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Transcript

00:00:00The rejection happened on a Thursday, not that the day of the week mattered, in the grand scheme of ruined

00:00:07lives and shattered destinies.

00:00:09But there is something particularly insulting about having your soul cleaved in, too, on a Thursday.

00:00:15Mondays, people expected disaster. Thursdays were supposed to be unremarkable.

00:00:22Claudia had been standing in the great hall of Ironspire Keep when it happened.

00:00:26She remembered every detail with the kind of precision that pain carves into memory and refuses to let go.

00:00:34The way the torches made the gray stone walls amber.

00:00:38The way the hounds near the hearth lifted their heads when she walked in, as though they already knew.

00:00:44The way Alpha Darren Ashford stood with his back to her for a long moment before he turned around.

00:00:50And the way his jaw was set like a man who had already decided something, and was merely getting through

00:00:56the formality of saying it aloud.

00:00:59She had just turned 20.

00:01:01She had walked into that hall wearing her best riding cloak, because her mother had told her to look presentable

00:01:07when she met her mate for the first time.

00:01:09She had spent the morning trying to tame her dark hair, and had failed, and had decided it did not

00:01:15matter, because fate was fate, and surely fate did not care about hair.

00:01:19She had been so young.

00:01:21I reject you, Darren said.

00:01:24Three words.

00:01:25The same number of words as I love you, as I need help, as pass the salt.

00:01:31Three small words that landed like a broadaxe.

00:01:34Claudia felt the bond.

00:01:37That luminous, terrifying thread that had ignited in her chest the moment she'd crossed the threshold, and her wolf had

00:01:45gone absolutely still with recognition.

00:01:48Snap.

00:01:49It did not snap cleanly.

00:01:51Nothing ever does.

00:01:53It was more like watching a bridge collapse from the inside.

00:01:56The structure held for one impossible moment, and then it came apart, piece by piece, from the center outward, and

00:02:04the sound it made inside her was not a sound at all, but an absence of one.

00:02:08She stood there for three full seconds, staring at Darren Ashford, this tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed man who was

00:02:17apparently her mate and was apparently appalled by this, and she waited to see if she was going to cry.

00:02:23She did not cry.

00:02:24What she felt instead was something colder and more durable than tears, the quiet click of a door closing inside

00:02:32her, the precise and deliberate moment when a person decides that this, whatever this is, is not going to be

00:02:39the thing that destroys them.

00:02:40Very well, she said.

00:02:42And she turned around.

00:02:44And she walked out.

00:02:46She did not look back.

00:02:47Neither of them knew, in that moment, that the woman walking out of that hall was the last surviving heir

00:02:55to the throne of Verith.

00:02:56That the blood running quiet in her veins was the oldest royal blood on the continent.

00:03:02That the kingdom she did not yet know was hers was already waiting for her, and had been for 20

00:03:08years, concealed behind a lie her mother had died to protect.

00:03:13Darren Ashford would spend the next eight months sleeping poorly and making his entire pack miserable.

00:03:19He would spend them pushing away the phantom ache behind his ribs that no healer could explain, and no amount

00:03:26of work could dull.

00:03:27He would spend them telling himself, with diminishing conviction, that he had made the right choice.

00:03:34He had not, of course, made the right choice.

00:03:37But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

00:03:39This is the story of a rejection.

00:03:42And a crown.

00:03:44And two people who were catastrophically wrong about who they were, and what they deserved, and had to lose nearly

00:03:51everything before they were willing to admit it.

00:03:54It is, despite its unpromising beginning, a love story.

00:03:58Just not a simple one.

00:04:00Chapter 1

00:04:01Iron Spire keeps sat in the northern reaches of the Ashford Pack Territory, like a declaration of intent.

00:04:09It was not a beautiful fortress.

00:04:11It had not been built to be beautiful.

00:04:14It had been built to be difficult to attack.

00:04:17And in this ambition it had succeeded admirably for 400 years.

00:04:22Its walls were thick enough to lose a man inside.

00:04:25Its towers were perpetually cold.

00:04:27And its great hall had an echo problem that meant private conversations were, in practice, not very private at all.

00:04:36Claudia had traveled three days to reach it.

00:04:39Her home pack, the Halvern Pack, a modest but respected group settled in the river valleys to the south, had

00:04:47arranged the meeting through the proper channels.

00:04:49A letter had come the previous month, sealed with the Ashford Wolf Crest, confirming that Alpha Darren would receive the

00:04:57Halvern Omega Claudia at Iron Spire on the 14th of the new moon.

00:05:02Her pack master had been pleased.

00:05:04Her mother, had she still been alive, would have been pleased.

00:05:09Claudia herself had been cautiously optimistic, in the way that a person is cautiously optimistic about a thing they have

00:05:16spent their entire life being told to expect, and have therefore worked up a complicated relationship with.

00:05:22The mate bond was supposed to be sacred, a gift from the moon goddess herself, a recognition between two wolves

00:05:30that was meant to transcend class and rank and circumstance.

00:05:34In practice, of course, it was somewhat more complicated than the old songs suggested.

00:05:40Claudia was an Omega.

00:05:42Darren Ashford was an Alpha.

00:05:44Not just any Alpha, but the ruling Alpha of one of the three most powerful packs in the Northern Territories,

00:05:52a man who commanded 300 wolves and answered to no one except the distant and largely ceremonial authority of the

00:06:00High Council.

00:06:01The gap between their stations was not a gap, so much as an abyss, and Claudia was not so naive

00:06:07as to have missed this.

00:06:09She had, however, allowed herself to hope.

00:06:13This was, in retrospect, the mistake.

00:06:16She had felt the bond the moment she walked through the Great Hall's doors.

00:06:20It had been unmistakable, like stepping from a dim corridor into direct sunlight, like the first breath after a long

00:06:28submersion, like every metaphor she had ever read in the old stories and dismissed as romantic exaggeration.

00:06:36Her wolf had simply gone.

00:06:38Oh, as though recognizing something it had been searching for, without knowing it was searching.

00:06:45Darren Ashford had been standing with his back to her, speaking to his beta.

00:06:50He had gone very still.

00:06:52And then he had turned, and she had seen his face.

00:06:56He was not what she had expected.

00:06:58She was not sure what she had expected.

00:07:01Precisely.

00:07:02The romantic stories tended toward descriptors like, magnificent and commanding, that rendered the actual man somewhat abstract.

00:07:11What she saw was a person.

00:07:13A tired one.

00:07:15A person who had, apparently, just experienced the same seismic recognition she had, and whose immediate response to it was

00:07:23something that looked disturbingly like dismay.

00:07:25She had given him the time to compose himself.

00:07:29This had perhaps been her second mistake.

00:07:31His beta, a broad-shouldered man named Torben, who had the expression of someone watching a fire he had been

00:07:39quietly dreading materialize, withdrew from a hall with the practiced smoothness of a man who recognized a conversation he did

00:07:47not want to witness.

00:07:48And then it had been just the two of them, and the echo, and the hounds by the fire, and

00:07:54the moment that Claudia would spend the next eight months trying and failing to stop replaying.

00:07:59I know what you are, Darren had said, finally.

00:08:03His voice was low.

00:08:04Not unkind.

00:08:06Worse than unkind.

00:08:08Somehow, careful.

00:08:10The voice of a man who had thought about this and arrived at a conclusion he had decided to stand

00:08:16by.

00:08:16I know what this is.

00:08:18So do I, Claudia said.

00:08:21Then you understand why.

00:08:23I don't, she said.

00:08:25Not yet.

00:08:26He looked at her then.

00:08:28Really looked.

00:08:29And she saw something move through his gray eyes that she could not name.

00:08:34Something that was not cold.

00:08:36Not calculated.

00:08:37Not the simple disdain she had braced herself for.

00:08:41Something almost like pain, which made no sense,

00:08:44which she filed away in the part of her mind that handled things she did not yet have the context

00:08:50to interpret.

00:08:51I am an alpha, he said, as though she might have somehow missed this.

00:08:56My pack requires.

00:08:58I am aware of what your pack requires, Claudia said.

00:09:02She was surprised by the steadiness of her own voice.

00:09:05I am asking why it requires it of me.

00:09:08You're an omega.

00:09:09He said it plainly, not cruelly, but plainly, as though the word contained within it all the explanation that was

00:09:18needed.

00:09:18And perhaps, in the world as it was constituted at that particular moment,

00:09:24in the Northern Territories, in the Ashford pack,

00:09:27in the political reality that Darren Ashford had inherited and never questioned, it did.

00:09:32Claudia considered this.

00:09:34She considered his gray eyes and his careful face,

00:09:38and the pain she thought she had seen move through him.

00:09:41She considered the bond still humming in her chest like a plucked string,

00:09:46diminished now but not gone.

00:09:49It would not be gone until he said the words,

00:09:52until the formal rejection was spoken,

00:09:54and some part of her wolf was still,

00:09:57absurdly,

00:09:58waiting for him to decide otherwise.

00:10:00She gave him one more moment.

00:10:02He said the words.

00:10:04And she walked out.

00:10:05What Claudia did not do,

00:10:07in the days and weeks that followed,

00:10:10was fall apart.

00:10:11This was perhaps surprising,

00:10:13given the circumstances.

00:10:15The rejection of a mate bond was not a small injury.

00:10:19It was, by every account she had ever encountered,

00:10:22one of the most significant wounds a wolf could sustain.

00:10:26The old healers had written about it.

00:10:29The storytellers had composed entire tragedies about it.

00:10:33There were ceremonies to ease the separation,

00:10:36rituals to help the severed wolf grieve and recover.

00:10:39Claudia had none of those resources.

00:10:42What she had was a three-day journey home,

00:10:45a packmaster who watched her with carefully neutral eyes,

00:10:49and a small stone cottage on the edge of the Halvern village,

00:10:53where she lived alone.

00:10:54She arrived home on a Sunday.

00:10:57She unpacked her traveling bag.

00:10:59She put the kettle on.

00:11:01She sat down at her kitchen table,

00:11:03and she stayed there for a very long time,

00:11:06not moving,

00:11:07just breathing,

00:11:08just being in the space of what had happened.

00:11:10She did not cry.

00:11:12She had decided,

00:11:13somewhere on that second day of riding with her jaw set

00:11:17and her eyes on the road,

00:11:18that she was not going to give the rejection a single tear.

00:11:22This was not stoicism, exactly.

00:11:25It was closer to a decision about who she intended to be.

00:11:29After an hour at the kitchen table,

00:11:31she picked up the kettle and made tea.

00:11:34After three days,

00:11:35she went back to work.

00:11:36After a month,

00:11:38she was almost used to the hollow space

00:11:40where the bond had been.

00:11:41Almost.

00:11:42The thing about wounds,

00:11:44the kind that go deep enough to reach bone,

00:11:46is that they do not heal at the rate you want them to.

00:11:50They heal at the rate they want to.

00:11:52And the severed mate bond did not heal so much as calcify,

00:11:56became part of her,

00:11:57became scar tissue,

00:11:58became the particular kind of ache

00:12:00that one stops noticing in good hours

00:12:02and notices acutely in bad ones.

00:12:05She was, on balance,

00:12:07managing.

00:12:08This was the state of things

00:12:09when the first soldiers arrived.

00:12:11Chapter 2

00:12:12They came on horseback,

00:12:14twelve of them,

00:12:15wearing armor that did not belong

00:12:17to any pack Claudia had ever encountered.

00:12:20It was old armor,

00:12:22not old and worn,

00:12:23but old and deliberate,

00:12:25the kind of craftsmanship

00:12:26that had been preserved across generations

00:12:28because it was too significant to replace.

00:12:31The crest on their breastplates

00:12:33was a crowned wolf mid-howl,

00:12:35rendered in silver on deep blue.

00:12:38Claudia was in her herb garden

00:12:40when they arrived.

00:12:41She straightened from her work,

00:12:43soil on her hands,

00:12:45a cutting knife in her grip,

00:12:47and looked at twelve armored soldiers

00:12:49in the road outside her cottage

00:12:50and experienced the specific

00:12:53and bracing feeling

00:12:54of a person whose quiet life

00:12:56has just been interrupted

00:12:57by something large.

00:12:59Claudia of the Halvern Pack,

00:13:01said the woman at the head of the column.

00:13:04She was silver-haired and severe,

00:13:06her back straight as a blade,

00:13:08her dark eyes scanning Claudia

00:13:11with the efficiency of someone

00:13:12conducting a rapid

00:13:13and professional assessment.

00:13:16Born on the night of the winter solstice,

00:13:18twenty years passed,

00:13:20daughter of Adeline

00:13:21and, until now,

00:13:23unnamed father.

00:13:24That's a fairly intimate way

00:13:26to introduce yourself

00:13:27to someone you haven't met,

00:13:29Claudia said.

00:13:30She did not put the knife down.

