18
Ilinca
Castle Ironmoor had seemed enormous the first evening I'd arrived, all black stone and echoing halls built to a scale that made a single wardsmith feel appropriately small against it.
I understood, walking into the Gathering's opening ball three weeks later, that I hadn't yet seen it at full capacity.
Every hall blazed with light. Every corridor carried the low, constant murmur of a hundred conversations happening at once, in a dozen dialects of the same wolf-court formality, and the grand hall itself — the one space in the entire castle large enough to hold every Voivode currently arriving from every corner of Vardain — had been transformed since I'd last seen it, banners hung from the black stone columns, long tables groaning under more food than the Sorrowmarket saw in a month, musicians tuning in a corner I hadn't known existed until that evening.
"You look like you're calculating an escape route," Yeva said, appearing at my elbow in a gown considerably more elaborate than anything I owned, though she'd insisted, over my protests, on lending me something from her own collection rather than let me attend in anything less than what she'd called appropriately formidable.
"I'm calculating several. It's a professional habit."
"Well, stop. Tonight you're simply my brother's honored guest, restoring three years of neglected archive work, and nothing more complicated than that — officially, at least, until we've decided together how much more the Council actually needs to know before the Gathering closes.
" She squeezed my arm, warm and steadying.
"Unofficially, half this room already suspects significantly more, and there's nothing either of us can do about that tonight beyond holding our composure. "
The musicians struck up something formal and stately, and the hall's center cleared as the first pairs of dancers moved into the space, silk and velvet catching candlelight in slow, practiced turns.
I'd never seen dancing of this kind before — nothing like the loose, laughing reels the Sorrowmarket managed at harvest festivals, everything here measured and precise, a language of its own that every Voivode in the room seemed to have been born already speaking.
"You're staring," Kason said, appearing at my other side with two glasses of something pale gold that smelled faintly of summer fruit I couldn't name. "It's simply dancing. You needn't look so suspicious of it."
"I've never danced like that in my life. I'm trying to work out whether anyone will expect me to attempt it."
"No one will expect anything of you tonight beyond existing pleasantly in a very expensive gown.
" He pressed the glass into my hand, his fingers lingering a moment longer than the gesture strictly required, and something in his eyes, warm and steady despite the noise and scale of the room around us, settled some of my nerves before the evening had properly tested them.
"Though if you'd like to learn, I happen to know the steps considerably better than most things I'm required to know as a prince. "
"Is that an offer?"
"It's an offer, for later, once the receiving line's finished and I'm no longer required to greet forty Voivodes by name and title without visibly wanting to be anywhere else.
" A ghost of dry humor crossed his face, gone as quickly as it came.
"Stay close to Yeva, if I'm pulled away for anything.
She's better at this than either of us."
I held my composure through the receiving line, through introductions to Voivodes whose names I forgot within seconds of hearing them, through the exhausting performance of a hundred careful smiles given to people who were, I understood clearly enough, studying me with noticeably more attention than simple courtesy required.
Kason stood beside me through most of it, his hand finding the small of my back whenever the crowd pressed too close, a steadying presence I found myself grateful for more than I wanted to admit to myself.
"You're doing well," he murmured, during a brief lull between introductions.
"I'm doing adequately. There's a difference, and I suspect at least a dozen people in this room could tell you exactly which one they're currently witnessing."
He laughed at that, low and genuine, and once the receiving line had finally thinned enough to breathe, he made good on his earlier promise and led me onto the floor for the dance he'd offered, one hand at my waist and the other closed warm around mine, guiding me through steps I fumbled at first and then, slowly, began to catch the rhythm of.
"You're better at this than you claimed," he said, turning me through a slow circle that somehow didn't end in either of us stepping on the other.
"I'm better at following someone who clearly knows what he's doing. Don't mistake that for skill of my own."
"I'll take whatever credit you're willing to hand me.
" Something warm moved behind his eyes, the distinct unguarded look he rarely allowed in public, and for a few minutes, turning slowly beneath candlelight with his hand steady at my waist, I let myself forget entirely about Voivodes and Council inquiries and a bloodline that had upended my whole understanding of my own life.
There was only the music, and his hand in mine, and the particular ease of being, for once, simply a woman dancing with a man who looked at her like she mattered more than any political calculation currently circling the room.
The song ended too soon. He held my hand a beat longer than the dance required before releasing it, and I felt, watching him step back to make room for the next formal pairing, a warmth that stayed with me even as the crowd closed back in around us both.
"You're doing well," he murmured, during a brief lull between introductions.
"I'm doing adequately. There's a difference, and I suspect at least a dozen people in this room could tell you exactly which one they're currently witnessing."
He didn't get the chance to answer. A steward appeared at his elbow with some urgent matter requiring his attention — a delayed shipment of wine, or a dispute over seating arrangements, the small crisis that apparently accompanied any gathering of this scale — and I watched him hesitate, torn between the crisis and leaving me alone in a room full of Voivodes who'd been watching me all evening with entirely too much interest.
"Go," I told him. "I'll be fine for ten minutes."
He went, reluctantly, with a look that promised he'd return the moment the crisis allowed, and I found myself alone in a sea of black stone and candlelight and considerably more scrutiny than ten minutes should reasonably have required me to survive.
Voivode Halmar found me first, which surprised me less than the company he'd brought with him — three other Voivodes I didn't recognize, older men with the singular hard, assessing eyes of people who'd spent decades reading political weather before it arrived.
