Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Olwen
He leaned back in his favorite chair, the old supple leather molding to his large frame in a familiar hug. Olwen kicked up his feet onto the square ottoman and sighed, lacing his fingers and resting them on his wide chest.
A merry fire burned in the hearth of the royal study, casting the dark room with a wash of warmth and flickering light.
His attention wandered to the right, watching the king’s cousin Eyri frown down at his tome-covered desk.
Eyri was always surrounded by books, researching one thing or another.
His friend pushed up the wire spectacles on his slim nose, not paying Olwen the least bit of attention.
While the king’s secretary was irreplaceable, he wouldn’t have made a very good warrior.
Eyri hadn’t even noticed when Olwen had entered the study; he’d been so engrossed with his texts.
Olwen huffed and shook his head before reaching for his own book on the marble side table beside his chair.
While he was no savant, he enjoyed an adventure from time to time, especially .
. . if it was romantic. A goofy smile adorned his lips as he cracked open the romance he’d pilfered from Flyka’s secret stash.
The female Haunt—the king’s elite—pretended she was above all things romantic, but he knew her secret.
She loved to collect romances, which was why stealing her books brought him so much joy.
She’d never accuse him of theft because Flyka didn’t want to admit she’d bought them in the first place. It was the perfect arrangement.
He wasn’t embarrassed about what he liked to read.
Olwen practically flaunted it just to get a reaction from the vallos around him.
Plus, with the life he lived, there would be no niliave—wife—in his future.
Everyone close to Olwen died. Plus, his mother had raised him to be a weapon, a blunt instrument for war.
He would not risk a wife, so living vicariously through books would be the only way he’d experience any sort of romance.
It was a little pathetic, but he’d accepted it a long time ago.
Flyka burst into the room, the double doors slamming against the stone walls.
Eyri jumped, and Olwen slowly set his book in his lap, eyeing the Haunt always adorned in her white armor that almost blended with her skin.
She usually did not make such an entrance.
The valles like to skulk around the walls like a ghost. Nothing ever rattled her.
Her eyes were wild and her chest heaved.
Prickling at the back of Olwen’s neck began, and he set his book on the side table and stood.
Something was very wrong.
A pit formed in his stomach. “What’s wrong?” he asked gravely.
Her lips pinched. “An attack on Neve.”
“Is he well?” Olwen murmured, already moving to the door, Eyri hot on his heels.
“I don’t know,” Flyka rasped, her eyes filling with tears.
His stomach bottomed out. Flyka never cried. Not even when she’d lost her own mother.
“The healers tossed me out.”
An ember of rage caught alight in his chest. No one would cut Neve off from his family. “Where is he?”
Eyri wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “He’ll be okay.” Olwen noted the gesture. Eyri was probably the only one who could have gotten away with touching her. Flyka had a soft spot for the gentle scholar who had a heart of gold. Anyone else would have lost an arm.
Flyka blinked her eyes rapidly and straightened to her full height, shrugging out of Eyri’s grasp. All traces of devastation disappeared from her expression. The warrior facade was once again engaged.
“His rooms.”
Olwen jogged down the hallway with his two best friends in tow. They reached the king’s suite in no time. Warriors swarmed outside the room; Olwen plunged through them. The scent of vomit, incense, and sweat permeated the dark massive space.
Healers surrounded the king, who lay on the bed in the middle of the half-circle room.
His normally deep blue skin was a sickly periwinkle, and splatters of black liquid trickled down his chin, forming a river across his torso. His naked chest lifted in short rapid pants like he couldn’t get enough air. Olwen blanched.
He’d seen men like this in battle.
Right before they died.
Qov.
Olwen sat heavily on the back of the couch behind him with Eyri following suit. Eyri placed a hand over his mouth and shook his head, his eyes glassy behind his round spectacles.
“Not Neve,” Eyri whispered.
“He’ll be okay,” Olwen said reflexively. Neve had to be. There wasn’t another choice.
The king convulsed. A petite healer turned him onto his side as another placed a bowl beneath him and he retched. Black liquid spewed from between his lips and then dripped down his chin.
“Charcoal,” Eyri murmured, lifting his spectacles to wipe away the tears leaking from his eyes.
Olwen knew what that meant. Poison.
“I need to interrogate the men,” Flyka said, her tone devoid of any emotion. “Whoever attacked him can’t get away with this. We can’t lose the trail.”
She moved to walk past him, and Olwen caught her arm. He braced for the sting of claws, but all she did was freeze, glaring into his eyes. “Don’t kill anyone,” he muttered. “We need information.”
Flyka’s lip curled up before she yanked her elbow out of his grasp. “I know what I’m doing.” She stalked to the door and then slammed it behind her, the frame rattling.
Olwen stared at the door before meeting Eyri’s worried gaze. “Someone is going to die before the day is out.”
Eyri nodded, brushing a long silky strand of navy hair behind his ear. “Let us pray it is not our king.”
Olwen nodded and then scanned the room for a freckled human face and a riot of rose-gold hair. He frowned, foreboding settling in the pit of his stomach.
“Where is the queen?” he asked, mostly to himself. She should be here.
Eyri sat a little taller as if the queen had completely escaped his mind as well. “I haven’t seen her since the festival.”
Olwen pushed off the couch, glancing over the room once more. “Was the queen sent away?” he bellowed, his voice carrying over the cacophony of sound.
“No,” an old healer said gruffly, while wrapping Neve’s bare feet with steaming cloth. “She has not been here.”
Olwen cursed and looked to Eyri, his hearts pounding. “Will you stay here with him?”
“Yes.” He pushed up the glasses on his nose, his eyes filling with determination. “No one will get past me, and he will not be alone.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find the queen.”
Olwen strode from the room out into a much calmer corridor.
Flyka was already working her magic. He paused by her side as she spoke in a low tone with two warriors.
He eyed the men. “No one leaves this hallway. We cannot afford rumors running about the palace with our king in such a compromised position.”
They nodded, but their eyes slid to Flyka.
“It’s already been taken care of,” she murmured. Her eyes narrowed when he continued walking past her. “Where are you going?”
“To find our queen. If she dies, the humans will wage war.” They could not afford a war. Not with the humans, not with the Northerners who had been coveting the throne for a hundred years.
Flyka’s gaze turned frosty. “Please do.”
Olwen’s brows pinched at her tone, and he paused, turning to face her. “What do you know?”
Flyka dismissed the men and glided toward him, all violence and grace. “Only that our queen disappeared, and within a half hour, a healer found Neve nonresponsive in bed, half dressed.”
A chill ran down his spine. “What are you suggesting?”
“That our little saloes poisoned our king.”