00:13:32Not out of aggression, precisely.

00:13:34More because it seemed sensible

00:13:36to hold onto something solid.

00:13:38The silver-haired woman

00:13:40almost smiled.

00:13:42My name is Commander Saya

00:13:43of the Verith Royal Guard.

00:13:45I've been looking for you

00:13:47for eight years.

00:13:48I've been in this garden

00:13:49for most of them,

00:13:50Claudia said.

00:13:52You weren't looking very hard.

00:13:53This time the woman did smile.

00:13:56It was a brief smile.

00:13:58Careful, but genuine.

00:14:00Your mother hid you well.

00:14:02She was an exceptional woman.

00:14:05The mention of her mother

00:14:06landed differently

00:14:07than Claudia expected.

00:14:09Not with pain, exactly.

00:14:12That pain was old

00:14:13and worn smooth by now.

00:14:14But with a sudden sharp attention,

00:14:17the feeling of a puzzle piece

00:14:18being offered

00:14:19that she did not yet know

00:14:20was part of a puzzle.

00:14:22What do you want?

00:14:23Claudia asked.

00:14:24The truth is somewhat involved,

00:14:27Commander Saya said.

00:14:28May I come inside?

00:14:30The story that Saya told,

00:14:32sitting across from Claudia

00:14:34at the kitchen table

00:14:35with a cup of tea

00:14:36going cold in her hands,

00:14:37was this.

00:14:3821 years ago,

00:14:40the kingdom of Verith,

00:14:42the oldest sovereign wolf kingdom

00:14:44on the continent,

00:14:45ruling the lands

00:14:46east of the mountain range

00:14:48that the northern packs

00:14:49called the Grey Walls,

00:14:50had been torn apart

00:14:51by a succession crisis.

00:14:53The king,

00:14:55Aldred Verith III,

00:14:56had died without a declared heir.

00:14:59His queen had died

00:15:00in the same sickness.

00:15:02What he had left behind

00:15:03was a brother,

00:15:05Merrick,

00:15:05with ambitions and a following,

00:15:07and a daughter,

00:15:08a daughter whose existence

00:15:10only a handful of people knew about,

00:15:12because she had been born

00:15:13to a woman who was not the queen,

00:15:15and because the king,

00:15:17aware of his brother's ruthlessness

00:15:19and aware of his own failing health,

00:15:22had made certain choices.

00:15:24He had sent the child away.

00:15:26He had sent her west,

00:15:27with her mother,

00:15:28with a new name

00:15:29and a sealed letter,

00:15:31and the knowledge

00:15:32that if she were ever found

00:15:33by the wrong people,

00:15:35she would not survive the finding.

00:15:37Adeline, Claudia's mother,

00:15:39had settled among the Halvern pack.

00:15:42She had built a quiet life.

00:15:44She had raised her daughter

00:15:45as an omega,

00:15:47as a member of the pack,

00:15:48as a person who belonged

00:15:50to the valley and the river

00:15:51and the herb garden,

00:15:53and not to thrones

00:15:54or succession crises,

00:15:56or the complicated machinery

00:15:58of kingdoms.

00:15:59And then,

00:16:00eight years ago,

00:16:01Adeline had died.

00:16:02A fever,

00:16:04swift and pitiless,

00:16:06the kind that takes people

00:16:07before anyone has properly

00:16:09said goodbye.

00:16:10She had left,

00:16:11on the kitchen table,

00:16:12a sealed letter.

00:16:14Claudia had read that letter,

00:16:16She had read it twice,

00:16:17and then she had folded it up

00:16:19and put it in the bottom

00:16:20of the cedar chest

00:16:21where she kept her mother's things,

00:16:23and she had told herself,

00:16:25with the same quiet deliberateness

00:16:27she brought to most decisions,

00:16:29that she needed time

00:16:31to understand what it meant

00:16:32before she decided

00:16:33what to do with it.

00:16:34Eight years had passed.

00:16:36She had been,

00:16:37she now admitted,

00:16:39somewhat avoidant about this.

00:16:41You read the letter,

00:16:42Sia said.

00:16:43It was not quite a question.

00:16:45Yes,

00:16:46Claudia said.

00:16:47And you said nothing.

00:16:49I said nothing.

00:16:50For eight years.

00:16:52I was,

00:16:54Claudia said,

00:16:55processing.

00:16:55Sia looked at her

00:16:57for a long moment.

00:16:58There was something

00:16:59in the look

00:17:00that was not quite exasperation

00:17:02and not quite admiration

00:17:03and was perhaps

00:17:05a mixture of the two

00:17:06that had not previously

00:17:07had a name.

00:17:09Your uncle has been

00:17:10on the Verith throne

00:17:11for 20 years,

00:17:12she said finally.

00:17:13He has not been a good king.

00:17:15I gathered as much,

00:17:17Claudia said.

00:17:18People who kill

00:17:19their brother's heirs

00:17:20in order to take thrones

00:17:22generally aren't.

00:17:23He does not know

00:17:24you're alive.

00:17:25Or rather,

00:17:27he has suspected,

00:17:28but he has not been

00:17:30able to find you.

00:17:31Sia paused.

00:17:33He found your mother's

00:17:34old contact.

00:17:35Three months ago.

00:17:36We learned of it.

00:17:37We came first.

00:17:39Claudia looked at her hands.

00:17:41At the soil still caught

00:17:43under her fingernails

00:17:44from the herb garden.

00:17:45At the cutting knife

00:17:47on the table

00:17:47beside her teacup.

00:17:49She thought about

00:17:50Darren Ashford

00:17:51saying she,

00:17:52was an omega

00:17:52as though it explained

00:17:54everything.

00:17:55She thought about

00:17:56the severed bond

00:17:57in her chest,

00:17:58its familiar ache,

00:18:00its quiet scar.

00:18:02She thought about

00:18:03her mother,

00:18:03who had chosen

00:18:04a quiet valley

00:18:05and a small cottage

00:18:06and a false name

00:18:08and a lifetime of silence

00:18:10to keep her daughter safe

00:18:11and who had never

00:18:12told her daughter

00:18:13any of this

00:18:14while she was alive

00:18:15because some truths

00:18:16are too heavy

00:18:17to give to a child.

00:18:19If I come with you,

00:18:20Claudia said slowly,

00:18:22What happens?

00:18:23You take your throne,

00:18:25Saya said.

00:18:26You return to Verith.

00:18:28Your uncle's claim

00:18:29becomes illegal

00:18:30the moment you are recognized.

00:18:32You are the true heir.

00:18:35And if I don't,

00:18:37Saya's expression

00:18:38did not change.

00:18:39Your uncle's people

00:18:41will find you

00:18:41and they will not be here

00:18:43to offer you tea.

00:18:45Claudia nodded once.

00:18:47She stood up from the table.

00:18:48She went to the cedar chest.

00:18:51She retrieved the letter.

00:18:53She read it one more time.

00:18:55Her father's handwriting,

00:18:57which she had never seen before

00:18:58in anything else,

00:19:00careful and precise,

00:19:01and carrying in every stroke

00:19:04the weight of a man

00:19:05trying to say enough

00:19:06in a very limited amount of words.

00:19:08She had been eight years old

00:19:10when she first read it.

00:19:12She was twenty now.

00:19:14The words were the same.

00:19:15She was not.

00:19:17Give me an hour to pack,

00:19:18she said.

00:19:19Before we continue,

00:19:20I'd like you to let me know

00:19:21in the comment section

00:19:22where you are currently

00:19:23watching this story from.

00:19:24Also, do not forget to like

00:19:26and hit the subscribe button

00:19:27for more interesting

00:19:28werewolf romance stories.

00:19:30Chapter 3

00:19:31Backslash We Should Check In

00:19:33Briefly

00:19:34on Darren Ashford

00:19:35This is perhaps uncomfortable

00:19:37given what we know about him.

00:19:39He is not,

00:19:40at this point in the story,

00:19:42a sympathetic figure.

00:19:43He made a choice,

00:19:44a cold, calculated,

00:19:46status-driven choice,

00:19:48and a woman walked out

00:19:49of his great hall

00:19:50carrying his decision

00:19:51in her chest like a wound,

00:19:53and he watched her go,

00:19:54and he told himself

00:19:56it was the right thing.

00:19:57We want to be very clear,

00:19:58it was not the right thing.

00:20:00Darren, to his credit,

00:20:01was also starting

00:20:03to suspect this.

00:20:04The month after the rejection,

00:20:06he had been fine,

00:20:07functional.

00:20:08He had told himself

00:20:09the hollow ache

00:20:10behind his ribs

00:20:11was simply

00:20:12the adjustment period,

00:20:13the natural consequence

00:20:14of a mate bond

00:20:15initiated and severed,

00:20:17an inconvenience

00:20:18that would pass.

00:20:19He had thrown himself

00:20:20into packed business,

00:20:21there was always packed business,

00:20:23and he had eaten

00:20:24regular meals

00:20:25and held council

00:20:26and done all the things

00:20:27a functioning alpha

00:20:28was supposed to do.

00:20:29The second month,

00:20:30he had been

00:20:31slightly less fine.

00:20:32The hollow ache

00:20:33had not passed.

00:20:34It had,

00:20:35if anything,

00:20:36deepened,

00:20:37not dramatically.

00:20:38He was not the sort of man

00:20:40given to dramatic displays,

00:20:41but quietly

00:20:42and persistently,

00:20:44the way water works

00:20:45on stone.

00:20:46He had started

00:20:47to notice small things.

00:20:48He noticed the absence

00:20:49of a presence

00:20:50he had never actually experienced,

00:20:52which made no logical sense.

00:20:54He noticed

00:20:55that he was irritable

00:20:56in a directionless way,

00:20:58irritable at weather

00:20:59and food

00:20:59and the perfectly reasonable

00:21:01administrative requests

00:21:02of his council members.

00:21:04He noticed,

00:21:04most inconveniently,

00:21:06that he had developed

00:21:07a habit of stopping

00:21:08in the middle of tasks

00:21:09and staring at nothing

00:21:10for intervals

00:21:11that his beta Torben

00:21:12tracked with increasing concern.

00:21:14Torben,

00:21:15who had been Darren's beta

00:21:16for six years

00:21:17and his closest friend

00:21:18for 12,

00:21:18had not said anything immediately.

00:21:21He was a patient man

00:21:22and a careful one,

00:21:23and he understood

00:21:24that Darren needed

00:21:25to arrive

00:21:26at certain conclusions

00:21:27under his own power

00:21:28because Darren arriving

00:21:29at conclusions

00:21:30under pressure

00:21:31from other people

00:21:31was historically

00:21:33counterproductive.

00:21:34He had waited.

00:21:35For months in,

00:21:36Torben finally said something.

00:21:38They were in the training yard,

00:21:40running drills

00:21:41with the younger wolves

00:21:42in the pack's warrior cohort,

00:21:44and Darren had stopped

00:21:45mid-correction

00:21:46and stood with his hands

00:21:47loose at his sides

00:21:48and the expression

00:21:49of a man attempting

00:21:50to locate a thought

00:21:51that keeps moving

00:21:52just out of reach.

00:21:53Is it getting worse?

00:21:55Torben asked.

00:21:57Darren turned to look at him.

00:21:58I don't know what you mean.

00:21:59Yes, you do.

00:22:01Darren considered this.

00:22:02The training yard was cold.

00:22:04It was always cold

00:22:06at Iron Spire.

00:22:07The wind off the mountains

00:22:08did not permit otherwise,

00:22:10and the young wolves

00:22:11had gone still,

00:22:12watching their alpha

00:22:13with the alert wariness

00:22:14of people who sensed

00:22:15something significant

00:22:16was happening.

00:22:17Fall out,

00:22:19Darren said to them.

00:22:20Then,

00:22:20to Torben,

00:22:21walk with me.

00:22:22They walked to the parapet

00:22:24that faced south.

00:22:25It was a clear day,

00:22:27the mountains stark

00:22:28against a white sky,

00:22:29the valley below spread out

00:22:31in its winter emptiness.

00:22:32Darren stood with his hands

00:22:34on the cold stone

00:22:35and looked at the southern road.

00:22:37Tell me,

00:22:38Torben said.

00:22:39Darren was silent

00:22:40for a moment.

00:22:41I made the right decision,

00:22:43he said.

00:22:43It came out

00:22:44with slightly less conviction

00:22:46than he had intended.

00:22:47Did you?

00:22:48She was an Omega.

00:22:50My pack requires.

00:22:51I know what you told her,

00:22:53Torben said.

00:22:54I know what you told yourself.

00:22:56I'm asking what you think now,

00:22:58for months later,

00:22:59after sleeping badly

00:23:00and being unpleasant

00:23:01to our council

00:23:02and staring at the south road

00:23:04like it owes you something.

00:23:06Darren's jaw tightened.

