Chapter 26: The Sovereign’s Decree

Mistress Brida had spent thirty years ruling the subterranean kitchens of the Obsidian Spire with an iron fist. She feared few things in this world—perhaps only the winter famine and the head seneschal’s audits.

She certainly did not expect two giant Shadow-Guard warriors to appear at the door of her scullery office, their black steel broadswords clanking against their greaves as they barked her name.

"Mistress Brida. You are summoned to the King’s solar. Immediately."

Brida’s heavy face lost all its color. She nearly dropped her brass ring of keys into the lard tub. She smoothed down her greasy apron with trembling, sausage-like fingers, her heart hammering against her ribs as she was escorted up the long, dark stairwells, out of her subterranean kingdom and into the pristine, freezing halls of the royal wing.

When the massive oak doors of King Kael’s private council room groaned open, Brida felt as though she had walked straight into a blizzard.

Kael stood near a high, lancet archway overlooking the icy pass. He had washed away the grime of the road, dressed in a dark tunic of fine charcoal wool and heavy leather. His broad shoulders blocked out half the pale morning light. Beside him stood Commander Torin, holding a leather scroll, his expression unreadable.

Brida dropped to her knees so hard her bones cracked against the floor. "Your Grace! Almighty King Kael! I—I came at once! How may your humble servant serve the Spire?"

Kael didn't turn around immediately. He stared out over the jagged peaks of the Frost-Pike, his hand resting on the pommel of a dark broadsword. The silence in the room was thick, heavy, and suffocating—a atmospheric pressure that made Brida’s head ache.

"Brida," Kael’s voice echoed softly off the vaulted stone. It was low, velvet-rough, and carried an edge sharp enough to draw blood.

"Y-yes, Sire?" she squeaked, keeping her forehead pressed against her knuckles.

"How many scullery maids currently work the lower vaults?"

Brida blinked, stunned by the question. "A—eighty-four, Your Grace. Sixty castle-born, twenty-four taken from the Southern spoils."

Slowly, Kael turned around.

His amber eyes burned with a cold, piercing intensity that pinned Brida to the stone floor. He took three deliberate steps forward, his leather boots making no sound against the thick furs covering the floorboards.

"The girl with the throat scar," Kael said softly. "The mute."

Brida’s breath hitched. A wave of pure panic washed over her. The mute bitch! She thought frantically. What did she do? Did she spill water on the King? Did she look at him? I knew I should have thrown her into the ice cellars!

"Sire!" Brida cried out, her voice cracking with terror. "If that worthless filth offended you, I swear on my life I had no hand in it! She was dumped on us from the Southern supply wagons six weeks ago! She’s useless—can’t speak, can’t answer orders, just scrubs and stares! I will have her beaten and thrown into the chasm this very hour, Sire! She won't plague your sight again!"

"Brida."

The single word cut through her hysterical babbling like a heavy executioner’s axe.

Kael’s aura flared—just a fraction of a degree—but it was enough to knock the air straight out of Brida’s lungs. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees in a single beat.

Kael crouched down, bringing his scarred, stoic face inches from her pale, trembling cheek.

"If so much as a single hair on that girl’s head is harmed," Kael whispered, his voice dark and terrifyingly calm, "I will personally skin you alive and hang your hide from the high parapet. Do you understand me?"

Brida’s eyes went wide as saucers. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't even nod. She stared at the Lycan King in absolute, unadulterated horror.

"Sire?" Torin chimed in from the side, shifting slightly, his own brow furrowed in deep confusion.

Kael didn't break eye contact with the shivering servant woman.

"Listen to me very carefully, Brida," Kael commanded, his amber eyes narrowing into deadly slits. "You will remove her from the lye tubs immediately. You will remove her from the coal carts. She is no longer to touch harsh chemicals or haul heavy loads."

Brida swallowed hard, her throat dry as sand. "Y-yes, Your Grace..."

"You will move her to the quiet pantries in the upper gallery," Kael continued cold and clear. "Tasks that require no heavy lifting. Drying linen. Sorting spice jars. Light work."

He stood up to his full, towering height, looking down at her as if she were dirt beneath his boots.

"Furthermore," Kael added, "she will receive two full meals a day from the guard’s mess—not the swill from the offal buckets. You will fetch a pot of healing ointment from the court apothecary for her hands. If her flesh rots, or if she collapses from exhaustion under your care, I will consider it sabotage against my estate."

Brida’s head was spinning. She felt as though the entire world had been turned upside down. A nameless, mute Southern slave—a piece of garbage dragged out of a war wagon—was being granted protection by the feared Butcher of the Frost-Pike himself?

"Why... if I may ask, Sire..." Brida whimpered, her curiosity momentarily overriding her terror. "Why her?"

Kael turned his back on her, walking back toward the high window, his hands folded behind his back.

"Because a king’s fortress is judged by its order, not its barbarism," Kael said coldly, his voice closing the matter permanently. "I will not have half-dead, infected slaves rotting in my halls while I host foreign envoys. Now get out of my sight."

"At once, Your Grace! At once!" Brida scrambled backward on her knees, bowing repeatedly until she reached the heavy oak doors, practically tumbling out into the corridor.

As the doors slammed shut, Commander Torin stepped closer to his King, his sharp eyes filled with quiet, intense speculation.

"An unusual act of charity, Kael," Torin remarked quietly, dropping the formal title in the privacy of the solar. "She’s just a Southern servant."

Kael stared out at the swirling snow, his hand unconsciously coming up to trace the scar on his own cheek. Deep within his chest, his Lycan beast stirred, letting out a satisfied, possessive rumble that echoed in his mind.

"She isn't just a servant, Torin," Kael murmured, his golden eyes reflecting the icy light of the mountain. "She’s a survivor. And I want to know who tried to kill her."