Chapter 21 Inside Out
~ DONAVYN ~
Two days later, I marched through the halls of the castle, so keenly aware of the parchment in my pocket that it seemed to blister my skin.
‘Where are you?’ I sent Bren, who’d gone to lunch just in case the weary, hungover nobles had anything of value to share with her.
‘At the rooms. Even Faye didn’t make it to the meal today. I think they’re all still sleeping off last night.’
I grimaced. I hadn’t thought it was possible for these people to get lazier, but I was wrong. ‘Don’t move. Our friend sent a message and Benji brought it to me. We have to copy this and get it moving immediately.’
The trill of nerves in her reached me through the bond, but she stifled it quickly.
I was only two hallways away from our rooms, so I picked up my pace until I was almost jogging, ignoring the occasional bow or nod from a servant as the Fyrehold nobles usually did, and kept my eyes ahead.
If anyone had watchers, they’d hear about a frowning, busy man with no time for frivolities.
But in truth, my guts churned.
I had no idea what we’d find in this message. But I prayed it was proof so we could stop this charade, take Ruin into custody, and fly him back to Alexi in shame.
Please, God. It’s time.
I locked the door behind me when I entered the chamber. There was no sign of Bren in the sitting room, so I hurried to the bedchamber.
“We’ll need to heat a knife to separate the seal and—”
I stopped dead just inside the door at the sight of Bren bent forward, her breasts pushed high in a tight corset, arms bent backwards as she tugged at the laces and sucked her body into those impossible, uncomfortable, beautiful shapes.
She stood up quickly, still wrestling with the ties. “Can you help me?”
I blinked, but hurried to her back, slipping the parchment to the bed as I reached for her laces. “Why are you changing? I thought you’d decided not to dress until the dinner hour?”
The Festival was now in full swing—and would be for the next twelve days. We had to pace ourselves. Even without drinking as the other nobles did, we were wearied by being up most of the night, several nights in a row.
“I thought you were coming back without… anything important to do,” she ground out, hands hugging her hips as she glanced at me over her shoulder.
I frowned, then met her eyes and caught the simmering heat there. I lost grip on one of the laces, cursed, and grabbed it up again as Bren smiled softly, then turned her head away.
She’d been waiting for me? Undressed?
My body clenched, but I pushed the need away. This was far more important than… that.
Still, I couldn’t help a grim smile as I got the laces tight and tied. She’d come alive with me since the other night when I’d given her the demonstrable rightness as Kgosi put it.
If I didn’t have a potentially mission-ending note in my hands, I would have fallen into her gladly.
Instead, I helped her pull a dress over her head that buttoned up the front, then slipped my blade out of my sheath and carried it to the oil lantern at the side of the room, lighting it, then holding the blade over the top to heat it gently as I reminded myself that this wasn’t the time to ogle my mate.
Bren kept her eyes on her fingers which were busily buttoning silk up her torso. “How did Benji get back?”
“Kgosi.”
Her head snapped to me, eyes wide. “He rode Kgosi? Alone?”
I kept my eyes on the blade and nodded. The trick to melting a seal without ruining it was to get the knife warm and slide it slowly underneath—not too hot that it would scorch the paper, or actually melt the wax. Just warm enough to soften the layer closest to the blade.
Thank God, Horace’s scribe used thick seals.
“Kgosi offered,” I said through my teeth, slowly testing the blade against the edge of the wax, where the seal didn’t reach in case I hadn’t judged it right.
But it slid under neatly, softening the wax edge and allowing me to bend the paper away without bringing the seal with it.
“He said Benji is respectful, and young enough to bounce. I couldn’t risk being seen in the city.
He’ll be riding him back in an hour, when we’ve copied this down. ”
A few seconds later, I hissed a yes, carefully peeling the layers of parchment back to reveal the folded notes within.
Bren hurried over to the small table at the side of the room while I laid the carefully unsealed parchment envelope aside and unfolded the pages covered in scrawled ink.
To her faithful Majesty, Diaan en’ Del Rea,
I blinked.
“The queen?” Bren whispered, peering over my arm.
“It’s not surprising, I suppose,” I said as I considered it. “Alexi uses her a great deal for strategic maneuverings. It makes sense that she’d run his eyes and ears.”
