15 #2
I believed him, mostly, though the shape of what he had told me settled cold and heavy regardless.
Varak Ossendrei himself, close enough to confidence in his own search that he intended to verify it in person.
Not a rumor any longer. A name close enough to certainty that its architect had begun making plans around it.
We rode back with the rescued captive secured and the two Unbound scouts taken alive for further questioning at Castle Ironmoor, and I spent the entire ride turning both their words over, cold and certain in a way that left no further room for doubt.
The Unbound leadership believed. Not suspected — believed, with enough confidence to spend days interrogating strangers on the strength of that belief, and enough confidence that its own leader intended to ride out and confirm it personally, which meant the search had progressed past scouting and into something substantially closer to confirmation than I'd allowed myself to fear even that morning.
Whatever time I'd told myself remained to manage this carefully, on my own timeline, had just run out entirely, somewhere in a forest clearing half a day east of the market town where all of this had first begun.
I returned to Castle Ironmoor two days later, wolfsbane-tired and carrying considerably more certainty than I'd left with, and found Ilinca waiting in the courtyard the moment my convoy passed through the gate, her face carrying a singular fear I understood immediately had nothing to do with the mission's danger and everything to do with how long she'd been left, once again, without word.
"You're hurt," she said, closing the distance before I'd fully dismounted, her hands finding a shallow cut along my forearm with a wardsmith's careful, assessing touch that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with genuine fear finally given somewhere useful to land.
"It's nothing. Wolfsbane-tipped, but shallow. It'll heal within the week."
"Wolfsbane." Something in her face went carefully still, the particular controlled fear I recognized now as her wardsmith's precision applied to terror too large to voice plainly. "They're using it against your own men now."
"They've always used it against wolves generally.
It isn't specific to you, if that's what you're asking.
" I caught her hand before she could pull it back, holding it against my forearm a moment longer than the wound strictly required.
"But I have confirmation now, Ilinca, of what I've suspected for weeks.
The Unbound leadership believes the Frostmark line survived.
They're actively hunting confirmation, and I don't think we have the luxury of careful timing left to spend. "
"Did you find anyone? Out there?"
"A captive. Alive, though barely. They'd been interrogating her for days about a mark — a crescent, a thorn beneath it — and whether anyone had heard whispers of a wardsmith working the border towns with old-style training.
" I watched the words land, watched her absorb the horror of hearing a stranger's captivity described in terms that mapped so precisely onto her own life.
"She didn't know you. But the questions themselves told me everything I needed to know about how close their confidence has already grown. "
"Two scouts. You said you took two alive."
"For questioning. Teodor has them under guard now, and I intend to learn everything they know before the day is finished.
" Something in her face had gone very careful, very controlled, and I understood, watching her, that she was doing the same thing I did in council — holding herself steady through sheer discipline rather than any absence of fear.
"Ilinca. Whatever they know, whatever it confirms, it doesn't change what I intend to do about protecting you.
I want you to understand that plainly, before anything else. "
She held my gaze, steady despite the fear plainly moving behind it. "Then tell me. Tonight. Whatever it costs either of us, I'd rather know than keep guessing at the shape of my own life."
"Tonight," I agreed, and meant it fully, for the first time since I'd first found the sealed archive room weeks before.
Teodor found me an hour later, once the rescued captive had been settled with the castle healers and the two scouts secured for questioning, his expression carrying the specific gravity of a man bringing news he already suspected would complicate an already complicated day.
"A messenger arrived while you were riding back," he said.
"From the Council. The Gathering's been moved forward.
Three weeks now, not four — the northern packs are growing restless without a confirmed alliance in place, and Halmar's pushing to have some resolution announced before every Voivode in the kingdom arrives expecting one. "
"Three weeks."
"Three weeks." He studied my face, reading, I suspected, markedly more of my exhaustion than I wanted him to. "You look like a man who's just been handed one more reason to delay a conversation he's already promised twice to have tonight."
"I gave her my word, Teodor. I intend to keep it."
"Good." He clapped a hand briefly on my shoulder, some of the day's tension easing at the plain resolve in my voice. "Then go keep it, before the Gathering's timeline gives you an excuse to postpone it one more evening."
Standing in that courtyard with her hand still held against my healing wound, I had no way of knowing that the Gathering's formal announcement would arrive before the evening did — or that tonight, once again, would slip through my fingers before I'd found the words to keep my promise.