14 #2
The quarter of the aged tablet I had taken at dawn had done its work: my scent was a neutral whisper of damp wool, woodsmoke, and the faint sluggishness of a drudge who had just shaken off winter fevers.
Maevra pinched her lips thin, unsatisfied but unable to find an obvious fault.
“Tomorrow you will remain in the kitchen throughout the inspection. You will help Mina prepare the roast pork and warm the flagons of spiced wine for the officers. When Doctor Ardel summons the servants to the lower yard for the mandatory scent examination, you will keep your head down, answer what you are asked, and go back inside without exchanging a single word with guards from the escort.”
“Yes, my lady,” I answered, lowering my eyes to the wood floor.
“And if I see a single hesitation in your answers, if it so much as occurs to you to hint to royal clerks that you hold any claim over this estate or its labor contracts, I swear I will not wait for the guard to leave before handing you over in irons for defiance of pack authority.”
“Understood, my lady.”
“Take that wood to the hearth and go up to scour the servants’ quarters.”
I turned on my heel and left the dining hall without quickening my pace, feeling the weight of Celene’s stare and Oria’s held breath pinned to my back.
At five the following afternoon, while I was scrubbing dishcloths in the washhouse trough, the service door eased open with a faint creak.
Oria slipped inside, wheeling a basket of clean laundry.
She made sure the yard stood empty beneath the drizzle before stepping up to the trough and sliding a hand under her apron.
“The key is still in my sewing box,” she whispered, eyes bright with tension.
“Mother hasn’t checked the escritoire in her bedchamber since the night she caught you.
She keeps your mother’s parchment in the pocket of her traveling bodice, ready to present to the clerks if they question the land titles. ”
I held my hands still in the soapy water.
“She can’t show it to the clerks without exposing the missing clause. She knows if she produces a mutilated document, Asteria’s chancery will void the sale on the spot.”
“That’s why she’s so nervous,” Oria whispered, nodding. “She argues constantly with Land Steward Barel. If the sovereign decides to review the deeds in person, Mother will try to distract him with Celene’s candidacy so the guard won’t look into the old records.”
I looked my stepsister in the eyes. A shadow of fear lingered on her face, but beneath it lay a clear loyalty that no longer tried to hide itself.
“Oria… When the guard enters tomorrow, stay behind the stable hands in the yard. Don’t go near Thorne or the escort officers.”
The girl nodded slowly, swallowing hard.
“You be careful, Liora. The captain of the guard is known for never letting the slightest suspicion go.”
She hurried toward the kitchen before Mina could come down from the pantry.
I dried my hands on my apron and climbed to my attic with steady steps.
I bolted the wooden door, knelt beside my straw pallet, and felt for the sewing shears in my thread box.
With three precise snips, I undid the side seam of the mattress Oria and I had sewn shut.
I drew out the waxed sleeve holding the principal clause of Elayne’s will.
The document was intact, dry and supple beneath its coat of beeswax.
I unlaced my bodice of coarse wool, laid the folded parchment flat against the inside lining over my left ribs, and picked up the needle threaded with raw hemp.
I stitched the parchment directly to the fabric of the dress, stitch by stitch, pulling with a firm, even tension that left no visible bulge from without.
If soldiers searched the attic, if they overturned the straw pallet or pried up the floorboards hunting for forbidden papers, they would find nothing within the four walls of my room.
My mother’s legacy would travel bound to my skin, guarded by my own warmth and the unbroken beat of my chest.
Night settled over the eastern plateau with a dry, cutting cold that froze the roadside puddles into mirrors of dark glass.
Before climbing onto the roof, I set another wrapped quarter beside the water pitcher in my attic to take before daybreak. The effect lasted hours, not days; without renewing it on the morning of the examination, my true scent would reach the yard before I did.
I climbed out onto the attic roof through the service skylight, sliding carefully across the frost-crusted tiles until I braced myself against the flue of the old chimney.
To the west, less than half a league away, a line of burning torches wound over the ridge of the Three Eyes Mill.
Riders of the royal guard.
I made out the yellow pennants of the Crown fluttering from their lances, black cloaks sharp against the white sweep of snow-dusted stubble, and Iven Ardel’s covered wagon rolling at a walk behind the vanguard.
This was no passing patrol.
It was the main detachment of the sovereign of Eryndor.
The east wind surged, carrying over the hills the distant metallic clatter of horseshoes striking stone paving.
And through the cold gale, a draft struck my face: dark cedar, cold iron, and juniper smoke.
Darian Corven’s presence was there, less than twenty minutes’ ride from the gates of the Valen estate.
I gripped the chimney bricks with my scarred right hand, feeling the crunch of the waxed parchment against my ribs.
I had survived the Solstice poisoning, the hunt through the frozen forest, and Maevra’s punishments.
Tomorrow morning, the primal Alpha who had said “You’re mine” in the mud of the citadel would cross the threshold of my home.
Only this time, there would be no silver masks, no borrowed doublets, no escapes through drainage grates.
I was ready to look him in the eyes.