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Ravens in flight.
In front was a long carpet leading up to the raised dais.
In the hall’s corners, looming gargoyles watched over all proceedings, their stone eyes gleaming in the torchlight. A hearth sat in a far junction. The fire was large enough to roast an entire ox, and the sound of the crackling flames added to the eerie atmosphere of the room. The air was thick with the smell of smoke.
Despite the warmth, a sense of foreboding hung over Rowan. The shadows seemed to move and twist as if alive, and the flickering torch cast eerie patterns on the walls. It was as if the very stones of the castle watched and waited.
Biding their time.
The throne room of the castle was a place of power and intrigue, where the fate of kingdoms could be decided with a single stroke of a sword.
He’d seen it happen firsthand and in this very room.
He’d been here before, of course… more times than he could count. For the feasts and hunts and to pay court courtesies to a man he’d considered a friend.
Rowan traced the chair’s woodwork with his index finger while gazing at the royal crown. It sat beside him in the heart of a wood-and-stone footrest—a medley of solid gold, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, and intertwined gilt tree branches.
He’d yet to try it on. He’d come close shortly after he’d taken the castle—but his hands had hesitated in midair before the thing ever touched his brow.
Why? Why such hesitation?
It is mine. I need only take it.
But do I want it?
Nay, I never have...
He affirmed that it wasn’t a crown he’d lust for; it was blood, he thought, his gaze tracking over the gleaming rubies.
It seemed he’d planned for this moment since he was a boy just out of his swaddling clothes and off his wet nurse’s breast. Yet the victory lacked sweetness.
It tasted bitter.
It was the child’s savage death. Prince Willem, the fourth of his name, Norland’s future protector and king, had been murdered and mutilated by his men.
Rowan’s hand slid away from Smoke’s slick coat. He clasped the armrest with an iron grip, and his nails dug into the wooden limbs while fury built inside him. He clenched his fingers, forcing his anger to simmer down and bow to reason.
I shall rectify this crime. I didn’t liberate Norland only to trade one atrocity for another.
Yet that was precisely what’d happened. Disobedience and a lack of honor were things Rowan Dietrich couldn’t tolerate. Not as a commander. And not as a knight of the realm.
“Sir Rowan?” his guard asked from his position before the throne. Rowan had forgotten he was there. The man bore an unfortunate, long, flat face, a blunt beak of a nose, and eyes so dark they appeared black. The torches set his chain-link armor aglow. It was the only thing on him that didn’t lack vibrance.
Tracing the intricate metalwork of his wolf’s helm, Rowan absently signaled to the guard. “I’m ready now. Bring them to me.”
“As you command,” the man said, eyeing Smoke and exiting the throne room with purposeful steps. That rapping sound echoed Rowan’s errant heartbeat. He sat up a little straighter and set his eyes into a hard line.
He waited.
And waited.
I shall not balk, no matter how desperately they beg.
I am hewn from stone, much like this very chair.
Minutes later, Sir Edrick, Rowan’s chief captain and lifelong friend, escorted three soldiers into the throne room. Smoke bristled his coat and bellowed a guttural growl through bared teeth. “Hush,” Rowan commanded, and he did. But somehow, Smoke’s silent golden stare was far more unnerving than the growl.
Rowan rose from the chair, and for the first time, he felt like an ascending king.
