Chapter 26
Isca
The library was blessedly quiet again save for the scratch of my quill against parchment.
I was past due in writing my weekly correspondence to Chancellor Maeron.
Normally, I preferred the familiar solitude of my chambers when I wrote my reports, but Catrin had decreed an all-out assault on the dust, driving half a battalion of servants into my room with brushes, mops, and new linens.
My protests had been ignored.
To Chancellor Maeron of the Mage’s Assembly in Caervorn,
I am pleased to report that progress has been made in ensuring the strength of Darreth’s alliance with Lare—
I stopped, biting my lip. Too formal. He’d recognize the evasion immediately.
I could almost feel Maeron’s last missive burning in the back of my mind: You have not provided sufficient detail regarding your second task. That is unacceptable.
He’d underlined unacceptable twice, as though my obedience hinged on the thickness of his ink.
He hadn’t asked about tariffs or what I’d learned from the people of this kingdom so far.
He’d asked only whether I was spending time in one of the princes’ beds yet.
The way he emphasized it made me think it was actually my primary purpose here, not helping them decide the succession.
The one I’d carefully, consistently left out of every report since those first few.
The gold pendant hanging around my neck had never felt heavier.
I set the quill down, rubbing ink-stained fingers against my brow. Did the Assembly have any interest in peace at all? I was more convinced than ever that all they wanted was a weapon birthed from my womb.
For a moment, I let my thoughts drift back to Emrys’s sharp intake of breath in the training yard as my fingers first touched his back. I’d only meant to help, but then he’d leaned into the touch and I’d abruptly forgotten any reason to stop.
I could twist that moment into what Maeron wanted. Tell him that Emrys had only agreed to send mages to aid Larethia after I’d practically begged him while gripping his arm. And yet…my stomach turned at the thought.
He wasn’t the monster the Assembly thought him. The darkness he carried wasn’t one I could exploit without losing a piece of myself in the process. And he didn’t know that I’d been sent to betray him—even if I’d rather risk my own safety than hurt him more than he was already suffering.
My hand returned to the quill. I steeled myself and wrote fiercely of alliances, of raiders deterred, of the upcoming dinner with the nobility that would strengthen ties.
I crafted my words with ornate precision, transforming the art of diplomacy into a dazzling display meant to obscure the truths I withheld from them.
Half-truths and lies by omission were my rebellion written in careful, bloodless strokes.
If I gave the Assembly enough, maybe they wouldn’t see my silent defiance.
When I finished, I sanded the page, sealed it, and pushed it away with more force than necessary. My hand ached and my heart might not recover from my petty insubordination until Darreth only had one king.
I leaned back, letting my gaze drift across the shelves—and stilled. A familiar scroll was sticking out of the shelves too far for it to be anything but purposeful. My curiosity got the better of me. I rose, spreading it wide across the desk.
The architecture plans.
Emrys had likely returned it during one of his late-night brooding forays here.
I remembered standing here weeks ago, speaking with Emrys for the first time.
How startled he’d looked that I’d asked after Tir Darreth’s walls and not its legends.
His gaze had warmed, like the subtle change in the air before a spring shower, as though I’d done something extraordinary in asking after his home’s stability.
My fingers traced the western glacis, the place we’d talked about during our first meeting. I frowned. On second glance, the buttresses were generous everywhere else, but there was a gap in the fortress’s stability.
Caring was dangerous. But I couldn’t stop.
I flattened my palm on the parchment. With the way the Assembly thought, they’d see nothing but crumbling defenses and exploitable weakness.
But I… I wanted to see it for myself. To know why the earth there sagged, to understand the fortress that had shaped these princes into the men they were today.
Not for the Assembly, and not even for their pride—but for me. For the small, stubborn part of me that refused to let my work here be only what Chancellor Maeron demanded.
I chose loyalty to those who’d shown true care for me, not to the knife at my throat.
The urge to march straight out to the western glacis nearly pulled me from the room. I wanted to see the flaw with my own eyes, to feel the earth beneath my boots and decide for myself what danger truly lurked there.
But the sun was already sinking, and I still had to prepare for dinner with Darreth's most powerful bannermen—a political battlefield of its own. Tonight, I needed to play the dutiful diplomat. The foundations would have to wait until after the summer festivities.
I re-rolled the scroll and placed it back in its cubby and tucked my sealed report in my pocket to go out with the next caravan.
My flowery words would probably be enough to hold the chancellor off for another two weeks—or at least force him to be forthright about his demands in the next letter he sent.
I’d chosen my side, chosen my defiance. Now, only time would tell if I would live to regret it or die an ineffective rebel.