All Chapters of The Omega's Crown: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

122 Chapters

Healer's Examination

Selene's POVThe healer's hands were cold.He had warned me. He had set out the small cup of warm water beside me on the table. He had taken his rings off. He had washed twice. He had asked me three times whether I was ready.I had said yes three times.Kael was at the window with his back to the room. He had told the healer that if any part of the examination caused me pain, he was to stop immediately. The healer had bowed.Veris set his hand against the inside of my left wrist.He set his other hand on the rejection scar at my collarbone.He closed his eyes.He did not speak for the count of forty.When he opened his eyes, he took his hands off me and stepped back."Sir.""Veris.""I have the analysis.""Tell us both. She is the one in the chair."Veris turned. He came back across the room. He looked at me with the face of a man who had spent forty seconds learning the shape of a thing he had been told existed in books but had not, in thirty-one years of practice, ever read with his

The Morning

Selene's POVThe pendant was on the side table.It was there because he had taken it off me during the night, when the chain had come off the broken clasp and the silver disc had landed on the pillow above my hair. He had picked it up. He had set it down. He had come back to me with both his hands free for what came next.I had been awake for the count of three when I remembered the pendant.I had been awake for the count of seven when I remembered the man.He was beside me.His arm was around my shoulders. His hand was at the side of my throat where the pendant had been. His breath was in my hair. He had been awake for longer than I had.I knew this because the breathing in his chest under my ear was the breathing of a man choosing not to move."Kael.""Yup?""You are awake?""Yes.""How long?""An hour.""You did not move.""No.""Why?""Because you were sleeping on my chest and I had been asked, three years ago, to remember what this felt like, and I had not remembered it correctly

Artifact

Kael's POVThe compulsion artifact had a signature.Riven set it on the desk between us at six in the morning. A small black disc the size of a coin. Old metal. Older than the Cole household by sixty years. He had pulled it out of the south cellar from the body of the assassin who had come through the wall the night Selene had walked into my study in a cream silk dress and the healer's hands had been on her wrist.The assassin had been carrying it in his boot.I had not known until this morning."Show me the signature, Riven."He turned the disc over.The mark at the back was the size of a thumbnail. A small etched coil. Three loops, a half loop, a closing line. The mark was so specific that a man could spend his whole life looking at it and not know what it meant. The mark was also so specific that, if you had spent four hours of the previous day cross-referencing it against the 1873 case file Renick had pulled out of the Council registry, you would know what it meant.I spent four h

Long Answer

Kael's POVShe had been at the wall for two hours.She had not eaten since breakfast. She had not drunk the tea Riven had brought up to my study an hour ago, which was sitting in its small cup at her left elbow, cooling. She had not asked me a question in forty minutes.She had been adding names to the wall.The wall of my study, which had carried military maps of the eastern border for nine years and the seating chart of the Council chamber for the last six months and a list of pack alliances since I had taken the throne, was now carrying a map of a forty-year campaign by a coven of six women, four of whom were still alive, and Selene was the one drawing the lines between them.She had started with Seraphine Cole at the top.She had drawn a line down to Diana.She had drawn a line across to the maker's mark of the disc.She had drawn a line up to the Voss household.She had drawn a line back across to herself, at the center of the map, with a small box around her own name.She had th

The Files

Selene's POVThe file room had no windows.It had three lamps and a low table and seventeen wooden cabinets and a door that locked from the inside, and it had been the Draeven intelligence file room for sixty years, and as of three days ago, it was a room I was allowed to be in alone.Riven had handed me the key at breakfast on the morning Kael had told me about the disc.He had not said anything when he had handed it over. He had set it beside my plate. He had picked up his own tea. He had taken a small sip. He had looked at me across the table for the count of three. He had said:"Take it apart, Luna. I have been waiting nine years for someone to take it apart."I had taken the key.I had been taking it apart since.Three days.Eighty-one hours of paper.I had started with Seraphine Cole's file and moved outward. Every practitioner. The Council registry, 1873 through 1925. Voss-pack incident reports, twenty years. The Cole household correspondence. Seven sealed deposition documents

