Page 14 of Winter's Fate

Still clutching her satchel, she looked directly at him, keeping a steady pace through the halls without leaving him behind. She’d been gone for five years, if he remembered correctly, but navigating the twists and turns and rhythms of the busy palace certainly seemed to be second nature.

“I’m sorry about the king,” she said. “His passing was such a terrible tragedy.”

A painful lump dropped into Callum’s throat, the same one that materialized whenever someone mentioned the king’s death. The man had been gone a year, and still condolences felt like a physical blow.

“A tragedy, yes,” he said, unable to keep the growl out of his voice. “At least you didn’t say accident.”

Laena slowed, giving him a sharp look, and said, “Pardon me, but did I say something out of turn?”

Callum stopped, raking a hand through his hair. He needed to find a swallow of whiskey, as soon as he was able. Perhaps he could bypass the pleasantries of the arrival, beg a headache, and retire to his accommodations with a bottle. Hawk wouldn’t like it. But Hawk wasn’t here.

Hawk hadn’t evensenthim here, a fact he needed to keep reminding himself of. Though a voice in the back of his mind said that he was blowing his chance to prove himself the worthy and useful captain he’d come here to be. Indispensable.

If he completed this mission with honor, Hawk might decide to reinstate him as captain of the guard. Oh, Callum would have to endure a lecture—a long one, perhaps more than one—on responsibility and deceiving the soldiers and all that. But if he returned triumphant with the Etran emissary, Hawk could hardly admit to the dignitary that he wasn’t meant to have led the group at all.

It would buy Callum some time, at the very least.

For now, though, Princess Laena was still looking up at him with wide green eyes. She stood nearer his height than most women, he realized, yet she still tipped her head back to look at him, a question in her eyes. And Callum found, not for the first time, that he couldn’t face the conversation. He couldn’t face decorum, or a polite response.

He was not one for the rules. And that included the rules of society.

“I believe you’ll be capable of finding your way from here.”He gave her a short bow, though he wasn’t at all sure that was still an appropriate choice. “My lady.”

Before she could object, he turned on his heel and fled down the corridor, doing his best to make it look as if he wasn’t fleeing at all.

CHAPTER 6

If Kat had looked pristinely beautiful in the sitting room at Sunflower Cottage, she was resplendent when surrounded by her own accommodations. Swathed in a forest-green gown with delicate lace cuffs and glittering buttons, she’d entered her waiting parlor in a cloud of lily-scented perfume, with Declan Riennad on her heels, though the regent had taken his place beside the door. Keeping his silence no doubt, to allow Kat to handle the situation.

To say that Kat’s expression was smug did not begin to describe the truth of it. Declan might be allowing her to lead, but he needed to teach her to school her reactions. She’d done a decent job in the cottage; now, her triumph was all too clear. She looked as if she’d just won a contentious game of croquet against a particularly brutish opponent. And she didn’t even attempt to hide it.

Nor had she bothered to take a closer look at the crystal that Laena had laid upon the table, with a handkerchief underneath it for protection. The rock had shifted in appearance during the journey, and it was now cut through with angry crimson lines. If Laena looked at it for too long, she almost imagined she couldsee a heartbeat fluttering within. A not-small part of her wished she’d opted to leave it at home. What if the monsterhadbeen born of it?

But Kat would never listen to her without proof. Even now, her sister wasn’t even bothering to inspect the horrid thing. She had not taken a seat on the opposite settee, though Laena didn’t know if it was because the corset made it difficult for her to sit, or because she wanted to maintain the power in the conversation. As if this conversation was so unimportant that she would soon be gone.

Laena would have been able to maintain the power, whether sitting or standing or dancing a jig.

Not that it mattered anymore.

“I appreciate you coming all this way, sister,” Kat said. “But this appears to be some kind of elaborate prank. Why not alert the village constable?”

First, because the village constable had made it clear upon Laena’s arrival that he considered her to be a traitor who ought to be hung. And second, because this was far more than a simple prank. If Katrina was to be the queen of this realm, she needed to protect her people.

But acidic words would not help the situation. Laena drew in a deep breath and met her sister’s gaze steadily. “This crystal is but a sample of the blight I discovered in the garden the day before I was attacked.”

“Attacked,” Kat repeated. “By a shadow monster, you say. But shadows have no form.”

Laena curled her fingers into a fist. “Do formless shadows draw blood?”

Kat’s eyes flickered over the cut on Laena’s cheek. “A wayward branch might have done as much.”

“If attached to a blade,” Laena shot back.Or a whip.

“And how did you defeat such a monster, sister? With sharp words and your few remaining shreds of honor?”

Not dignity.Honor. She’d abandoned her country for a man, and that was dishonorable. As if Kat had not been salivating for the job.

For no reason at all, Captain Farrow’s face sprang into her head. He’d been kind to her. In fact, he didn’t seem to care a whit for her supposed disgrace. Though the mention of the man in her bed had heated her cheeks in ways she wasn’t interested in pursuing.

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