I started reading again, not missing that he must have hurried when he wrote the report, because there were several corrections. Spots where he’d crossed out words, and one ink splatter that he’d leaned on too early and smudged at the edge of the page.
…Majesty, I continue my travels towards Draeventhall, with this short excursion among the Great Lakes.
I am pleased to confirm the presence of the honored Akhane, and her bonded one. We have greatly enjoyed reconnection. Your missive was timely.
As a result, formalities in this kingdom suffer small fractures, though none grave enough to invite remark. We pass the seasons in pleasant discourse and camaraderie. Be pleased by these events you anticipated. Your wisdom is, as always, divinely appointed.
The merchant we discussed remains distant. I fear newly planted roots have yet to take hold in barren soil.
The bustling herd necessitates the shifting of provisions, of which I spoke earlier. However, the sitting queen remarks that wings pass so infrequently, one scarcely notes their number.
Our friends caused no disturbance among the lesser lords. Attentions remain steady, and discourse flows without distraction. Matters advance briskly.
I enjoy the return to protocols. Silence should be trusted.
Our former designs appear unlikely to endure unchanged and may require broad reconsideration; though time presses little, and patience is abundant.
Should it please Your Majesty, orders may be returned at your convenience, for none is urgently required.
Your Faithful Servant.
I frowned and read it again, remaining as confused and frustrated as I’d been the first time.
“That makes no sense,” Bren whispered.
“No, it doesn’t,” I muttered and read the thing again. But no matter how I looked at it, the missive seemed to swing back and forth between harmless, general Shadowfang code, and a simple informative note.
‘He’s used the general code at times, yet most of this doesn’t fit—he’s not returning to Draeventhall.
The “merchant” could be anybody's guess. Newly planted roots is the code for a brand new spy or Shadowfang operative arriving to join a team—yet there’s no one here who arrived after us.
I’d know them if I saw anyone from home.
And he can’t mean us, because we aren’t new. ’
‘I am.’
‘Not in the way that code means—it’s what we use when we’re trialing someone in a role, or we’ve had to insert someone unexpectedly.
Trust me… he’s not talking about you. Besides, he says the soil is barren—which should mean they aren’t having success.
You’re having great success establishing yourself here. No… none of this makes sense.’
‘Could it be someone he’s put in the servants—someone who’s hiding from you?’
‘I suppose… but that would raise suspicions too. Anyone from home would expect to report to me if I’m here. And the paragraphs around it don’t work for events here… God, this is so frustrating.’
I read it again, but gained no more clarity than I had the first two times. “He claimed to be traveling back to Draeventhall, with a stop in Sierral? But they’d know this message comes from the network in Fyrehold.”
The Great Lakes were Sierral’s pride, and reference to it in the context of travel could mean nothing else.
But the messenger network that delivered this to the palace would be known to have arrived from Fyrehold.
Our Shadowfang networks were established and lines of communication between kingdoms upheld in very specific routes and members, so if a report was lost or stolen, we would have clarity about where the intervention occurred.
Had Ruin somehow convinced them his excursion from Draeventhall was purposeful, and now he planned to return?
I didn’t know. But the most disturbing detail was his mention of Akhane and Bren—as if they’d been expected?
Bren had been certain he was shocked by her appearance. I could see Ruin being deceptive enough to fake that. But that didn’t explain how Diaan had warned Ruin that Bren was coming. She would have needed to know he was in Fyrehold to do that—and none of us learned that until days ago.
Bren and I discussed the details—and the frustrating contradictions—but there was no time to parse it all out.
I had to get the original message back to Benji to send it along the usual network, and quickly.
More than a few hours delay would be noticed and raise alarm if Ruin was sending reports via more than one source as he was supposed to.
Even that fact seemed so entirely out of the frame, I shook my head.
Bren and I both hurriedly copied the message down, word for word, ignoring only the scribbled out errors, each of us folding a copy and keeping it on our person. Then I heated the knife and carefully replaced the wax, doing everything in my power to leave the decorative seal intact.
Then I hurried back to the stable, to the waiting Benji, and Kgosi, trying to ignore the strange pang in my chest when I watched my dragon fly off with a child.
A child he would speak to.
But there was no time to dwell on details.