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To give her credit, she came up with a bullshit task for me immediately. “It would be greatly appreciated if you were able to look over your rooms again, sire. Anything out of place, and so forth.” She flicked her hand and Aitor stumbled forward into a bow. He still looked uncomfortable and seemed unwilling to meet my eyes. “Aitor will accompany you.”
“I don’t need another guard.”
“You’re getting one,” Morales snapped, before softening her expression again. “King consort, I’d reallynothave to face the king on his return and explain how something happened to you. I prefer my organs to remain inside my body.”
The only thing that stopped me growling back at her were the words ‘on his return’.
Because damn right we were getting Ren back. No matter the cost.
*
Chapter Eleven
The bedchamber was quiet, the silk curtains bound neatly back with their edges fluttering in the breeze that was drifting through the open windows. Our bed was made, the cushions tidied and the chairs straightened, and I didn’t need to check the bathing chamber to know that Ren hadn’t returned here since Camila had finished cleaning our rooms this morning. The man was a chaotic whirlwind, unable to pass through a space without causing disruption.
But check the bathing chamber I did...and under the bed and inside each of his lavish and overflowing wardrobes, just in case this was all a sick prank he was playing on me.
The echoing silence mocked my futile efforts.
“Right,” I said hollowly. I slid the small key to the escape tunnels from the leather cuff on my wrist that Ren had once again gifted me before having a second one made for himself. “When we find him, Parvan, I’m assigning the prick so many extra guards he won’t be able to move.”
“On that note, Your Highness,” Parvan commented as he slapped his hand to the wall tapestry to stop me yanking it to the side, “you promised you wouldn’t enter the tunnels. A royal should always keep his word.”
I scowled at him, trying to shove the older man aside. He didn’t budge.
“Stop holding me to the impossible standards of my brother,” I complained, “and start holding me to the non-existent standards of my husband. Ren wouldn’t hesitate to lie if my life was at risk.”
Hell, Ren wouldn’t hesitate to lie if it got him an extra serving of flan for lunch, and I didn’t consider myself too misaligned to him when it came to those levels of dishonesty. The palace’s cooks wereexcellent.
“Aitor,” I said to my other guard, who was standing to attention at the bedchamber door. “A little help here?”
“I am duty bound to follow your orders, Your Highness,” he said promptly, and then doused the smirk I shot at Parvan when he added, “unless they conflict with the king’s or put you at risk. There is no doubt the latter applies here.”
“I don’t suppose if I told you both I wished to retire to bed, that you’d leave?” I asked hopefully, although I made the mistake of turning my back on Parvan.
My guard deftly snatched the key from my fingers.
“That’s-”
I pulled my hand back from where I’d been ready to claw at him to retrieve it, and took a long breath. Contrary brattiness – my usual style – wasn’t going to work against two trained soldiers who took their jobs exceptionally seriously. I had to think, andact, like the position of king consort I held.
“Very well,” I said instead, straightening to my full height which was still much shorter than either of theirs. “Parvan, so I am upholding my promise to the councillors and the Comandante, you will search the tunnels on my behalf. You know them as well as I do, and I trust you to notice anything the palace guards might have missed. Employ your usual attention to detail,please. And Aitor,” I continued, turning to him, “you were the last person to see the king.”
He winced at that, but I didn’t drive the knife home like he clearly expected me to do. If Elías believed he was innocent and had cleared him to return to our retinue, that was good enough for me.
“You’ll take me to where you were and recount the events so I can look over the area myself,” I ordered, and he nodded. “Is that acceptable to you both?”
It seemed even Parvan could not find anything to fault, for he merely murmured an acknowledgement and both men sank into deep bows.
“Stop that,” I protested tiredly. “You know better.”
Parvan slotted the little key into the lock of the concealed door and yanked it open. This one was much heavier than its equivalent inla Cortina, as the escape passageways in the Márosian palace were older and hidden within thicker, less porous stone. We didn’t use them often, not now our brushes with death had significantly lessened since Ren ascended to the Quarehian throne, but there was alwayssomesneaking around to be done.
Aitor and I left Parvan lighting a torch to take with him into the tunnels, and hurried down to the second floor where the younger guard told me he’d escorted the king after he’d departed his Council meeting this morning.
I frowned as I wandered into the sparse room he gestured at, not understanding what Ren would have needed from it. It was little more than a storage room, filled with empty crates and dusty linens and spare candlesticks caked in wax.
“He came in here?” I asked dubiously, heaving aside a sack of tablecloths to find nothing but more sacks of tablecloths beneath it, albeit of a slightly more off-white hue.
