Read Chapter 8: The King's Secret

The study smelled of old leather and cold hearth ash. Alaric stood at the window, silhouetted against the grey morning, a goblet of wine already in his hand though the sun had barely cleared the walls. He did not turn when the door slammed open.

"You might have knocked," he said dryly.

"The Regent of Valdris is dead." Elara's voice cut through the room like a blade drawn from its sheath. "My father has been dead for weeks, and his court is propping up his corpse like a puppet to sign decrees and smile at foreign dignitaries. Tell me you did not know."

Alaric turned slowly. His face, usually guarded with courtly polish, was bare now—eyes sharp, jaw tight. He set the goblet down with a deliberate click.

"I did not know."

"Forgive me if I find that difficult to swallow." She stepped closer, her riding cloak still wet with morning dew, her hands trembling with a fury she refused to let show. "You have spies. You told me yourself—your men watch my brother. Are you telling me none of them noticed that the King of Valdris has not been seen in public for over a month? That his seal appears on documents he could not have read?"

Alaric's jaw worked. He moved toward his desk, unlocked a drawer, and withdrew a small iron lockbox. He did not open it. Instead, he held it like a talisman, fingers white at the edges.

"I have six men in Valdris," he said quietly. "They watch Corin. They do not watch your father's bedchamber. A king's death is not something foreign agents report lightly—not when the accusation could start a war."

"The accusation is already starting a war." Elara's voice cracked, and she hated it. She steadied herself with a breath. "Roland and Veyron plan to use Corin as a pretext. They will snatch him, blame Aurenne, and use the outrage to march. And my father—" She stopped. Pressed her palm to her mouth. "My father is dead, and no one in his court has even lit a candle for him."

Alaric crossed the room. He did not touch her—some instinct of caution, of distance—but he stood close enough that she could smell the wine on his breath and the cedar of his coat.

"There is something I have not told you," he said. "Something I hoped never to say aloud."

"Then keep it." Elara laughed, bitter. "Everyone in this godforsaken court is keeping secrets. What is one more?"

"Because this one is mine." He reached into his collar and pulled out a thin silver chain. On it hung a locket, worn smooth with years of handling. He unclasped it and held it open before her.

Inside was a miniature portrait of a woman—young, dark-haired, with Alaric's sharp chin and a smile that had never learned to be careful. She wore Aurenne blue.

"My mother," he said. "She was assassinated when I was nine. Poison in her morning wine. The court ruled it an accident. The nobles whispered that it was Valdris—a retaliation for a border skirmish three years prior." His voice held steady, but his hand shook. "I have spent half my life believing your kingdom killed her. I built my reputation on hating Valdris. And then I met you, and I found myself negotiating a peace while my own lords sharpened their knives."

Elara stared at the miniature. The woman's smile was warm, uncomplicated. Dead before she could learn to be anything else.

"You suspect your brother," Elara said. Not a question.

Alaric closed the locket with a soft click. "Alistair inherited my mother's charm and none of her conscience. When our father died, Alistair was sixteen. I was the elder son, the crown prince, and he has never forgiven the world for that arrangement. He has spent years cultivating alliances among the noble houses who find my peace talks—"

"Unpalatable," Elara finished.

"Unprofitable," Alaric corrected. "War is a market. Alistair wishes to corner it." He tucked the locket back beneath his collar. "I have no proof. Only patterns. Only the way he smiles when a treaty is signed, as though he is watching a noose being tied."

"And you let him plot." Elara's voice was sharp again, accusation bleeding through. "You knew he was part of the cabal, and you let him move."

"I let him *expose* himself." Alaric's gaze was iron now. "If I had taken him into custody on suspicion, his co-conspirators would have slipped into the shadows, and in a year we would be fighting a civil war beside a foreign one. But I swear to you, Elara—on my mother's memory, on the crown I wear—I did not know your father was dead." His voice dropped. "And I did not know they aimed for Corin."

Elara searched his face. She was good at reading men—she had to be, in a court where every smile hid a fang—and she found no lie in him. Only a weariness that matched her own.

"You're in love with your enemy's ghost," she said softly. "And I am fighting for a father who is already in the ground."

"I am fighting for the woman in front of me," Alaric said. "Whatever else this is, Elara—whatever treaty or throne or blood-price our fathers demanded—I will not let you burn."

The word *burn* had barely left his lips when the cry rose outside.

*"Fire! The keep is on fire!"*

Elara spun toward the window. Smoke, thick and black, was curling up from the eastern wing—the old wing, the one she had snuck through with Seraphine, the one where she had found the charred fragment of the amethyst seal.

Alaric was already moving, hand going to the sword at his belt. "The treaty chamber is in that wing."

"And the document room," Elara breathed.

She had been so focused on Corin, on Roland's whispered plot, that she had not thought—had not *wondered*—why the cabal would wait to strike at her brother when a single spark could erase the only physical evidence of their reach.

Alaric grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the door. "Stay close. Do not leave my sight."

"Your sight is not where I need to be," she said, but she followed him anyway, because the smoke was already pouring through the corridor, and somewhere beyond it, the only proof she had of the amethyst cabal was turning to ash.