00:23:07I think,

00:23:08he said,

00:23:09after a long pause,

00:23:10that I may have been

00:23:11operating on assumptions

00:23:12I did not examine.

00:23:14Torben breathed out

00:23:15through his nose.

00:23:16This was,

00:23:17from Torben,

00:23:18the equivalent

00:23:19of a dramatic exclamation.

00:23:21For months,

00:23:22he said.

00:23:23Four months to get there.

00:23:25I am thorough.

00:23:26You are stubborn.

00:23:28Same thing.

00:23:29Torben leaned his forearms

00:23:31on the parapet.

00:23:32What are you going

00:23:33to do about it?

00:23:34I don't know yet,

00:23:35Darren said.

00:23:36He looked down

00:23:37at the south road.

00:23:38She's a long way away.

00:23:40She is,

00:23:41Torben agreed.

00:23:42And every day

00:23:43she gets further.

00:23:44He didn't know then

00:23:45how profoundly accurate

00:23:46that was.

00:23:47While Darren was standing

00:23:49on his parapet

00:23:49reconsidering his choices,

00:23:51Claudia was three days

00:23:53east of the gray walls

00:23:54and getting further

00:23:55by the hour.

00:23:56The road to Vereth

00:23:57was nothing like

00:23:58the valley

00:23:58she had grown up in.

00:24:00It was wilder,

00:24:01the landscape shifting

00:24:02from the gentle river country

00:24:04of the Halvern lands

00:24:05through dense pine forest

00:24:06and then into the long,

00:24:08elevated plains

00:24:09that the Vereth people

00:24:10called the Windfields.

00:24:12The sky was enormous here.

00:24:14The grass bent

00:24:15in permanent waves

00:24:16from a westerly wind

00:24:17that never seemed

00:24:18to entirely stop.

00:24:20The mountains

00:24:21were behind her now

00:24:22and the world felt wider

00:24:23than she was accustomed to,

00:24:25which was both exhilarating

00:24:26and faintly terrifying.

00:24:28Commander Saya

00:24:29rode beside her

00:24:30and answered questions

00:24:31with the patience

00:24:32of someone

00:24:33who had been waiting

00:24:33a long time

00:24:34to have this conversation.

00:24:36How many people

00:24:37know I'm alive?

00:24:38Claudia asked

00:24:39on the second day

00:24:40out of the Halvern territory.

00:24:43Within the guard,

00:24:4412.

00:24:45Within the kingdom,

00:24:47fewer than five.

00:24:49Saya paused.

00:24:50Your uncle does not know,

00:24:52or he would have moved

00:24:53more aggressively before now.

00:24:55What does he know?

00:24:57That your mother fled.

00:24:58That she went west.

00:25:00That she was never found.

00:25:03A brief pause.

00:25:04He knows that the king

00:25:06had a child.

00:25:07He has never been entirely certain

00:25:09whether that child survived.

00:25:1120 years is a long time

00:25:13to sit on an uncertain throne.

00:25:15It is, Saya agreed.

00:25:17It has not made him

00:25:19a more pleasant man.

00:25:20Claudia thought about this.

00:25:22She thought about the strangeness

00:25:24of having a family

00:25:25she had never known.

00:25:27A father's handwriting

00:25:28on a letter.

00:25:29An uncle's throne

00:25:30built on a lie.

00:25:31A kingdom that had been waiting

00:25:33in some abstract sense

00:25:35for her whole life.

00:25:37She thought about

00:25:38how different the shapes

00:25:39of things looked

00:25:40when you finally understood

00:25:41what you were looking at.

00:25:43Tell me about Verith,

00:25:44she said.

00:25:45Saya told her.

00:25:46The kingdom was old,

00:25:48older than the Pax system

00:25:50in the western territories,

00:25:52older than most

00:25:53of the political structures

00:25:54that currently carved up

00:25:55the continent.

00:25:56It had been built

00:25:57on the principle

00:25:58that wolves could govern

00:25:59as wolves,

00:26:00that the instinct

00:26:01for hierarchy

00:26:02and loyalty

00:26:03that ran through

00:26:04their nature

00:26:05could be channeled

00:26:06into something

00:26:06more durable

00:26:07than conquest.

00:26:08The early Verith kings

00:26:10had been unusual rulers,

00:26:12not only powerful

00:26:13in the physical sense,

00:26:14but scholars,

00:26:15diplomats,

00:26:16people who had understood

00:26:18that authority

00:26:18was most stable

00:26:19when it was also legitimate.

00:26:22Merrick, her uncle,

00:26:23had none of those qualities.

00:26:25He had the authority.

00:26:26He had spent 20 years

00:26:28assembling the legitimacy

00:26:29through a combination

00:26:31of force and propaganda

00:26:32and the simple arithmetic

00:26:34of being the only person standing.

00:26:37He was not,

00:26:38Saya said,

00:26:39entirely without political skill.

00:26:42He had kept the kingdom

00:26:43from fracturing.

00:26:44He had maintained the borders

00:26:46and the trade routes

00:26:47and the basic machinery

00:26:49of governance.

00:26:50He had also taxed his people

00:26:52into exhaustion,

00:26:53suppressed three attempted uprisings

00:26:55and quietly eliminated anyone

00:26:57whose bloodline

00:26:58made them inconvenient.

00:27:00He's been trying

00:27:01to have me killed,

00:27:02Claudia said.

00:27:03It was not quite a question.

00:27:05Twice, Saya said.

00:27:07We intercepted

00:27:08the second attempt

00:27:09six weeks ago.

00:27:10That was what precipitated

00:27:12our decision

00:27:12to find you.

00:27:13A fission of him,

00:27:15Claudia said.

00:27:16He's a thorough man.

00:27:18Apparently,

00:27:19it runs in families,

00:27:20Claudia said,

00:27:21and was surprised

00:27:22to hear something

00:27:23almost like dark humor

00:27:25in her own voice.

00:27:26Grief,

00:27:27she had learned,

00:27:28had a way

00:27:29of arriving

00:27:30in unexpected forms.

00:27:32Sometimes,

00:27:33it arrived as laughter,

00:27:35sharp and brief,

00:27:36because the alternative

00:27:38was worse.

00:27:39They arrived in Verrath

00:27:40on the eighth day.

00:27:41The capital city

00:27:42was called Halvard,

00:27:44not to be confused

00:27:45with her former pack.

00:27:46The names were coincidental,

00:27:48and she had always

00:27:49found it faintly strange,

00:27:51and it sat at the junction

00:27:52of three rivers,

00:27:54protected on the north

00:27:55by the gray walls

00:27:56and on the east

00:27:57by a natural bluff

00:27:58that had been fortified

00:28:00into the city's outer wall

00:28:01centuries ago.

00:28:02It was,

00:28:03by any reasonable measure,

00:28:05an impressive city.

00:28:06It was large and old

00:28:08and layered with history

00:28:10in the way

00:28:10that very old cities are.

00:28:12Each era of building

00:28:14pressed against the next,

00:28:15the ancient stone

00:28:17of the original walls

00:28:18supporting the newer towers,

00:28:20the original market square

00:28:21surrounded by a century

00:28:23of accumulated growth.

00:28:24It smelled of river water

00:28:26and baking bread,

00:28:28and the particular combination

00:28:29of wood smoke

00:28:30and cold air

00:28:31that Claudia,

00:28:32for reasons she could not

00:28:34entirely explain,

00:28:36found herself responding to

00:28:37as though to something familiar.

00:28:39as though something

00:28:40in her blood recognized it.

00:28:42She had thought

00:28:43she was prepared for this.

00:28:45She found,

00:28:46riding through the outer gates,

00:28:49that she was not.

00:28:50Chapter 4

00:28:51The plan,

00:28:53as Saya laid it out

00:28:54in the safe house

00:28:55three streets from the palace,

00:28:57was this.

00:28:58Claudia would not announce

00:29:00herself publicly.

00:29:01Not yet.

00:29:02Not until they had secured

00:29:04allies within the court,

00:29:05people who remembered

00:29:07the old king,

00:29:07people who had spent

00:29:09twenty years

00:29:10in quiet opposition

00:29:11to Marek's reign,

00:29:12people who had recognized

00:29:13the royal bloodline

00:29:15and act on it.

00:29:16There were more of these people

00:29:18than Marek suspected,

00:29:19because Marek was the kind of man

00:29:21who believed that power

00:29:22crushed all opposition,

00:29:24and had therefore missed

00:29:25the category of people

00:29:26who had learned,

00:29:27very carefully,

00:29:28how to be opposed to him

00:29:29without being visible about it.

00:29:31These allies would need

00:29:33to see her first.

00:29:34They would need to be certain.

00:29:36Certain of what?

00:29:37Claudia asked.

00:29:39That you are who you are,

00:29:41Saya said.

00:29:41And that you are someone

00:29:43who can actually lead.

00:29:45That's two separate criteria.

00:29:47Yes.

00:29:48The bloodline is the first.

00:29:50You are your father's daughter.

00:29:52Anyone who knew him

00:29:53will see it.

00:29:54The second is more complicated.

00:29:57Saya looked at her

00:29:58with those steady dark eyes.

00:30:00You've spent your life

00:30:01as an omega

00:30:02in a packed society.

00:30:04You've had no formal training,

00:30:06no experience

00:30:07with court politics,

00:30:08no practice

00:30:09with a specific kind

00:30:10of authority required

00:30:11of a ruling monarch.

00:30:13She paused.

00:30:14You are also,

00:30:16from what I have observed

00:30:17in ten days,

00:30:18someone who walked out

00:30:19of a mate rejection

00:30:20without falling apart

00:30:21and spent eight years

00:30:23holding onto a secret

00:30:24that most people

00:30:25would have been broken by

00:30:26and who made a life's decision

00:30:28in under an hour

00:30:29and has not wavered

00:30:30from it since.

00:30:32Claudia considered this summary.

00:30:33You're saying there's potential,

00:30:36she said.

00:30:36I'm saying,

00:30:38Saya replied,

00:30:39that the qualities

00:30:40that make a good ruler

00:30:41are not always the ones

00:30:43that formal training produces.

00:30:45Sometimes they're the ones

00:30:46that survive

00:30:47in the absence of it.

00:30:49The first meeting

00:30:50was three days later.

00:30:52It was held

00:30:52in a private library

00:30:54on the palace's eastern wing,

00:30:56a room that technically

00:30:57belonged to the head archivist,

00:30:59an elderly man

00:31:00named Prosper

00:31:01who had served three kings

00:31:03and survived all of them

00:31:04through the simple expedient

00:31:06of making himself

00:31:07so quietly indispensable

00:31:09that even Merrick

00:31:11could not justify

00:31:12removing him.

00:31:13Prosper had been

00:31:15one of the king's

00:31:15most trusted advisors

00:31:1721 years ago.

00:31:19He had been the one

00:31:20who sealed the letter.

00:31:21He had been one

00:31:22of the five people who knew.

00:31:24He was 83 years old

00:31:26and he moved

00:31:27with the careful economy

00:31:28of a man

00:31:29who has learned

00:31:30to spend his energy

00:31:31deliberately.

00:31:32When Sia brought Claudia

00:31:34into the library

00:31:34and closed the door,

00:31:36he looked at her

00:31:37for a very long time

00:31:38without speaking.

00:31:40Well, he said,

00:31:41finally.

00:31:42His voice was dry

00:31:44and precise,

00:31:45the voice of someone

00:31:46who had spent

00:31:47a lifetime

00:31:48choosing words carefully.

00:31:50You have his eyes.

00:31:52I've been told,

00:31:53Claudia said,

00:31:54though I never had anything

00:31:56to compare them to.

00:31:57Gray,

00:31:58Prosper said.

00:31:59Gray with that

00:32:00particular quality,

00:32:02as though they are

00:32:02lit from behind.

00:32:04Aldred had that.

00:32:05A pause.

00:32:07Your mother's nose,

00:32:08though,

00:32:08which is perhaps

00:32:09fortunate for you.

00:32:11Was my father's nose

00:32:12problematic?

00:32:13It was,

00:32:15Prosper said gravely,

00:32:16somewhat assertive.

00:32:18Claudia laughed.

00:32:19It was not a polite,

00:32:21controlled laugh,

00:32:22but a genuine one.

00:32:24Slightly startled out of her,

00:32:25and she saw something shift

00:32:27in Prosper's careful expression

00:32:29at the sound of it.

00:32:31He used to laugh like that,

00:32:33the old man said.

00:32:34His voice was quieter now.

00:32:36Your father,

00:32:37exactly like that.

00:32:40And that,

00:32:41Claudia found,

00:32:42was the moment

00:32:43Verith became real to her.

00:32:45Not the journey,

00:32:46not the gates,

00:32:48not the site of the palace.

