Page 61 of A Fate Unwoven
Dimas’s blood ran cold at the name. The shadows flared in his vision, threatening to consume him as he whirled back toward the prisoner, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword hard enough to hurt.
“The Furybringer has been dead for centuries,” Dimas said, hoping she couldn’t hear the doubt in his voice.
“Dead,” the prisoner said, smiling, “but not gone.”
The woman moved so fast she was barely a blur in the darkness. Dimas raised his sword at the same time Ioseph lunged in front of him, braced to defend.
But there was no need. The prisoner stood with her back against the wall, the chains around her ankles rattling like bones.
“Long live the Furybringer!” she yelled.
And plunged a hidden dagger into her heart.
There was a speck of blood on Dimas’s sleeve.
He was rubbing at it when the door to Lenora’s chambers opened. His Fateweaver took one look at him and folded her arms across her chest.
“I take it the funeral didn’t go well?”
Dimas dropped his arm, letting the fold of his cloak hide the crimson stain. He schooled his expression into one of neutrality and tried to settle his frayed nerves. He didn’t trust Lenora enough to tell her the whole truth of what had happened in the dungeons, even if doing so would make the burden easier to bear.
“There was an … incident,” he said. “May I come in?”
Lena stepped aside, striding toward the reception room and slumping into the chair by the fireplace. A pile of books sat at her feet. Dimas’s heart gave a flutter of hope at the sight. His empire may have been crumbling beneath his fingertips, but at least his Fateweaver seemed to be taking her studies seriously.
“Iska should be here soon,” she said when she noticed the direction of his gaze.
He gave a curt nod. “And how are your lessons going?”
Well, he hoped, considering what he was about to ask of her.
“Slow, but …” She hesitated, and he watched as she curled her fingers into her palms. “I think I’m making progress. The exercises Brother Dunstan taught me seem to be helping.”
He couldn’t tell if she was being genuine. All of the hostility he’d witnessed from her previously was gone, replaced by a steel-strong determination that he wasn’t sure what to make of. She seemed to have accepted her fate, but he wasn’t convinced she washappyto be here.
Still, he would take agreeably placid over the wild, furious girl he’d first seen through their bond.
“That’s good.” He sucked in a breath. “I want you to attend tonight’s mourning ball with me.”
Lenora’s brow furrowed, a strand of ash-brown hair falling into her eyes as she shifted in her chair. “I thought I wasn’t to face the court until your coronation.”
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the length of the room. He hadn’t visited the Fateweaver’s chambers much as a child, but his fatherhad spent hours upon hours in these rooms, discussing war and politics with Lady Sefwyn. She’d been his most trusted advisor, and the court would expect Lenora to be the same to him.
But how was he supposed to trust a heretic?
“We can’t afford to keep you hidden any longer. Dignitaries from every kingdom who have pledged their allegiance to Wyrecia will be in attendance tonight, and some of them are beginning to doubt my ability to rule. Without my Fateweaver at my side, they may even start to believe the rumors that I am … cursed.”
He didn’t say he imagined some of the dignitariesalreadybelieved it. Nor that a handful of members of his father’s cabinet likely did, too. Neither did he mention his suspicions about theHæstabeing behind the shadow attacks in his head. They were all weaknesses he wasn’t ready to reveal.
Not yet.
“So you want to parade me in front of them as a show of strength.” Lenora’s voice was level, as if she were simply commenting on the weather.
He studied her, searching their bond for a flicker of her true feelings, but her emotions were drowned out by the storm of his own.
“Your presence there will reassure them Wyrecia is as strong as ever, yes, but … it will also show them that I am worthy of my title. If these rumors spread, Lenora, then war will come to our doorstep. And it won’t just be the people inside this city who suffer. It will be all of Wyrecia. The Wilds included.”
Her eyes darkened, and for a heartbeat he felt a flash of that ice-cold anger he’d first sensed inside of her. “The people in the Wilds alreadyaresuffering.”