What it changes

Selene's POVI added her name to the map at dawn.I had not slept. Kael had carried me up the stairs to my own room at midnight with the silver pendant still in his pocket and his hand still in mine, and he had set me down on my bed, and he had asked me whether I wanted him to stay. I had said yes. He had stayed. He had not undressed. He had not touched me. He had sat in the chair beside the bed and watched me lie on my side with my eyes open until four in the morning, when I had finally closed them.I slept for two hours.I woke up at six.He was still in the chair.He had not said anything when I had sat up. He had brought me a cup of tea from the cook's basket, which had appeared outside my door at some point in the night without anyone announcing it, and he had set the tea on the side table, and he had said one thing."What do you need?""My map.""I will bring it."He had brought it.He had set the nine pages on the small writing table in my room. He had pulled the small wooden c

East Wing Kitchen

Selene's POV"She set three places, Kael."I stopped at the doorway.He stopped behind me. His hand went to the small of my back, lightly, with the small specific weight of a man who had decided his hand belonged there.Three places.Not two for me and Kael, the way she had been setting two places in the small dining room every night for the past nine days. Three. Three cups of the autumn pumpkin soup. Three small plates of the soft cheese. Three lemons sliced two and a half ways at the third saucer.The third place was at the head of the table.The cook's place.She had never set herself a place before."Lirien.""I see it.""Are you ready?""No, sweetheart. But I am going anyway."He did not respond.The word had not been in my mouth a single time before. It had walked out of my mouth at the door of an east wing kitchen with three places set, and the man behind me had not breathed for the count of one.I felt him decide not to say anything about it.I felt him decide that the word w

Delegation

Selene's POV"Voss delegation at the gate, Luna. Diana is on his arm."Riven did not knock.He came through the door of my study with the expression of a man who had been hoping he would not have to deliver the sentence he had just delivered, and he stood at the threshold with one hand on the frame, and he waited.I did not stand up.I set the pen down.I looked at the map on the wall in front of me. The map I had spent four days adding to. The map that now had Diana's name in a small circle with the word Sister under it, and Tyler's name beside hers with no annotation at all, because I had not yet decided what Tyler's name needed beside it.I looked at Riven."How long until they reach the courtyard?""Six minutes. The kitchen head has been told. The senior secretary has been told. Sir is on his way down. He has asked me to bring you to the receiving hall.""He has not asked. He has told me.""Yes, Luna.""How angry is he?""Sir is not angry, Luna. Sir is calm. Sir is calm in the way

Sends Away

Kael's POV"Get them out of my Keep by morning!"Riven did not argue.He took the order. He turned. He was at the door before I finished the sentence, because Riven had learned, in nineteen years of standing at my left shoulder, the difference between a command that required discussion and a command that required speed.This was speed.I had given the Voss delegation four hours in the receiving hall, two hours at a formal dinner I had not eaten, and one hour of their diplomatic representative reading a prepared statement about Tyler's state of mind at the bonding ceremony. I had given Diana Cole four hours of watching my wife from across a table with the small satisfied smile she had been wearing since she had walked through my gate.I had given them enough."Sir.""Riven.""The representative has asked to be extended by one day.""No.""He has documents requiring your seal.""He can send them by courier. I want the delegation on the south road by sunrise. Tyler rides with them. Diana

Closer

Selene's POV"You stayed."He looked up from the desk.He had been at the desk since before I had come downstairs, which meant he had left the chair beside my bed at some point between the dawn light and the seven o'clock bell, which meant he had walked down to his study and sat down and opened a file and begun working before the rest of the Keep had woken, which meant he had not slept.He had not slept.He had sat in a chair beside my bed for the entire night and he had not slept and he had not asked to be thanked for it and he had come down to his study before I could wake up and see the empty chair and feel anything about it.I set the coffee on the edge of his desk.He looked at the cup. He looked at me."Yes.""Why?""Because I wanted to."He picked up the cup. His fingers touched mine on the handle. He did not pull them back. I did not pull mine back. We held the cup between us for the count of two, his hand over mine, his thumb against my knuckle, and the bond at the inside of

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