00:32:50This,

00:32:50this old man

00:32:52recognizing something

00:32:53in her laugh

00:32:54that she could not

00:32:54even see herself,

00:32:56this connection

00:32:57to a father

00:32:58she had never known,

00:32:59this proof

00:33:00that she was not invented

00:33:01but descended,

00:33:03not constructed

00:33:04but continuous.

00:33:05She pressed her lips together.

00:33:07She breathed

00:33:09through her nose.

00:33:10She did not cry

00:33:11because she had decided

00:33:12about crying,

00:33:13but it was a closer thing

00:33:15than most moments

00:33:16had been.

00:33:16Over the following

00:33:17two weeks,

00:33:19Sayah brought her

00:33:19to seven more

00:33:20of these meetings.

00:33:21Each one was careful,

00:33:23private,

00:33:24conducted with a particular

00:33:26delicacy of people

00:33:27who understood

00:33:28that what they were doing

00:33:29was quietly treasonous

00:33:30to the currently installed king

00:33:32and who had decided

00:33:34to do it anyway.

00:33:35There was a woman

00:33:36named Sarah,

00:33:37a former lady of the court

00:33:39who had been exiled

00:33:40to her family estate

00:33:41after her late husband

00:33:42had been too openly

00:33:43critical of Merrick

00:33:44and who received Claudia

00:33:46in a drawing room

00:33:47crowded with dogs

00:33:48and warm fires

00:33:49and spoke with the direct,

00:33:52undecorated frankness

00:33:53of a woman

00:33:53who had lost enough

00:33:54to have no patience

00:33:55for pretense.

00:33:57You'll have to be

00:33:58harder than you look,

00:33:59Sarah told her

00:34:00after about 20 minutes

00:34:01of conversation.

00:34:03How hard do I look?

00:34:04Claudia asked.

00:34:06Sarah's mouth curved.

00:34:08Not very.

00:34:09Which is the point?

00:34:10Your uncle

00:34:11will underestimate you.

00:34:13Most of them will,

00:34:14at first.

00:34:15The question is

00:34:16whether you can use

00:34:17that before they

00:34:18stop doing it.

00:34:19How long do I have?

00:34:21Until you do something

00:34:22that frightens them,

00:34:23Sarah said.

00:34:24Which,

00:34:25if you're the right person

00:34:26for this,

00:34:27won't take long.

00:34:28There was Lord Fenn,

00:34:30young,

00:34:31anxious,

00:34:32the son of one

00:34:33of the old king's

00:34:34most loyal generals,

00:34:36who spent their entire meeting

00:34:37alternating between

00:34:38barely concealed excitement

00:34:40and barely concealed terror,

00:34:42and managed to be,

00:34:44despite this,

00:34:46genuinely useful

00:34:46because he was the one

00:34:48who had maintained contact

00:34:49with the northern border garrison,

00:34:51a significant military asset

00:34:53that Merrick believed

00:34:54was securely his own.

00:34:55And there was,

00:34:57on the 14th day,

00:34:58the complication.

00:35:00The complication arrived

00:35:01in the form of a messenger

00:35:03from the western territories,

00:35:05breathless from hard writing,

00:35:07carrying a letter sealed

00:35:09with the Ashford wolf crest.

00:35:11Claudia stared at the crest

00:35:13for a long moment.

00:35:14That is,

00:35:15she said carefully to Saya,

00:35:18not something I was expecting.

00:35:20No,

00:35:21Saya agreed.

00:35:22She had the expression

00:35:23of someone

00:35:24who is rapidly revising a plan.

00:35:26Neither was I.

00:35:28The letter was from Torben,

00:35:30not from Darren himself,

00:35:32which told Claudia something,

00:35:33and it was short and direct

00:35:35and made her feel

00:35:37several things simultaneously.

00:35:39None of which she particularly

00:35:41wanted to examine

00:35:42at that moment.

00:35:43Torben wrote that he had heard rumors,

00:35:45the kind of rumors

00:35:46that spread fast

00:35:47in the political circles

00:35:49connecting the western pack territories

00:35:51to the eastern kingdoms,

00:35:53about a woman of unknown lineage

00:35:55arriving in Verrath

00:35:56under the protection

00:35:57of the royal guard.

00:35:59He wrote that Darren

00:36:00had been in no fit state

00:36:02to write this letter himself,

00:36:04which Torben clearly felt

00:36:06needed to be stated.

00:36:07He wrote,

00:36:08with a frankness

00:36:09that she recognized

00:36:10as Torben's particular gift

00:36:12that the Ashford pack

00:36:13was willing to offer

00:36:15its support

00:36:15and alliance

00:36:16to the Verrath claimif,

00:36:18and he had underlined

00:36:19this with some force,

00:36:21if the claimant

00:36:22was willing to receive it.

00:36:23He had signed it,

00:36:24with respect,

00:36:26and on behalf

00:36:27of an alpha

00:36:27who is extremely sorry

00:36:29and does not yet know

00:36:31how to say so.

00:36:32Claudia folded the letter.

00:36:34She set it on the table.

00:36:36She looked at it.

00:36:37Well, she said.

00:36:39Your call,

00:36:40Sia said.

00:36:41Generous of you.

00:36:42I try.

00:36:44Claudia picked up

00:36:45the letter again.

00:36:46She read it twice more.

00:36:48She thought about

00:36:49Darren Ashford's gray eyes

00:36:51and his careful face

00:36:52and the pain

00:36:53she had thought

00:36:53she saw in them

00:36:54and the bond

00:36:55that was a scar now

00:36:56but had once been a song

00:36:58and the choice he had made

00:36:59and the choice

00:37:00she had made afterward.

00:37:02She thought about

00:37:03kingdoms and thrones

00:37:04and the things

00:37:05that were already

00:37:06set in motion.

00:37:07Write back,

00:37:08she said finally.

00:37:10Tell them that

00:37:11the Verrath claimant

00:37:12does not currently

00:37:13have the time

00:37:13or the inclination

00:37:15to manage

00:37:16someone else's

00:37:17emotional reckoning

00:37:18in the middle

00:37:18of a succession crisis.

00:37:20If the Ashford pack

00:37:21wishes to offer

00:37:22political alliance,

00:37:24they may submit

00:37:25their terms formally

00:37:26through Commander Sia.

00:37:28She paused.

00:37:29Tell Torben

00:37:30thank you

00:37:31for the candor.

00:37:32Sia almost smiled.

00:37:34And Darren?

00:37:35He knows where I am,

00:37:37Claudia said.

00:37:38He can make

00:37:39his own way here.

00:37:41Chapter 5

00:37:42What Darren actually did

00:37:44was arrive

00:37:44in Halvard

00:37:45fourteen days later,

00:37:46having ridden

00:37:47at a pace

00:37:48that deeply concerned

00:37:49his horse

00:37:50and alarmed

00:37:51his entire escort

00:37:52with no formal

00:37:54advance notice

00:37:54and no prepared speech

00:37:56and exactly

00:37:57one clear objective.

00:37:58to see her.

00:38:00This was not

00:38:01his beta

00:38:02had pointed out

00:38:02before he left

00:38:03the most politically

00:38:05sophisticated approach.

00:38:06Noted,

00:38:08Darren had said

00:38:08and left anyway.

00:38:10He had spent

00:38:11the four months

00:38:12since the rejection

00:38:13constructing

00:38:13an increasingly

00:38:14complicated

00:38:15and increasingly

00:38:17unconvincing

00:38:17set of reasons

00:38:18why he had been

00:38:20correct.

00:38:20He had built

00:38:21this structure

00:38:22carefully.

00:38:23He had reinforced

00:38:24it regularly.

00:38:25He had stood

00:38:26inside it

00:38:27and looked

00:38:27out at the

00:38:28south road

00:38:28and told himself

00:38:30it was solid.

00:38:31The letter

00:38:31from Vereth

00:38:32had taken

00:38:33the structure

00:38:33apart

00:38:34in about

00:38:34eleven minutes.

00:38:36It was not

00:38:36the content,

00:38:37precisely.

00:38:38It was not

00:38:39the discovery

00:38:40that Claudia

00:38:41was the heir

00:38:41to a kingdom,

00:38:42though that had

00:38:43certainly landed

00:38:44with some force.

00:38:45It was the way

00:38:46Torben had described

00:38:47finding out.

00:38:48The image

00:38:49of sitting in

00:38:50the map room

00:38:51at Iron Spire

00:38:52going over

00:38:52trade route reports

00:38:53and hearing

00:38:54through three

00:38:54degrees of rumor

00:38:55that the Omega

00:38:56Darren had

00:38:57rejected eight

00:38:58months ago

00:38:58was apparently

00:38:59a royal heir

00:39:00in exile

00:39:01and the particular

00:39:02sensation Torben

00:39:03described of

00:39:04watching his

00:39:04alpha absorb

00:39:05this information,

00:39:06which he likened,

00:39:07memorably,

00:39:08to watching a man

00:39:09realize he had

00:39:10been sitting on

00:39:11the edge of a

00:39:11cliff and had

00:39:12only just looked

00:39:14down.

00:39:14I made an error

00:39:15in judgment,

00:39:17Darren said,

00:39:18on the evening

00:39:19before he rode out.

00:39:20He and Torben

00:39:21were in the

00:39:22great hall,

00:39:22which was

00:39:23empty except

00:39:24for the two

00:39:25of them

00:39:25and the hounds

00:39:26by the fire.

00:39:27Yes,

00:39:28Torben said.

00:39:29I want to

00:39:29correct it.

00:39:30I know.

00:39:31I'm not going

00:39:32because she's

00:39:33a queen,

00:39:34Darren said,

00:39:35and his voice

00:39:36had an edge

00:39:36to it.

00:39:37Not anger,

00:39:38but something

00:39:39more uncomfortable.

00:39:41Conviction,

00:39:42perhaps.

00:39:43The kind

00:39:43that costs

00:39:44something.

00:39:45I want to

00:39:45be very clear

00:39:46about that.

00:39:47The bond,

00:39:48the rejection,

00:39:49that was wrong

00:39:50of me regardless

00:39:51of who she is.

00:39:52Her being a queen

00:39:54makes it worse,

00:39:55but it doesn't

00:39:56change the

00:39:56fundamental thing.

00:39:58Torben looked

00:39:59at him.

00:40:00I know,

00:40:01he said again

00:40:02more quietly.

00:40:03I didn't examine

00:40:04my assumptions,

00:40:05Darren said.

00:40:06I had ideas

00:40:07about what my pack

00:40:08required,

00:40:09about what an

00:40:09alpha's mate

00:40:10should be,

00:40:11about what strength

00:40:11looked like,

00:40:12and I didn't examine

00:40:14any of them.

00:40:14I just acted

00:40:16on them.

00:40:16He stopped.

00:40:18She stood in front

00:40:19of me,

00:40:19and she was,

00:40:20she was

00:40:21extraordinary.

00:40:23Torben.

00:40:23She was

00:40:24extraordinary,

00:40:25and I rejected

00:40:26her in about

00:40:2745 seconds,

00:40:28because she

00:40:29didn't fit a

00:40:30framework I'd

00:40:31never even

00:40:32questioned.

00:40:33Yes,

00:40:34Torben said.

00:40:35That's it?

00:40:36Just yes.

00:40:37What else do you

00:40:38want me to say?

00:40:39You've spent

00:40:40eight months

00:40:40getting here.

00:40:41I'm not going

00:40:42to argue with you

00:40:43now that you've

00:40:44arrived.

00:40:44Darren looked

00:40:45into the fire.

00:40:46The hounds,

00:40:47sensing something,

00:40:49shifted and

00:40:50resettled.

00:40:51The echo moved

00:40:53through the

00:40:53great hall.

00:40:54She's not going

00:40:55to make this

00:40:56easy,

00:40:56he said.

00:40:57Absolutely not,

00:40:59Torben agreed,

00:41:00with what seemed

00:41:01to Darren like

00:41:02slightly too

00:41:03much relish.

00:41:04She's going

00:41:05to make it

00:41:05very difficult,

00:41:06and frankly,

00:41:07she should,

00:41:08and you're

00:41:08going to have

00:41:09to earn it.

00:41:09I know,

00:41:11Darren said.

00:41:12He rode out

00:41:13the next morning

00:41:13before the sun

00:41:14was up.

00:41:15The road

00:41:16to Verrath

00:41:16took most

00:41:17people eight

00:41:18to ten days

00:41:18at a comfortable

00:41:19pace.

00:41:20Darren covered

00:41:21it in six,

00:41:22which his escort

00:41:23would later

00:41:23refer to,

00:41:24in subdued

00:41:25voices,

00:41:26as the ride.

00:41:27He was not

00:41:28reckless with

00:41:29his horses.

