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“The Ambassador to see you, My King.”
The blood drains from my face before I can stop it. How long was he standing out there? How much did he hear? Odger studies me like a predator searching for weaknesses, and I force my expression back to some semblance of nonchalance.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, My Boy.” Dvain’s familiar tone is even more grating that Odger’s obsequious one. “I was only checking in on my way back.”
“Not at all,” I say smoothly, physically stopping my hand from going to my axe. “Odger was just leaving.”
“Good to see you, old friend,” the lord says to Dvain, clapping him on the back.
I want to murder them both. Right now. But I have no way to explain the murder of two unarmed men inside my castle walls.
“Same to you,” Dvain responds.
Odger sees himself out while the alchemist returns his attention to me.
It’s possible that he knows, or suspects, about Zaina. That he might tell Ulla. But if I kill him now, Ulla will know for sure that Zaina betrayed her, and we will all be in danger. Most of all my wife.
I am so busy convincing myself to let the disgusting creature live, I nearly miss what he’s saying, some congratulations on the cure.
“How did you do it without the rose?” he asks, and there is more than curiosity to his tone.
I have a split second to remember what he thinks he knows before I answer. I decide on a version of the truth.
“It wasn’t the petals, as it turns out. It was the thorn, and there were more of them in the dragon’s lair.” I tack on a lie. “I saw them when I...when I found her.”
His eyes widen. I don’t worry about telling him where to find the poison. He has a hundred different ways to kill people, and the dragon will never let him get to that one anyway.
“How did her aunt take the news?” I can’t resist asking to see what he will say.
Did he actually go to visit the woman who has done nothing but rain down terror on everyone around her for nearly twenty years?
But there’s nothing false on his features now. He blanches, his voice reedy when he answers. “She was quite distraught.”
Zaina’s words about Ulla’s plans centering around my kingdom come back to me, and I almost smile.I just bet she was distraught.
I’m saved from trying to fake a response when the guard announces another lord here. Dvain makes his excuses to leave, and I nod, pretending it doesn’t take every last ounce of my self-control not to splay his insides on these walls rather than let him walk out that door.
Later.
There will be time for that later.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Einar
The rest of the day is hectic enough that I work straight through dinner without realizing it. Zaina waits up for me, as she always does, and I know I should probably tell her that the alchemist is back.
For a change, though, she looks rested. Formulating a plan has helped her to feel like the world is not on her shoulders alone, and I can’t bring myself to put that haunted expression back on her face tonight.
Besides, there will be time to talk about it tomorrow, when we aren’t quite so exhausted. Hopefully.
But the morning dawns even busier than the one before. After Gunnar delivers an agenda from Leif a mile long, I reluctantly pull myself out of bed even earlier than usual.
Zaina sleeps fitfully, and last night was no exception. I tiptoe around the room, doing my best not to wake her yet. On my way out of the room, I press a gentle kiss against her forehead before reluctantly giving myself over to the demands of the council again.
It’s another long morning, looking to be an even longer afternoon. I flee from the council room when we finally break for mid-morning tea, nearly running smack into Lady Revna.
The white-haired woman was one of my mother’s oldest friends, and I take a moment to pay her the respect she deserves.