"The wardsmith," Halmar said, without the warmth I'd occasionally caught from him in passing corridors over the past weeks. "I understand your restoration work on the archive wing has been quite thorough."
"I've done my best with it. Three years of neglect takes time to properly undo."
"Indeed." One of the other Voivodes, a woman with silver hair and eyes that missed nothing, studied me with open, unhurried curiosity.
"I understand the sealed genealogy wing was among the sections you've had access to.
That's rather specialized territory for a simple restoration commission, wouldn't you agree, Halmar? "
"I would." Halmar's eyes hadn't left my face. "Tell me, wardsmith — in all your work among those old records, did you happen to encounter any mention of a bloodline called Frostmark?"
The question landed with a directness I hadn't braced for, delivered in the middle of a crowded ballroom with substantially more people listening than I'd initially registered, several conversations nearby going quiet in the particular way conversations went quiet when something more interesting had begun close by.
"I've encountered a great many names, in three years' worth of neglected records," I said, keeping my voice as level as I'd once kept it facing envoys who'd tried to shortchange me.
"I couldn't tell you which specific names carry significance to this Council's current concerns.
That's rather outside a wardsmith's expertise. "
"Is it." The silver-haired Voivode's smile carried no warmth at all.
"How curious, then, that you carry yourself with rather more composure than a simple market trader usually manages, standing in a room full of Voivodes asking pointed questions.
Most rogues I've encountered find this kind of scrutiny considerably more unsettling. "
"Most rogues haven't spent six years arguing prices with wolf nobility over a market stall.
I've had practice." I held her gaze without flinching, though my pulse had begun climbing steadily beneath the composed surface I was fighting to maintain.
"If you have a specific question you'd like answered plainly, I'm happy to try.
I'd rather that than continue circling whatever it is you're actually asking. "
A third Voivode, a broad-shouldered man I didn't recognize, spoke up from just behind Halmar's shoulder, his voice markedly less measured than the others.
"My territory borders the Sorrowmarket's eastern approach.
I've had three patrols report Unbound activity in the last month alone — activity that began, notably, within weeks of this castle claiming a rogue wardsmith from that exact market.
I'd like to understand whether those two facts are connected before I ride home to a border my own people are currently dying to defend. "
"I understand your patrols have suffered.
I'm sorry for that, genuinely." My voice held steadier than I expected, some old market instinct rising to meet a threat the way it always had, even as my pulse hammered harder beneath it.
"I don't have the authority to speak for this Council's security assessments, and I won't pretend otherwise simply because you'd prefer a quicker answer than the truth currently allows. "
"That sounds very much like a woman avoiding a question she doesn't want to answer."
"Or a woman who understands the difference between what she's permitted to say and what she's being pressed to say in the middle of a ballroom, by a circle of Voivodes who've clearly already decided what conclusion they'd like to reach.
" I felt my own composure fraying at the edges, the effort of holding steady against a circle that had grown, in the space of a few minutes, from three Voivodes to considerably more than a dozen, every one of them watching with the same hungry, assessing attention.
Something shifted in the small circle around me, several more Voivodes drifting closer, drawn by the specific gravity of a confrontation building in real time, and I felt, for the first time since arriving at the ball, the genuine beginning of panic — not the manageable, familiar fear I'd learned to hold steady through six years of careful survival, but something larger, far harder to contain, as the circle of watching faces grew wider and Kason remained nowhere in sight.
"The specific question," Halmar said, his voice carrying now, pitched to reach considerably further than our small circle, "is whether this Council can trust that the throne's judgment, regarding a rogue wardsmith granted unprecedented personal protection and unsupervised access to this kingdom's most sensitive historical records, has been sound.
I mean no personal insult to you, wardsmith.
I mean a great deal of concern for what this kingdom doesn't yet know about the choices being made on its behalf. "
I opened my mouth to answer, and found, for one long, terrifying moment, that I had no answer ready that wouldn't either lie outright or confirm exactly what this entire circle of Voivodes had gathered to hear, and felt my wolf stir beneath my skin, restless and frightened in a way it hadn't been since the Sorrowmarket's own crowded chaos, six weeks and a lifetime ago.
The crowd around me had grown much larger.
I could feel my pulse hammering, feel the particular tightness building in my chest that I recognized, distantly, as the early edge of losing control I couldn't afford to lose, not here, not in front of thirty Voivodes who'd all, apparently, gathered specifically to watch me fail to hold it.
The candlelight seemed too bright, suddenly, the music too loud, every face in the circle around me sharpening into something I could no longer quite process as separate people rather than a single, overwhelming wall of scrutiny.
My wolf pressed hard against the careful control I'd maintained for six years, sensing threat in the crowd's tightening circle the way it sensed threat in anything that cornered it, and I understood, with a distant, detached horror, that I was losing the battle I'd fought and won a thousand times before in considerably smaller rooms, significantly lower stakes.
"I asked you a question, wardsmith," Halmar said, his voice gentler than the words themselves, though gentleness did nothing to ease the vise closing slowly around my chest. "I'd appreciate an answer, whenever you're able to give me one."
I opened my mouth again, and found no words waiting there at all, only the roar of my own pulse and the specific, dangerous heat building low in my chest that meant my wolf had stopped merely stirring and started, in earnest, to push.