00:41:29He was too

00:41:30experienced a

00:41:31horseman for

00:41:32that,

00:41:32but he was

00:41:33relentless in

00:41:34the way that

00:41:34a person is

00:41:35relentless when

00:41:36they are out

00:41:36running something,

00:41:37which in this

00:41:38case was the

00:41:39fear that if

00:41:39he arrived late

00:41:40something would

00:41:41already be decided

00:41:42and he would

00:41:43find himself

00:41:44standing outside

00:41:45a door that

00:41:45had been

00:41:46closed.

00:41:46He arrived

00:41:47in Halvard on

00:41:48a gray afternoon

00:41:49unannounced.

00:41:51Commander

00:41:51Saya met him

00:41:52at the safe

00:41:53house.

00:41:54She was not,

00:41:55he noted,

00:41:56surprised to see

00:41:57him, which

00:41:58suggested that

00:41:59she had expected

00:41:59this or had

00:42:00been warned or

00:42:01both.

00:42:02She looked at

00:42:03him with the

00:42:04expression of a

00:42:05soldier conducting

00:42:06an assessment.

00:42:07You came,

00:42:08she said.

00:42:09I came,

00:42:10he agreed.

00:42:11She said you

00:42:12could find your

00:42:12own way here.

00:42:13I found my

00:42:15own way here.

00:42:16A brief pause.

00:42:18Saya appeared to

00:42:19be making a

00:42:19decision.

00:42:20She is in a

00:42:21council meeting,

00:42:22she said.

00:42:23You'll wait.

00:42:24Darren waited.

00:42:25He was not

00:42:26generally good at

00:42:26waiting.

00:42:27He was, by

00:42:28nature and by

00:42:29the habits of

00:42:30authority,

00:42:31accustomed to

00:42:32things happening

00:42:32when he decided

00:42:33they should happen.

00:42:34Waiting in a

00:42:35safe house in an

00:42:36unfamiliar city while

00:42:38the woman he had

00:42:39wronged, conducted

00:42:39kingdom business

00:42:41three streets away

00:42:42was not a

00:42:43comfortable experience.

00:42:44He sat with it.

00:42:46He thought it was

00:42:47probably appropriate

00:42:48that it wasn't

00:42:49comfortable.

00:42:49The meeting lasted

00:42:51two hours.

00:42:52Claudia arrived in

00:42:53the safe house with

00:42:54the kind of energy

00:42:55that filled a room

00:42:56without effort.

00:42:57Not loudness,

00:42:58not performance,

00:42:59but presence,

00:43:00the particular

00:43:01quality of a person

00:43:02who has spent a

00:43:03great deal of time

00:43:04recently having to

00:43:05be entirely present

00:43:06and has gotten

00:43:07very good at it.

00:43:08She stopped in

00:43:09the doorway when

00:43:10she saw him.

00:43:11Her expression did

00:43:12not change.

00:43:13Her dark eyes

00:43:14moved over him

00:43:15with the same

00:43:16measured quality

00:43:17he remembered,

00:43:18the same assessment

00:43:19that he had found

00:43:20eight months ago,

00:43:22disconcerting and

00:43:23now recognized as

00:43:25one of the most

00:43:25honest things anyone

00:43:27had ever directed

00:43:28at him.

00:43:29She looked well.

00:43:30She looked,

00:43:31in fact,

00:43:32remarkable.

00:43:34There was

00:43:34something in her

00:43:35bearing that had

00:43:35not been there in

00:43:36his great hall,

00:43:37or perhaps had

00:43:38been there and

00:43:39he had not paid

00:43:41enough attention

00:43:41to see it.

00:43:42A quality of arrival,

00:43:44he thought.

00:43:44The look of a person

00:43:46who had found

00:43:46their footing.

00:43:47Darren Ashford,

00:43:48she said.

00:43:50Claudia,

00:43:50he said.

00:43:51That's an interesting

00:43:52response.

00:43:53I expected you

00:43:54to use a title.

00:43:56I don't know

00:43:56what title to use,

00:43:57he said.

00:43:58I'm not sure

00:43:59what to call you yet.

00:44:00She looked at him

00:44:01for a moment.

00:44:02You can call me

00:44:03Claudia,

00:44:04she said.

00:44:04For now.

00:44:06A pause that

00:44:07contained a great

00:44:08deal.

00:44:09Sit down.

00:44:10He sat down.

00:44:11She sat across

00:44:13from him,

00:44:13with a distance

00:44:14between them

00:44:15that was not

00:44:15accidental,

00:44:16and she folded

00:44:17her hands on the

00:44:18table and looked

00:44:19at him with

00:44:19those gray eyes,

00:44:21her father's eyes,

00:44:22though she did

00:44:23not know yet

00:44:24that he knew this.

00:44:25And she said,

00:44:26simply,

00:44:27Why are you here?

00:44:29And Darren,

00:44:30who had been

00:44:30composing some

00:44:31version of this

00:44:32answer for six

00:44:33hard days of

00:44:34riding and

00:44:35eight longer

00:44:35months of

00:44:36arriving at it,

00:44:37said,

00:44:38Because I was

00:44:39wrong.

00:44:40Not wrong,

00:44:41because of who

00:44:41you turned out

00:44:42to be.

00:44:43Wrong about who

00:44:44you were when

00:44:44you were standing

00:44:45in front of me,

00:44:46and I wasn't

00:44:47paying enough

00:44:48attention to see

00:44:48it.

00:44:49Silence.

00:44:50That's a better

00:44:51answer than I

00:44:52expected,

00:44:53Claudia said.

00:44:54I had time to

00:44:55work on it.

00:44:55Eight months

00:44:56is a long time.

00:44:58It is,

00:44:59he agreed.

00:45:00I use some

00:45:01of it badly,

00:45:01and some

00:45:02of it reasonably

00:45:03productively.

00:45:04Her mouth

00:45:05moved,

00:45:06not quite a

00:45:07smile,

00:45:07but the shape

00:45:08of one,

00:45:09the shape

00:45:10of one that

00:45:10was deciding

00:45:11whether or not

00:45:12to arrive.

00:45:13I'm in the

00:45:14middle of a

00:45:14succession crisis,

00:45:15she said.

00:45:16I have a throne

00:45:18to reclaim,

00:45:18an uncle who's

00:45:19tried to have me

00:45:20killed twice,

00:45:21and a political

00:45:22coalition that is

00:45:23currently held

00:45:24together by

00:45:24goodwill and

00:45:26the particular

00:45:26tension of

00:45:27people who have

00:45:28been waiting a

00:45:29long time for

00:45:29something to be

00:45:30different.

00:45:30She looked

00:45:32at him

00:45:32steadily.

00:45:33I don't have

00:45:34time to also

00:45:35manage the

00:45:35fallout of a

00:45:36rejected mate

00:45:37bond.

00:45:38I know,

00:45:39he said.

00:45:40I'm telling

00:45:41you this,

00:45:41she continued,

00:45:42because I want

00:45:44to be honest

00:45:44with you about

00:45:45the situation,

00:45:46not because I'm

00:45:47asking you to

00:45:48leave.

00:45:49A beat.

00:45:50You're not

00:45:51asking me to

00:45:51leave, he

00:45:52said.

00:45:53Not yet.

00:45:54She sat

00:45:55back.

00:45:56The Ashford

00:45:56Pact's political

00:45:57weight in the

00:45:58Northern Territories

00:45:59is significant.

00:46:00An alliance

00:46:01with you would

00:46:02strengthen my

00:46:03coalition considerably.

00:46:05A pause.

00:46:06That is a

00:46:07pragmatic reason

00:46:08to let you

00:46:09stay.

00:46:09I'm telling

00:46:10you it's

00:46:10pragmatic,

00:46:11so you

00:46:12understand I

00:46:13haven't made a

00:46:13decision about

00:46:14the other

00:46:14thing.

00:46:15The other

00:46:16thing, he

00:46:17said.

00:46:17Yes.

00:46:18That's very

00:46:20diplomatic

00:46:20language.

00:46:21I'm learning

00:46:22to be diplomatic,

00:46:23she said,

00:46:24with the

00:46:25precision of

00:46:25someone who

00:46:26finds the

00:46:26project interesting

00:46:27but is not

00:46:28going to pretend

00:46:29it's natural.

00:46:30It is

00:46:30frankly

00:46:31exhausting.

00:46:32This time the

00:46:33thing he had

00:46:34been suppressing

00:46:34for six days

00:46:35of writing and

00:46:36eight months

00:46:37before that did

00:46:38reach his face.

00:46:39He did not

00:46:40try to stop it.

00:46:41It was a

00:46:41small thing,

00:46:43genuine and

00:46:44involuntary and

00:46:45he thought,

00:46:45watching her,

00:46:47that she noticed

00:46:47it.

00:46:48I would like,

00:46:49he said

00:46:49carefully,

00:46:50to be useful

00:46:51to you.

00:46:52To the extent

00:46:53that I can be.

00:46:54without the

00:46:55expectation of

00:46:56anything in

00:46:57return.

00:46:58She looked at

00:46:59him for a

00:46:59long time.

00:47:00Can you

00:47:01fight,

00:47:01she said.

00:47:02Yes.

00:47:03Can you

00:47:04be honest

00:47:04when the

00:47:05situation requires

00:47:06something you

00:47:06don't want to

00:47:07give?

00:47:08A pause.

00:47:09I am

00:47:10learning to

00:47:10be.

00:47:11That's an

00:47:12honest answer

00:47:13about honesty,

00:47:14she said.

00:47:14I'll give you

00:47:15points for

00:47:16that.

00:47:16She stood

00:47:17up.

00:47:17She extended

00:47:18her hand

00:47:19across the

00:47:20table.

00:47:20Not the

00:47:21gesture of

00:47:21a mate,

00:47:22not the

00:47:23gesture of

00:47:24a woman

00:47:24willing to

00:47:25return to

00:47:25a bond,

00:47:26but the

00:47:26gesture of

00:47:27someone offering

00:47:28something more

00:47:29provisional and

00:47:30more real.

00:47:31You can

00:47:31stay,

00:47:32she said.

00:47:32You can

00:47:33serve the

00:47:34claim.

00:47:34We will

00:47:35see what

00:47:35else follows.

00:47:36He took

00:47:37her hand.

00:47:38It was the

00:47:39first time he

00:47:40had touched

00:47:40her.

00:47:40He realized,

00:47:42in the

00:47:42great hall,

00:47:43there had

00:47:44been no

00:47:44touch,

00:47:45only words.

00:47:46Her hand

00:47:47was warm and

00:47:48the scar of

00:47:49the broken

00:47:49bond ached in

00:47:50his chest

00:47:51with an

00:47:51intensity he

00:47:52had not

00:47:53felt since

00:47:53the day

00:47:54after the

00:47:54rejection,

00:47:55because that

00:47:56was the

00:47:56thing about

00:47:57proximity.

00:47:58It reminded

00:47:59the wound of

00:48:00what it was

00:48:00reaching for.

00:48:01He did

00:48:02not let the

00:48:02ache show on

00:48:03his face.

00:48:04He thought

00:48:05that was

00:48:05probably the

00:48:06least he

00:48:06owed her.

00:48:07Thank you,

00:48:08he said.

00:48:09Don't thank

00:48:09me yet,

00:48:10Claudia said.

00:48:11Wait until

00:48:12you've met

00:48:12my uncle.

00:48:14Chapter

00:48:14Six

00:48:15Merrick

00:48:16Verrith was

00:48:16fifty-four

00:48:17years old and

00:48:18looked.

00:48:19Darren thought

00:48:20upon eventually

00:48:20seeing him

00:48:21at distance,

00:48:22like a man

00:48:23who had spent

00:48:23twenty years

00:48:24being afraid

00:48:25and had spent

00:48:26all that time

00:48:27converting the

00:48:28fear into

00:48:28aggression.

00:48:29He was not

00:48:30physically

00:48:31impressive,

00:48:32shorter than

00:48:33his reputation,

00:48:34thinner than

00:48:35his portraits,

00:48:35with quick eyes

00:48:37that moved

00:48:37constantly over

00:48:38a room in

00:48:39the restless

00:48:39way of someone

00:48:40who has learned

00:48:41to be perpetually

00:48:42watchful.

00:48:43He wore his

00:48:44authority like a

00:48:45garment he was

00:48:46not entirely

00:48:47certain fit,

00:48:48and the

00:48:49overcompensation

00:48:50made him

00:48:50dangerous in

00:48:51a particular

00:48:52way.

00:48:52The kind of

00:48:53danger that

00:48:54comes not

00:48:54from strength,

00:48:55but from the

00:48:56willingness to

00:48:57do extreme

00:48:58things to

00:48:58avoid appearing

00:48:59weak.

00:49:00Claudia had

00:49:01assessed him,

00:49:02Darren knew,

00:49:03with the same

00:49:04efficiency she

00:49:05brought to

00:49:06everything.

00:49:07He's frightened,

00:49:08she told the

00:49:09council.

