All Chapters of Carrying His Claim: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Kieran found Selene that same afternoon, finally, after weeks of circling the conversation both of them had clearly understood was owed and neither had quite managed to have properly. He told me himself, standing in the doorway of my room with the particular grim resolve of a man about to do something necessary and dreaded in equal measure. He'd dressed more carefully than usual for a conversation happening entirely within his own household, and I understood, watching him straighten his collar unnecessarily, that some part of him was treating this with the same weight he'd bring to a formal Council session."I need to speak with her alone," he said. "Properly, this time. Not a hallway exchange after a feast. Not something either of us can retreat from halfway through.""Of course.""I don't know how long it will take." He hesitated, something uncertain crossing his face that I rarely saw from him anymore. "I don't know what she'll want to say to me, or what I'll owe her in return for

Selene asked me to sit with her while she wrote it, two days later, in a request that surprised me more than almost anything else she'd said since our conversation in my room. She found me in the library that afternoon, a single sheet of pack stationery already tucked beneath her arm, and simply asked if I'd mind keeping her company while she finally put the words down. This wasn't the same letter she'd sent weeks earlier, before any of this had become public knowledge inside these walls — that one, she'd told me once, had been careful and general, the kind of letter meant to prepare rather than fully explain. This one carried the actual weight of everything the mark had since confirmed, and I understood, watching her settle at the desk, why she'd wanted company for it in a way she hadn't for the first."You don't have to read it," she said, settling at the small writing desk near the window. "I'd actually rather you didn't, if I'm honest — some of what needs saying is mine to say to

I learned about the visit from Dessa, the way I learned about most things happening in corners of the compound I didn't have natural access to — offered casually, over the kitchen's mid-morning lull, without any particular weight attached to the telling. I'd come down for tea, restless after another morning of trying and failing to settle into anything productive, and found her elbow-deep in bread dough, chatting easily the way she always did when her hands were busy with something else."Selene spent most of yesterday afternoon with Elder Osric," she said, sliding a plate of fruit across the counter toward me with the same easy care she always showed lately, given how carefully everyone in this household now monitored what I ate. "In the archives, apparently. Old records room, the one with all the pack law precedent going back generations.""That sounds like dry work for an afternoon.""Apparently she wanted to understand the historical precedent better. Succession disputes, old cont

Ottilie's expression shifted partway through my checkup that week, the same careful, clinical stillness I'd come to recognize as her version of alarm, and I felt my own pulse quicken in response before she'd said a single word about what she'd found. I'd noticed, walking into the healer's wing that morning, a particular heaviness in my own steps I'd been attributing simply to the pregnancy's advancing weight rather than anything worth mentioning."Your blood pressure's elevated," she said, unwrapping the cuff from my arm with more deliberate care than usual. "Not dangerously, not yet. But it's climbed steadily over your last three visits, and that's not a pattern I like to see this late in a pregnancy, particularly one that's already running ahead of a typical Conduit timeline.""What does that mean? For the baby, I mean.""It means your body's under more strain than I'd like, and it's very likely responding to something other than the pregnancy itself." She made a note in my file, he

The news reached the household the way most bad news did lately, quietly, through a courier who looked as though he'd rather have been delivering anything else. I heard it secondhand from Dessa before Kieran ever confirmed it directly, and I understood, watching her face. At the same time, she told me, that this particular blow was going to land differently than anything Blackmoor had managed with scouts or skirmishes. There was no urgency in the telling, no alarm bell or sudden commotion through the halls, only a quiet, careful gravity that somehow felt worse for how contained it was."The Redwater merchants have suspended their trade agreement," she said, setting down the tray she'd been carrying with more care than the task strictly required, as though the careful placement of a teapot might soften what she had to say next. "Effective immediately. No timeline given for when, or if, they intend to resume.""That's the southern route," I said slowly, piecing together what little I un