found Garret in the library, which surprised no one, least of all me. Where else would a scholar hide.

He sat near one of the tall windows with a book open on his knee, and I stood there for a moment before he noticed me at all. When he finally looked up, he smiled like I'd interrupted something he was glad to have interrupted.

"You found me."

"I wasn't looking very hard."

"That hurts."

"You're sitting in a library at midday. It wasn't exactly a manhunt."

He closed the book, conceding the point. "Fair."

I crossed the room toward him. "What are you reading?"

He held it up. "Treaty disputes between the northern packs."

"That's what you read for fun?"

"No."

"Good."

"I read worse things for fun."

I laughed, and something in his face softened when I did, his eyes moving over mine like he was checking for damage. "You look tired."

"I've had a morning."

"I heard."

"You heard?"

"The palace has walls, Evelyn. It doesn't have miracles." A small, knowing smile. "Word travels regardless."

"Fair enough."

He shifted over to make room on the bench, and I sat without needing to be asked twice. For a moment neither of us said anything, and it wasn't uncomfortable — which surprised me more than it should have. Yesterday I'd barely known his name. Today, sitting beside him felt strangely easy, like a habit I'd simply never had the chance to form yet.

"You survived the council," he said.

"Barely."

"I thought your father was going to have you removed."

"He considered it."

Garret laughed, low and genuine. I glanced sideways at him. "You enjoyed watching me argue."

"I enjoyed watching you argue with men twice your age and twice your experience and win anyway."

"That sounds suspiciously like a compliment."

"It was one."

I smiled, and then I remembered why the morning had actually been difficult, and the smile faded. "Luca's being approached."

His expression changed instantly. "Luca?"

"Privately. Already."

He understood without needing it explained further. "That was always going to happen."

"I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Because yesterday no one wanted to so much as mention changing the succession out loud. And today everyone suddenly has an opinion they're eager to share behind closed doors."

"That's politics, Evelyn."

"I hate politics."

"Unfortunate," he said, "given where you're headed."

"Why."

"Because you're going to be Queen."

I groaned and let my head fall back against the window frame, and he laughed at my expense without a shred of guilt.

Without quite deciding to, I let my head drop sideways onto his shoulder. I realized what I'd done a beat too late and started to pull back — but his hand caught mine before I could.

"You don't have to move," he said.

I looked at him. He didn't make it strange. Didn't tease me for it, didn't ask what it meant. He simply held my hand and let me stay where I was.

"I'm still getting used to this," I admitted.

"So am I."

"The bond?"

"The fact that you're real."

I laughed softly. "That's a strange thing to say to someone."

"I've spent years imagining what my mate might be like. Building her out of guesses."

"And?"

He looked at me properly then. "I was wrong about all of it."

I raised an eyebrow. "Good wrong or bad wrong?"

"Much better than anything I imagined."

I smiled and let my head settle back against his shoulder, and for the first time all day I wasn't thinking about the throne, or the council, or bloodlines and succession and the war quietly building itself in my own family. I was only thinking about Garret — my mate, who had walked into my life a matter of days ago and somehow already felt like something I'd had for years.