00:49:09On the fourth

00:49:10day after Darren's

00:49:11arrival, in the

00:49:13library where

00:49:13Prosper served as

00:49:14chair and the

00:49:15maps of the

00:49:16palace and city

00:49:17had been spread

00:49:18across the long

00:49:19table.

00:49:20He has been

00:49:21frightened for

00:49:22twenty years.

00:49:23Frightened men

00:49:24make predictable

00:49:25choices.

00:49:26She paused.

00:49:28The question is

00:49:29not whether he'll

00:49:30try to move

00:49:30against us once

00:49:31he knows I'm

00:49:32here.

00:49:32He will.

00:49:33The question is

00:49:34when and on

00:49:35what grounds,

00:49:36and whether we've

00:49:37built enough of a

00:49:38coalition to

00:49:39weather it.

00:49:40We have eight of

00:49:41the twelve noble

00:49:42houses, said

00:49:43Lord Fenn, who

00:49:44had graduated, in

00:49:45the two weeks

00:49:46since his first

00:49:47meeting with

00:49:47Claudia, from

00:49:49barely concealed

00:49:50terror to a

00:49:50slightly more

00:49:51composed version

00:49:52of the same.

00:49:53The northern

00:49:54garrison has

00:49:55confirmed through

00:49:55back channels that

00:49:56their commander

00:49:57will stand with

00:49:58the true heir when

00:49:59the claim is

00:50:00made public.

00:50:01A pause.

00:50:02The city's

00:50:03merchant guilds are

00:50:04cautiously

00:50:05sympathetic.

00:50:07They've spent a

00:50:08decade absorbing

00:50:09Marek's trade

00:50:10levies.

00:50:11Cautiously

00:50:12sympathetic, Sarah

00:50:13said, with the

00:50:15tone of a woman who

00:50:16had seen a great

00:50:17deal of cautious

00:50:18sympathy fail to

00:50:19translate into

00:50:20useful action.

00:50:21In other words,

00:50:22they'll celebrate

00:50:23after we've won.

00:50:25That's all we need

00:50:26them to do,

00:50:27Claudia said.

00:50:28Sarah looked at

00:50:29her, and the look

00:50:30had something in it

00:50:31that had not been

00:50:32there in their

00:50:33first meeting.

00:50:34Not approval

00:50:35exactly, but a

00:50:36kind of recognition.

00:50:37You have been

00:50:38paying attention,

00:50:39she said.

00:50:39I am paying

00:50:40attention, Claudia

00:50:42said.

00:50:42Continuously.

00:50:44It's somewhat

00:50:45all-consuming.

00:50:46Welcome to being

00:50:47a queen, Sarah

00:50:49said Drilly.

00:50:50The issue was

00:50:51timing.

00:50:52They had the

00:50:52pieces, or most

00:50:54of them.

00:50:54What they did not

00:50:55have was a

00:50:56moment.

00:50:56The right

00:50:57moment.

00:50:58The moment that

00:50:59would make the

00:51:00public declaration

00:51:01not a gamble,

00:51:02but an inevitability

00:51:03that would give the

00:51:04uncertain allies the

00:51:05confidence to step

00:51:06forward and leave

00:51:08Marek with nothing

00:51:09to stand on.

00:51:10This was the part of

00:51:11the plan that Darren,

00:51:12who was primarily

00:51:13useful in a military

00:51:15capacity and was

00:51:16aware of the limits

00:51:17of his role, found

00:51:18himself listening to

00:51:19with something between

00:51:20professional admiration

00:51:21and a more personal

00:51:23kind of attention.

00:51:25Claudia in a council

00:51:26room was not Claudia

00:51:27in the safe house, not

00:51:29Claudia in the quiet

00:51:30conversation, and not

00:51:32Claudia in his great

00:51:33hall.

00:51:34She was faster here,

00:51:36more precise, the

00:51:37kind of quick that had

00:51:38been honed by something

00:51:39rather than simply

00:51:40present.

00:51:41She moved through the

00:51:42map of the situation

00:51:43with an instinctive

00:51:44grasp of the political

00:51:46geometry that Prosper

00:51:47watched with an

00:51:48expression Darren had

00:51:49begun to recognize as

00:51:51the old man's version

00:51:52of satisfaction.

00:51:54She thinks like

00:51:55Aldred did, Prosper

00:51:57said, on the evening

00:51:58of the fourth day,

00:51:59quietly, to Darren

00:52:01alone as they stood in

00:52:02the corridor outside the

00:52:03library.

00:52:04Your father thought in

00:52:06structures, he had

00:52:07told Claudia once.

00:52:08You think in movements.

00:52:11It was, Prosper said,

00:52:12the difference between a

00:52:13good administrator and a

00:52:15good ruler.

00:52:16She doesn't need me for

00:52:17this, Darren said.

00:52:19No, Prosper agreed.

00:52:21Not for this.

00:52:23He looked at Darren with

00:52:25the measured gaze of a

00:52:26man who had eight

00:52:27decades of context for

00:52:28human foolishness and

00:52:30was therefore neither

00:52:31surprised nor

00:52:32unsympathetic.

00:52:33That is not, I think,

00:52:35why you're here.

00:52:37No, Darren said.

00:52:39Then be here for the

00:52:40right reason, Prosper

00:52:42said, and be patient.

00:52:44She is not yet done

00:52:46deciding what to do

00:52:47with you.

00:52:48The moment came eleven

00:52:49days after Darren's

00:52:51arrival.

00:52:51It came because Merrick,

00:52:53who was not a stupid

00:52:54man, even if he was a

00:52:55frightened one, had his

00:52:57own network of

00:52:58informants, and one of

00:52:59those informants had

00:53:00eventually gotten close

00:53:02enough to the right

00:53:02conversation to deliver

00:53:03a fragment of something

00:53:05that was, while not

00:53:06conclusive, alarming.

00:53:08Merrick could not have

00:53:09known everything, but he

00:53:11knew enough to know he

00:53:12had a problem, and

00:53:13Merrick's response to

00:53:14problems was to act

00:53:15before they became

00:53:16larger.

00:53:17He called for the

00:53:18northern garrison

00:53:19commander.

00:53:20This was the move that

00:53:21Prosper had predicted, if

00:53:23not precisely, on this

00:53:25timeline.

00:53:25The northern garrison was

00:53:27the military piece.

00:53:29Merrick was trying to

00:53:30secure it before the

00:53:31situation resolved against

00:53:33him.

00:53:34Saya brought the news to

00:53:35the safe house at

00:53:36midnight.

00:53:37She did not knock

00:53:38particularly gently.

00:53:39We need to move

00:53:40tomorrow, she said.

00:53:42Claudia, who had been

00:53:43awake, Darren suspected

00:53:45she slept less than she

00:53:47should and was not going

00:53:48to say so because it

00:53:49would be both patronizing

00:53:51and incorrect that it was

00:53:52entirely his business,

00:53:54looked at Saya across

00:53:56the table.

00:53:57The garrison?

00:53:58His messenger is already

00:54:00writing.

00:54:01Can we intercept?

00:54:03Possibly.

00:54:04It's a risk.

00:54:05Claudia looked at the

00:54:06maps.

00:54:07She was very still for a

00:54:09moment, the kind of

00:54:10stillness that was not

00:54:11absence but concentration,

00:54:13the kind that Darren had

00:54:15watched now for almost two

00:54:16weeks and had come to

00:54:18understand as the way she

00:54:19processed things that

00:54:20mattered.

00:54:21Her hands were flat on the

00:54:22table.

00:54:23Her gray eyes moved across

00:54:25the map with the

00:54:26characteristic quality of

00:54:28someone following a

00:54:29logic.

00:54:30Then, no, she said.

00:54:32We don't intercept.

00:54:34We make the interception

00:54:35irrelevant.

00:54:36She looked up at Saya.

00:54:38We don't need to stop his

00:54:40message from reaching the

00:54:41garrison.

00:54:41We need the garrison to have

00:54:43already heard from me before

00:54:45it arrives.

00:54:46Saya looked at her.

00:54:47That requires being in two

00:54:49places.

00:54:50It requires two fast riders

00:54:52and a letter with my seal.

00:54:55Prosper seal, two.

00:54:57The garrison commander knows

00:54:58prosper.

00:54:59That matters.

00:55:01She was moving now,

00:55:03pulling a sheet of parchment

00:55:04from the stack at the corner

00:55:06of the table.

00:55:07We move the announcement

00:55:08forward.

00:55:09Not tomorrow.

00:55:10Tonight.

00:55:11I make the claim before dawn.

00:55:13By the time Merrick understands

00:55:15what has happened, the allies

00:55:17who have been waiting will have

00:55:18been given the signal they

00:55:20needed.

00:55:20It's fast, Saya said.

00:55:22It's meant to be, Claudia said.

00:55:25She looked at Saya steadily.

00:55:27This is what he was afraid of.

00:55:29He knew something was moving

00:55:31and he couldn't stop it.

00:55:33So he's trying to control the

00:55:35last piece he can reach.

00:55:37We don't let him reach it.

00:55:39Saya was quiet for a moment.

00:55:41Then she said,

00:55:43I'll prepare the riders.

00:55:45Darren had been standing by the

00:55:46door, taking no space in the

00:55:48conversation, which was as it

00:55:51should be.

00:55:51As Saya left, Claudia looked at him.

00:55:54I need you tonight, she said.

00:55:56Not in the council.

00:55:58Outside the palace.

00:56:00If Merrick moves before dawn.

00:56:02If he has other resources we

00:56:04haven't accounted for.

00:56:06I'll be there, he said.

00:56:08She looked at him.

00:56:09In the lamplight, her eyes had that

00:56:12quality Prosper had described.

00:56:14Lit from behind.

00:56:15grey and deep.

00:56:18You rode six days to get here, she said.

00:56:21Yes.

00:56:22You didn't have to.

00:56:24I know.

00:56:25A pause.

00:56:26I'm glad you came, she said.

00:56:29It was quiet and unadorned and more,

00:56:32because of its simplicity,

00:56:33than anything decorated could have been.

00:56:36He did not say you have no idea how glad I am.

00:56:39He did not say anything about the eight months or the hollow ache or the things he had built and

00:56:45torn down inside himself.

00:56:46There would be time for that or there would not, and either outcome was something he had done to himself

00:56:52with his own choices.

00:56:53He said,

00:56:55Tell me where you need me.

00:56:56Chapter 7

00:56:58The announcement was made in the palace's great court at the fourth bell before dawn.

00:57:03It was not the grand, torchlight ceremony of old stories.

00:57:07There were no banners unfurled or a trumpet sounded,

00:57:11no choreographed moment of theatrical revelation.

00:57:15What there was, instead,

00:57:17was Claudia walking into the court at the fourth bell with Prosper at her right hand and Sia at her

00:57:23left,

00:57:23and eight of the twelve noble houses ranged behind her,

00:57:26and standing in the center of that old stone space and speaking,

00:57:30without theater and without decoration,

00:57:33simply the truth.

00:57:34Who she was.

00:57:35Whose daughter.

00:57:37What she carried.

00:57:38Why she had come.

00:57:40She had thought about this speech for fourteen days,

00:57:43and had in the end discarded most of what she had prepared,

00:57:47and said what was most true.

00:57:49She had told them about her mother,

00:57:50who had hidden her and died without telling her,

00:57:54and who had left a letter on a kitchen table in a river valley cottage

00:57:57that Claudia had read at eight years old,

00:58:00and had spent twelve years gathering enough life to understand.

00:58:04She had told them about the valley and the pack and the life she had lived,

00:58:08not apologetically,

00:58:10but as evidence of something,

00:58:12that the blood that ran in her veins had not been able to be educated or trained out of her,

00:58:18that it had found its way through a quiet life in a way that could not have been manufactured.

00:58:23She was, she said, her father's daughter.

00:58:26She was asking for nothing on the strength of that alone.

00:58:29She was asking for something on the strength of what they would see in the days ahead.

00:58:34Merrick was not there.

00:58:37Merrick was, according to Sia's latest information,

00:58:40in his private chambers on the north side of the palace,

00:58:44where the news had reached him approximately twenty minutes before the announcement,

00:58:48and where he was currently engaged in what Sia described as

00:58:52an intense conversation with his advisors.

00:58:55The reaction in the court was not the unified roar of old stories either.

00:59:00It was complex and layered and human,

00:59:03and it was what Claudia had expected.

00:59:06Relief from some quarters,

00:59:08visible shock from others,

00:59:10calculation from several faces

00:59:12she had already identified as Merrick's people

00:59:15who were now revising their calculations at speed.

00:59:18There were tears from an older woman in the third rank who had served her father

00:59:22and had been old enough to remember.

00:59:25There was the particular quality of silence from the crowd

00:59:28that was not emptiness but held breath,

00:59:30the silence of people trying to decide whether to believe and wanting to.

00:59:35It was not, in other words, a smooth victory.

00:59:38It was a beginning.

