บททั้งหมดของ The King's Second Heart : บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

Elowen did not know what was happening to her. She would not know for many days yet. She felt only that something inside her — something that had been with her for four years, riding her shoulders, pressing on her ribs, drinking her warmth, eating her sleep — let go all at once and left. It went out of her like a long held breath. It went out of her so fast and so completely that for one terrible second she thought she was going to fall through the floor of the world.She did not know that she had been carrying four years of his sin for him.She did not know that the small dark cord of the marriage bond had been a leash, and that the leash had been used by his own sickness to bleed off into her body every cruel and faithless thing he had done in the four years he had been her husband, so that he could keep his strength and his Alpha-shine and his easy laugh while she got the bruises and the fevers and the nightmares.She did not know that the binding word he had just spoken had cut th

His witches had begun to feel the dark thing in the kingdom's western packs two years ago. The two women in the blue robes riding behind the king right now had been quietly walking the pattern of the dark thing for those two years, the way you walk the pattern of a snake-track in long grass, and six months ago they had told their king that the pattern came back, every time, to the Alpha of Ironbough, and the king had asked them very calmly whether they were sure, and they had said sure enough that the king might want to ride out himself, and the king had said fine then, and he had begun to make the small careful preparations for a personal ride into the western packs that nobody but the king and his Beta and his witches had been told about.The king had ridden out of the capital five days ago with his small careful escort and no banner. He had ridden the western road. He had timed his arrival for the morning of the autumn festival because the morning of the autumn festival was the one

The king carried her back across the courtyard to his horse.He did not speak again. He did not look at the platform of the high table. He did not look at the high table's broken Alpha. He did not look at the woman in the red gown beside the broken Alpha. He did not look at the pack-folk of Ironbough standing in their festival best and staring at him with their mouths half-open. He looked only at the small thin face in the crook of his arm, and he walked the length of the courtyard at the same slow careful walk a man uses when he is carrying something he is afraid he is going to drop.He reached the great black war-horse.He did not hand the woman in his arms to one of his men. He did not lay her across the saddle and mount behind her. He mounted with her cradled — one careful long movement, the way a horseman mounts when he is holding a sleeping child, and the great black war-horse held perfectly still under him because the great black war-horse had been trained for many years to kno

Some of them were beginning to look at each other now in the slow uncertain way pack-folk look at each other when they are being told a story they are not yet sure they are required to believe.Selene kept going."The autumn festival of Ironbough Pack will continue. The Alpha will rest. The high table will be cleared and the music will resume in one hour. The Luna of this pack — the Luna who was — has been taken into the king's personal care, and we wish her safe travel and a kind recovery, and we will not speak of her any more from this morning forward except in the small kind prayers of those who knew her best."She paused."By the next full moon, this pack will have a new Luna. I will be your Luna. The Alpha and I have spoken of this for some time and our intentions had been to make the announcement at the high table this morning before the king's visit interrupted the proceedings. The announcement has not changed. The Alpha and I will be bonded under pack-rite at the next full moo

After a long time, the older of the two witches walked across the clearing to him with a small wooden bowl in her hands.She knelt very carefully in the cold leaf-litter beside him."My king."He looked at her. It was the first time his face had turned for anyone since the courtyard."Mistress Yael.""My king — broth. From the supper pot. It is warm. May I?"He hesitated.He hesitated for the count of one slow breath. Then he tipped his chin in the smallest possible nod of assent, and the witch Mistress Yael leaned forward across his knees with the small wooden bowl and the small clean cloth she had brought from the cooking fire, and she dipped the cloth in the warm broth, and she very gently — very gently, with the careful tender hands of a woman who had been a healer's daughter before she had been a king's witch — pressed the broth-soaked cloth to Elowen Vayne's lips.Elowen, in the king's arms, did not stir.But after a moment, in the small private way the body knows to do things e