Page 58 of Winter's Fate

Thaddeus gave him an odd look. “No, I’m here to warn you.”

Callum’s gaze sharpened, and Laena could practically feel his fingers itching to reach for his dagger. “About?”

“Hawk.” Thaddeus’s chest still heaved with the effort of his run. “Hawk is here.”

The last likenessLaena had seen of King Hawk had been a freshly painted portrait of him at seventeen. Her age at the time, in fact. She could remember the way Katrina had run fingertips along the side of the picture upon its addition to the collection, remarking on the strength of his jaw, the straightness of his nose, the laughter in his gaze. “He looks like he would play a good prank on Declan,” she had said at the time. And Laena had agreed.

Now, as both parties returned to the monastery courtyard to greet one another, Laena was not sure she would have recognized King Hawk of Aglye. He was handsome, certainly, with that sun-blond hair falling across his foreheadjust so. But shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes, and he looked pale enough to have spent the summer in a cave rather than a palace.

There was no laughter in his gaze now.

He dismounted smoothly, and to his credit, he approached her first. While the rest of the assembly bowed to him, he came straight to her. “The princess of a foreign nation needn’t curtsy to me,” he said. “Well met, Princess Laena. Though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

His voice was low, with a rasp that hinted at bone-deep fatigue. She could feel Callum stiffen at her side as Hawk took her hand in greeting.

And she nearly gasped at the contact as her magic stirred in her gut, as if drawn toward the young king. She held it back, trying to coil it, but she could feel its response.

It felt like how the magic had leapt to investigate the crystal in her garden.

It seemed impossible that he would not feel it, too. She glanced at Callum, and though the captain’s gaze was locked on where her hand met the king’s, he didn’t look alarmed. He didn’t see anything amiss.

She shook away the sensation as Hawk dropped his hand. He didn’t bring the aura of a heart-tithe with him, or that overwhelming smell of rot and ruin that had overtaken her garden. He didn’t look at her strangely, or demand that she be dragged away to the dungeons. If Inasvale had such a place.

And yet, she couldn’t quite convince herself that she’d imagined the sensation.

“I trust you are well, after the trials of the journey?” Hawk asked. She thought she discerned true concern in his gaze, though certainly the king would be well practiced at arranging his face into appropriate expressions just as she was.

“Well enough,” Laena said. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “I’m glad to hear it. We will meet formally in Vunmore, as planned.” He glanced at Callum, andhis eyes darkened. “You’ve had a trying journey, to put it mildly. You should take your rest. It is but a few days’ trip to the capital. We will talk there.”

The resonance of magic aside, she found herself returning his smile, though the one that curved his lips could barely be classified as such. And though she typically withheld her judgment on the character of foreign dignitaries and monarchs, she found herself inclined to like him.

And she found herself wanting to insist that the king meet with her now, that he examine the crystal she’d left in Thaddeus’s possession and hear what she had to say about the threat to Etra. To all their lands. Surely he would have some idea of how to deal with the assassins, the kidnappers, the strange storms. The rotting gardens.

But no monarch would respond well to being pushed in front of such an audience. So Laena repressed her impatience. “There is much to discuss.”

He gave her a short bow. “If you’ll excuse me, I need a word with Callum Farrow.”

Judging by the roughness of his tone, and the way Callum shifted his weight, his energy alive with tension, it would not be a gentle word.

Before she could stop herself, Laena stepped forward and lay a hand on King Hawk’s arm. “Your Majesty?”

He turned back to her, tilting his head in surprise. “Yes?”

Laena lowered her voice. “Just remember that he has had a trying journey, too. I owe him my life many times over.”

Hawk blinked, then gave a curt nod. With that, he turned on his heel, gesturing for Callum to follow.

CHAPTER 24

Callum hadn’t been fooled by Hawk’s restraint in the courtyard. The king was nothing if not patient, and as Thaddeus showed them through the halls of the monastery, Callum could feel the anger in the snap of the king’s boots against the stone floor, see it in the way he balled his fists at his sides. As if he wanted nothing more than to wheel around and punch Callum in the jaw.

Hawk waited until Thaddeus had ushered them into the master’s own sitting room and his guards had searched the place and declared it safe. He waited until they had disappeared back into the hall, taking up their stations outside the door, until Thaddeus had seated himself on a trunk in the corner of the room—not too close, but not too far either, as though he expected this conversation to require intervention at some point.

And then, just for good measure, he waited more. He just stood there, arms folded across his chest, the point of his crown glinting among his light hair.

There was no point in saying anything. Hawk would speak when he was ready to speak.

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