00:59:40Prosper stood beside her when it was done and said,

00:59:43quietly,

00:59:44That was well done.

00:59:46It was honest, she said.

00:59:48Those are not always the same thing,

00:59:50Prosper said.

00:59:51Tonight they were.

00:59:53The three days that followed were complicated,

00:59:55which is perhaps the mildest possible way

00:59:58to describe a succession crisis

01:00:00being actively contested in real time.

01:00:03Merrick did not concede.

01:00:05This had been expected.

01:00:07What he did was move his remaining allies

01:00:09into positions that made the already fragile situation

01:00:12considerably more precarious,

01:00:14and issue a counter-declaration of his own which,

01:00:17while legally groundless given that Claudia's bloodline

01:00:20was not in serious doubt,

01:00:22created enough noise to require response.

01:00:25There were two tense nights

01:00:27during which Darren was, frankly,

01:00:30more useful to Claudia than either of them

01:00:32had fully anticipated,

01:00:34not because anything came to open violence,

01:00:37but because there were three separate moments

01:00:40in which the presence of an alpha

01:00:41of his rank and reputation,

01:00:43standing visibly in support of the Verith claim,

01:00:47caused people who had been carefully equivocating

01:00:49to finish their calculations and choose a side.

01:00:52authority, it turned out, had a contagion.

01:00:55The right person committed in the right moment

01:00:58could tip several quieter commitments after them.

01:01:01He did not call attention to this.

01:01:03He noted it privately and considered it.

01:01:06On the fourth day,

01:01:08Merrick's coalition fractured.

01:01:10It did not fracture spectacularly.

01:01:12It fractured the way these things tend to in practice.

01:01:16Quietly, person by person,

01:01:18each person privately concluding that the side they were on

01:01:22was the losing side

01:01:23and that it was better to be wrong early than wrong late.

01:01:27By the afternoon of the fourth day,

01:01:29Merrick had three noble houses

01:01:31and the palace household guard

01:01:33and a diminishing supply of confidence

01:01:36that any of these were going to be sufficient.

01:01:38He sent for Prosper.

01:01:40Claudia let Prosper go.

01:01:42She and Saya and Darren waited in the library

01:01:46where so much of this had been planned

01:01:48and Claudia sat with her hands folded on the table

01:01:51and was very still in that concentrated way

01:01:54and Darren sat across from her

01:01:56and did not ask questions

01:01:58because she did not need questions

01:01:59and Saya stood by the window

01:02:02and watched the palace courtyard.

01:02:04Prosper came back two hours later.

01:02:07He wants terms, the old man said.

01:02:09The room breathed.

01:02:11He's not going to fight it, Claudia said.

01:02:14It was not quite a question.

01:02:16He's a frightened man who has survived 20 years

01:02:19by knowing when to stop, Prosper said.

01:02:22He looked at the numbers this morning.

01:02:24He knows what they mean.

01:02:26Claudia was quiet for a moment.

01:02:28Then she said,

01:02:30Exile.

01:02:31Comfortable exile.

01:02:32I'm not interested in revenge.

01:02:35I'm interested in it being finished.

01:02:37His properties in the eastern provinces will revert to the crown,

01:02:41but his personal household can follow him.

01:02:44A pause.

01:02:46He cannot stay on the continent.

01:02:48There are island territories to the south

01:02:50that receive political exiles.

01:02:53Prosper nodded.

01:02:54And his associates?

01:02:57Amnesty for those who are acting under duress.

01:03:00Accountability for those who are not.

01:03:02She looked at Prosper steadily.

01:03:05You know which is which.

01:03:07I do, he said.

01:03:09Then, I trust your judgment, she said.

01:03:12The formal transfer of authority took place on the seventh day.

01:03:16It was a ceremony of the old rites.

01:03:18Prosper had insisted on this,

01:03:20and Claudia had agreed because the old rites were the ones her father had used,

01:03:24and there was a kind of continuity in that which mattered,

01:03:27both symbolically and, she was beginning to understand, politically.

01:03:32Symbols were not decorations.

01:03:34They were structures.

01:03:36They told people what to see and how to see it,

01:03:39and the story of continuity,

01:03:41of an interrupted rain restored,

01:03:43of a daughter coming home,

01:03:44was a story that people needed,

01:03:47that the kingdom needed,

01:03:48in a way that no purely pragmatic account of bloodlines

01:03:52and legal claims could fully supply.

01:03:54She was crowned in the morning,

01:03:56in the throne room,

01:03:57with Prosper holding the crown and Saya at attention to her left,

01:04:01and the eight noble houses arranged behind her in their proper order,

01:04:06and the late winter sunlight coming through the high windows and falling,

01:04:10in that particular quality that only winter light has,

01:04:14like something deliberate.

01:04:15She sat in her father's throne for the first time and felt the weight of it.

01:04:21It was heavy.

01:04:22That was the first, honest, wordless impression,

01:04:26not of power or destiny or triumph,

01:04:29but simply of weight.

01:04:31The weight of the thing she had stepped into.

01:04:34She sat with the weight of it.

01:04:36She thought it was something she was going to have to learn to carry,

01:04:39and that she was going to learn by carrying it.

01:04:42She looked out at the court.

01:04:44In the back of the room, near the doors,

01:04:47she found Darren's gray eyes.

01:04:50He was standing with his hands clasped behind him,

01:04:53straight-backed,

01:04:54and he was watching her with an expression

01:04:56that was harder to read than most of his expressions,

01:04:59which were not, in general, easy to read.

01:05:03But she had been watching him for nearly three weeks,

01:05:06and she had gotten, she thought, better at the translation.

01:05:10There was pride in it,

01:05:12not the possessive kind.

01:05:14The kind that a person feels when they have witnessed something real.

01:05:18There was something else, too,

01:05:20quieter and less certain.

01:05:22The look of a man who was trying to hold something carefully,

01:05:25because he knew it was not yet his to hold.

01:05:28She held his gaze for a moment.

01:05:30Then she turned back to the court,

01:05:32and the weight,

01:05:33and the work.

01:05:35Chapter 8

01:05:36The weeks after the coronation were not triumphant in any simple sense.

01:05:41They were busy, primarily.

01:05:44Relentlessly busy,

01:05:45with the accumulated business of a kingdom

01:05:47that had been managed for 20 years by a frightened man,

01:05:51and was showing the specific damage

01:05:53that frightened management produces.

01:05:56Claudia worked at hours that concerned Saya and Alarm Prosper,

01:06:00and caused Sarah to arrive periodically with food

01:06:03and direct instructions that she should eat it,

01:06:05because apparently Sarah had decided that the advisory function

01:06:09she had spent the last two weeks performing

01:06:12could be extended to include nutritional enforcement,

01:06:15and Claudia did not have the energy to argue.

01:06:18Darren stayed.

01:06:19He had not announced that he was staying.

01:06:21He had not asked permission.

01:06:23He had simply continued to be there,

01:06:26useful in the quiet,

01:06:28specific ways that became apparent to a new queen

01:06:31trying to hold a newly stabilized kingdom together,

01:06:35present for the council discussions

01:06:36where his northern territory's perspective

01:06:39was genuinely relevant,

01:06:41available for the security assessments

01:06:43that Saya conducted with the combination of thoroughness

01:06:46and bleak humor that Claudia had come to rely on,

01:06:49and completely absent from anything that was not asked of him,

01:06:53which she found after the

01:06:55weeks of everyone having opinions

01:06:57about what she should be doing,

01:06:59almost disorientingly considerate.

01:07:02They talked in the evenings,

01:07:04not every evening,

01:07:06not as a ritual or a deliberate cultivation of something,

01:07:10but the nature of the work brought them

01:07:12into the same spaces at the same times,

01:07:14and the conversations that grew from that

01:07:17were not conversations about the thing

01:07:19they were not yet discussing,

01:07:20the bond, the rejection, the eight months,

01:07:23the things that would eventually need to be addressed,

01:07:26but about everything adjacent to it.

01:07:28She told him about her mother.

01:07:30He listened without interrupting,

01:07:32which she noted,

01:07:33and mentioned it once.

01:07:35You don't interrupt, she said.

01:07:37I'm trying, he said,

01:07:39with a rueful quality that she found,

01:07:41despite herself endearing.

01:07:44I have been informed on several occasions

01:07:46that I talk over people.

01:07:48I'm attempting to become aware of the habit.

01:07:51Who informed you?

01:07:53Torben.

01:07:53Several times.

01:07:55The first few times,

01:07:57I didn't believe him.

01:07:58She laughed,

01:07:59and he watched the laugh

01:08:01with the same expression she had caught before.

01:08:03That involuntary thing,

01:08:05genuine and unguarded.

01:08:07And they sat with the conversation for a while

01:08:10in the particular way of

01:08:11two people who are both aware

01:08:13of a significant thing

01:08:14they are not yet saying

01:08:15and are, by not saying it,

01:08:17somehow communicating it anyway.

01:08:19He told her about Ironspire,

01:08:21about the pack

01:08:23and the responsibilities

01:08:24and the framework

01:08:25he had built his decisions inside of,

01:08:28the framework he had never questioned

01:08:30until the questioning came too late.

01:08:32He did not excuse himself.

01:08:34He explained which is different,

01:08:36and he was precise about the distinction.

01:08:39I wanted to know why,

01:08:41Claudia said once, quietly.

01:08:43They were in the library,

01:08:45late,

01:08:45the fire burning low.

01:08:47Not what the reasons were.

01:08:49The reasons I could construct myself.

01:08:52I wanted to know why those reasons

01:08:53felt sufficient to you.

01:08:55Why you didn't,

01:08:56she stopped.

01:08:57Didn't look closer,

01:08:58he said.

01:08:59Yes.

01:09:00He was quiet for a moment.

01:09:02Because I was afraid,

01:09:04he said.

01:09:05Not of you.

01:09:06Of the disruption.

01:09:07of what it would mean

01:09:08to take a mate

01:09:09who didn't fit the shape

01:09:11of what I'd told my pack

01:09:12and myself I needed.

01:09:14A pause.

01:09:15Fear is very efficient

01:09:17at dressing itself up as reason.

01:09:19I have been,

01:09:20I think,

01:09:21quite good at that.

01:09:22She looked at him.

01:09:24And now?

01:09:25Now,

01:09:26he said,

01:09:27I would like to try

01:09:28being less efficient about it.

01:09:30The bond was still there.

01:09:31This was the thing

01:09:33they did not say directly

01:09:34for a while.

01:09:35The rejection

01:09:36had not severed it entirely.

01:09:39Claudia had known this

01:09:40distantly,

01:09:41had felt the damaged thread

01:09:43that had not gone fully dark,

01:09:45the scar that was too warm

01:09:47to be entirely dead.

01:09:49Being in the same space

01:09:50as him for three weeks

01:09:51and then six

01:09:52and then eight

01:09:53had made it impossible

01:09:55to pretend otherwise.

01:09:57It ached in the particular way

01:09:59of something

01:09:59that was trying to heal

01:10:01rather than something

01:10:02that had given up.

01:10:03She was the one

01:10:04who said it first.

01:10:05On a night

01:10:06when the work had been long

01:10:08and the library was quiet

01:10:09and she was tired enough

01:10:11to have less patience

01:10:12with circumnavigation

01:10:13than usual.

01:10:14The bond,

01:10:15she said.

01:10:16He looked at her.

01:10:17It didn't break completely,

01:10:19she said.

01:10:20No,

01:10:21he said.

01:10:22Careful.

01:10:23I don't know

01:10:23what to do with that yet,

01:10:24she said.

01:10:25I want to be honest

01:10:27about that.

01:10:27I know what I feel

01:10:29and I know what happened

01:10:30and I know those two things

01:10:32are going to take time

01:10:32to be in the same place.

01:10:34I know,

01:10:35he said.

01:10:36You've been patient,

01:10:38she said.

01:10:38I've noticed.

01:10:40I had a great deal

01:10:41of time to understand

01:10:42that patience

01:10:43was what was appropriate,

01:10:44he said.

01:10:45Eight months

01:10:46is a long time

01:10:47to understand

01:10:48something about yourself.

01:10:49What did you understand?

01:10:51He looked at her steadily.

01:10:53That I had been

01:10:53very stupid,

01:10:55he said.

01:10:55and that stupid

01:10:57was not a sufficient

01:10:58reason to stop trying.

01:11:00She thought about this.

01:11:01She thought about

01:11:03the kitchen table

01:11:03and the letter

01:11:04and the 45 seconds

01:11:06in the great hall

01:11:07that had cost them

01:11:08both more

01:11:08than they should have

01:11:09been required to pay.

01:11:10She thought about

01:11:11Iron Spire

01:11:12and the South Road

01:11:13and the weeks

01:11:14of his watchful,

01:11:15careful,

01:11:16useful presence

01:11:17and the conversations

01:11:18and the way he listened.

01:11:20The bond asks

01:11:21for something,

01:11:22she said slowly.

01:11:23It asks for me

01:11:25to trust a thing

01:11:25that was already broken

01:11:27once by that person's choice.

01:11:30Yes, he said.

01:11:31That's not a small ask.

01:11:33No, he agreed.

01:11:35It isn't.

01:11:36Silence.

01:11:37The fire.

01:11:38I'm not saying no,

01:11:40she said.

01:11:41I want to be clear

01:11:42about that.

01:11:43I'm not saying no to this.

01:11:45I'm saying.

01:11:46She paused,

01:11:47looking for the exact

01:11:49right words,

01:11:50because the exact

01:11:51right words

01:11:52were the only ones

01:11:53that would be fair.

01:11:54I'm saying that this

01:11:55goes at the pace I set

01:11:56and that the pace

01:11:58will not be fast

01:11:59and that I need you

01:12:00to hold the patience

01:12:01you've found

01:12:02and not lose it

01:12:03when it's inconvenient.

01:12:04Yes, he said.

01:12:06And I need you to tell me

01:12:07when something is difficult,

01:12:09she said.

01:12:10Not to manage me,

01:12:11but because I'm not

01:12:13interested in a version

01:12:14of this

01:12:14where one person

01:12:16carries the weight

01:12:17of what was done

01:12:17to them quietly forever

01:12:19while the other person

01:12:20feels they've been forgiven.

01:12:22He was very still.

01:12:24I need it to be honest,

01:12:26she said.

01:12:26Yes, he said.

01:12:28And then quieter.

01:12:30So do I.

01:12:31She looked at him

01:12:33for a long time

01:12:34in the low firelight,

01:12:35in the library

01:12:36where Prosper

01:12:37had been waiting

01:12:38for 20 years

01:12:39for a daughter

01:12:39to come home,

01:12:40in the kingdom

01:12:41that had been held

01:12:42in some kind

01:12:43of suspended grief

01:12:44since the night

01:12:45a young king

01:12:46sent his infant heir

01:12:47west to keep her alive.

01:12:49Then we'll start there,

01:12:50she said.

01:12:51He breathed.

01:12:52It was small but real.

01:12:54The exhale of someone

01:12:56who has been holding

01:12:56something carefully

01:12:57for a very long time

01:12:59and has just been told

01:13:00they can set it down.

01:13:02Yes, he said.

01:13:03We will.

01:13:05There is an old custom

01:13:06in Verith,

01:13:07older than the gray walls

01:13:09and older than the pack system

01:13:10to the west

01:13:11and possibly older

01:13:13than writing.

01:13:13On the night

01:13:14of the winter solstice,

01:13:16the ruling monarch

01:13:17of the kingdom

01:13:18is required,

01:13:19by tradition,

01:13:20to light the first fire

01:13:21of the season

01:13:22in the great court.

01:13:23Not a servant,

01:13:25not a steward,

01:13:26the monarch themselves

01:13:27flint in hand.

01:13:29It is,

01:13:30by design,

01:13:31not a grand gesture.

01:13:32It is a small one.

01:13:34It is the point.

01:13:35Claudia was in her second year

01:13:37on the throne

01:13:38when she stood

01:13:39in the great court

01:13:40on the winter solstice,

01:13:41with the cold

01:13:42of the season

01:13:43pressing in

01:13:43from every direction

01:13:45and her breath

01:13:46visible in the lamplight

01:13:47and struck the flint

01:13:49above the pyre.

01:13:50She thought,

01:13:51briefly,

01:13:52about the first fire

01:13:53she had ever lit

01:13:54for herself,

01:13:55a small fire

01:13:56in a river valley cottage

01:13:58after her mother's death,

01:14:00the first night alone.

01:14:02She thought about

01:14:03all the fires

01:14:04between that one

01:14:05and this one

01:14:05and what they had cost

01:14:07and what they had given her.

01:14:08The fire caught.

01:14:10The court made the sound

01:14:11it was supposed to make.

01:14:13Prosper,

01:14:14who had seen

01:14:15this ceremony done

01:14:16by her grandfather

01:14:17and her father

01:14:18and her uncle

01:14:19and now her,

01:14:20watched with the expression

01:14:21of a man

01:14:22completing something.

01:14:24Darren was standing

01:14:25to her right,

01:14:26not as a consort.

01:14:27That title had come

01:14:29six months earlier

01:14:30in a ceremony

01:14:31that was,

01:14:32at Claudia's insistence,

01:14:33not especially grand

01:14:35and not especially rushed

01:14:37and was exactly

01:14:38what it was,

01:14:39honest.

01:14:39Not as a supplicant

01:14:41or a figure of apology

01:14:42or a man

01:14:43still earning something.

01:14:45He had been earning things

01:14:46for long enough.

01:14:47She had told him so.

01:14:49He was standing there

01:14:50as himself,

01:14:51as the person

01:14:52who had ridden six days

01:14:54because he needed

01:14:55to tell her

01:14:55he had been wrong.

01:14:56As the alpha

01:14:57who had learned,

01:14:59belatedly and expensively,

01:15:01that the assumptions

01:15:02of his life

01:15:03were not the same thing

01:15:04as the truth of it.

01:15:05As,

01:15:06in the plainest possible terms,

01:15:08her mate,

01:15:08the scar in her chest

01:15:10had softened,

01:15:11not vanished.

01:15:12It would never

01:15:14entirely vanish.

01:15:15And she had decided,

01:15:16some months ago,

01:15:18that she did not want it to

01:15:19because the scar was true

01:15:21and truth was something

01:15:22she had decided

01:15:23to hold on to,

01:15:25even the parts of it

01:15:26that were not comfortable

01:15:27to carry.

01:15:28But softened,

01:15:29settled into something

01:15:30that was no longer

01:15:32the primary story,

01:15:33that had been joined

01:15:34by other things,

01:15:35newer and growing.

01:15:37She looked at him

01:15:38in the firelight.

01:15:40He looked back.

01:15:41Well,

01:15:42he said,

01:15:43under the sound

01:15:44of the cord around them,

01:15:45quietly enough

01:15:46that only she could hear.

01:15:48Well,

01:15:49she agreed.

01:15:50You've had the throne

01:15:51for two years,

01:15:52he said.

01:15:53Is it what you expected?

01:15:54I expected it to be heavier,

01:15:57she said.

01:15:57It is,

01:15:58in fact,

01:15:59exactly as heavy

01:16:00as I expected.

01:16:02I don't know why

01:16:03I thought I was wrong.

01:16:04because you are

01:16:06occasionally optimistic

01:16:07about the limits

01:16:08of difficulty.

01:16:09I am not optimistic.

01:16:11You walked out

01:16:12of a rejection

01:16:13without crying

01:16:14and started a revolution,

01:16:16he said.

01:16:17That is,

01:16:18at minimum,

01:16:19structurally optimistic.

01:16:20She looked at him

01:16:22for a moment.

01:16:23Then she said,

01:16:24with a particular tone

01:16:25that he had come

01:16:26to recognize

01:16:27as the one

01:16:28where she was choosing

01:16:29between several

01:16:29possible responses

01:16:31and had selected

01:16:32the one that was truest,

01:16:34I didn't start

01:16:35a revolution.

01:16:36I lit a letter on fire

01:16:38and got on a horse.

01:16:40History,

01:16:41he said,

01:16:42tends to simplify.

01:16:44History,

01:16:45she replied,

01:16:46can manage

01:16:47its own interpretation.

01:16:48He was smiling.

01:16:50He did this more

01:16:51than he had

01:16:52in the first months

01:16:53and she had noticed

01:16:54the increase

01:16:54and she noted it now,

01:16:56this particular quality

01:16:57of it,

01:16:57the one that was

01:16:58entirely unselfconscious,

01:17:00the one that was,

01:17:02she thought,

01:17:02possibly the truest thing

01:17:04she had yet seen in him.

01:17:05She thought about

01:17:06the great hall

01:17:07at Ironspire,

01:17:09about the 45 seconds,

01:17:11about the way

01:17:12she had decided

01:17:13in the three days

01:17:14riding home

01:17:15who she was going to be.

01:17:17She thought,

01:17:18with a fairness

01:17:19that had taken time

01:17:20to arrive at,

01:17:21that he had spent

01:17:22a comparable amount

01:17:23of time deciding

01:17:24who he was going to be,

01:17:25that the man

01:17:26standing next to her

01:17:27had been made

01:17:27partly by the choice

01:17:29he had gotten wrong

01:17:30and everything

01:17:31he had done since.

01:17:32She had not

01:17:33forgiven the choice.

01:17:35Forgiveness was not

01:17:36really the right word

01:17:37for what had happened

01:17:38because what had happened

01:17:39was something more complex

01:17:40and more human

01:17:41than simple forgiveness.

01:17:43She had held the truth

01:17:44of what he had done

01:17:45and she had held

01:17:46the truth

01:17:47of who he had become

01:17:48and she had decided

01:17:49that both were real

01:17:50and that she did not

01:17:52have to choose

01:17:53between them,

01:17:53that she could hold

01:17:54the damage

01:17:55and the repair

01:17:56in the same hands

01:17:57and still choose

01:17:58what to do next.

01:18:00She had chosen this.

01:18:01The fire burned

01:18:03in the great court.

01:18:04The winter solstice night

01:18:05was very cold

01:18:07and very clear,

01:18:08the kind of night

01:18:09where the stars

01:18:10looked like they had

01:18:11been hammered

01:18:11into the sky

01:18:12with particular attention

01:18:13to detail.

01:18:14Claudia looked up

01:18:15at the stars.

01:18:16She thought about

01:18:17her father,

01:18:18who had sent her west

01:18:19into a quiet valley

01:18:21to keep her alive.

01:18:22She thought about

01:18:23her mother,

01:18:24who had lived

01:18:25the quiet valley

01:18:26and given her daughter

01:18:27a letter

01:18:27and enough of a life

01:18:29to know what to do

01:18:30with the truth

01:18:30when it finally arrived.

01:18:32She thought about

01:18:33all of it

01:18:33and she thought,

01:18:35yes,

01:18:36this,

01:18:37complicated and real

01:18:38and entirely mine.

01:18:41Come inside,

01:18:42she said to Darren.

01:18:43It's cold.

01:18:44You are the one

01:18:45who had to light

01:18:46the fire outdoors.

01:18:48It's tradition.

01:18:49Tradition is simply

01:18:51habit with better clothes,

01:18:52he said.

01:18:53She laughed,

01:18:55short and genuine,

01:18:56and the night

01:18:57held the sound of it

01:18:58and the fire burned

01:19:00and the stars

01:19:01were many.

01:19:02They went inside

01:19:04and that is where

01:19:05we will leave them.

01:19:06Not at a perfect ending.

01:19:08There is no such thing

01:19:10and they would both

01:19:11be the first

01:19:11to tell you so.

01:19:13There are the ordinary

01:19:14difficulties

01:19:14of ruling a kingdom

01:19:16and managing

01:19:17an alliance

01:19:17and being two people

01:19:19with histories

01:19:19trying to build

01:19:20something honest

01:19:21from the materials

01:19:22of what they are.

01:19:23There is Prosper

01:19:24who is getting older

01:19:25and will not be there forever

01:19:27and Saya

01:19:28who is quietly invaluable

01:19:30and knows it

01:19:30and Torben

01:19:31who visits occasionally

01:19:33from the north

01:19:33and makes jokes

01:19:34that are funnier

01:19:35than Darren lets on.

01:19:37There is the work

01:19:38which is endless

01:19:39and the fire

01:19:40which needs to be lit

01:19:42every year.

01:19:43There is the bond

01:19:44which is a scar

01:19:45and something else

01:19:46which is real.

01:19:48There is at the beginning

01:19:49of all of this

01:19:50before the throne

01:19:51and the coalition

01:19:52and the seven-day ride

01:19:54and the careful evenings

01:19:55in the library

01:19:56a woman walking

01:19:57out of a great hall

01:19:58straight-backed

01:19:59choosing to be something

01:20:01that could not be broken

01:20:02and a man standing

01:20:04in the echo

01:20:04of his own choice

01:20:05beginning the long

01:20:07and necessary work

01:20:08of understanding it.

01:20:10There is all of that

01:20:11and there is this

01:20:12they found their way

01:20:14to each other

01:20:14and it cost them both

01:20:16and it was worth it.

01:20:17It usually is

01:20:18the things that cost you.

01:20:20Thank you for watching.

01:20:21If this story

01:20:23found you

01:20:23at the right time

01:20:25leave us a comment below.

01:20:26We would love

01:20:27to hear from you

01:20:28and if you are new here

01:20:30welcome.

01:20:31There are more stories

01:20:33where this one came from.

01:20:34We will see you

01:20:35in the next one.

01:20:36in the next one.

01:20:37We will see you

01:20:37Merci.

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