The Pin
URALISH
He fucking hated throne rooms. But it was necessary.
He had come to Filar House because Colsar had asked him to help investigate and because finding her was easier than explaining why he had not. That was the kind of logic that had governed most of his decisions for forty years.
Syle walked beside him.
The servant who met them at the door looked at them the way servants looked at people they had been told to manage.
"Her Majesty is not receiving—"
"Tell her King Regent Uralish of Alarna is here," he said. "Tell her it concerns the investigation into her daughter-in-law's death."
A pause. Then the servant disappeared.
He was admitted.
The air was wrong before he crossed the threshold. He had felt it once in Alarna when the undead moved beneath the mountain pass and the whole landscape carried it for days after. Same wrongness. Different house.
He followed the servant through the corridors. Another servant at the far end of the hall turned when he passed. Her fingers lingered before she pulled them from the doorframe.
Gray at the tips.
He kept walking.
Syle touched his arm once. He did not need Enovar to say it aloud.
"I see it," Uralish said.
Two more along the corridor. Both turned as he passed. Both with those gray-tipped fingers and that wrongness underneath the ordinary exterior of a servant going about their work.
She received him in the smaller dining room. Candlelit.
"King Regent Uralish." Her voice carried warmth it had not earned. "What a surprise."
He sat when she gestured and looked at her and she looked at him and he let her fill the silence because women like her always filled it and you learned more from what they chose to fill it with than from anything you asked directly.
She asked about Alarna. About the wards. About whether he found Veynar much changed. He answered what he answered and left the rest and watched her hands and her face and the way she ran the room.
A servant came in to fill the wine. Uralish watched his hands before the man withdrew them.
Gray at the tips.
He left his glass untouched.
Then he saw the pin at her temple and stopped looking at anything else.
He had seen it a hundred times. Across dinner tables and in corridors and in late Alarnan evenings when Jularin had forgotten to notice who was watching. He had asked her about it once, years ago, and she had touched it in exactly the way the Queen Dowager was touching it now.
There is only one, Jularin had told him. Found in the mines of Yorali. It was a gift.
Enovar appeared beside Syle without being asked, which meant Syle had something to say that required a voice.
"Jularin's fucking pin," he whispered angrily.
"A remarkable observation. Now fuck off, you're going to ruin the mood."
"What mood?"
"The mood where vanity gets the best of her and we get a hint of truth."
Enovar rolled his eyes and went back into Syle's body. Somehow, she had missed the entire exchange.
Uralish kept his eyes on the Queen Dowager.
"That is a remarkable pin," he said.
She touched it. Pleased the way people were pleased when something they valued was noticed. "Yes. There is only one like it."
"Where did you come by it?"
A pause. "A gift," she said. "From a dear friend."
He looked at her. "When?"
She smiled. "I do not recall."
He held her eyes a minute longer.
Then he stood.
"Regent Uralish—"
"You are under Alarnan authority,” he said. He said it the way he said most things, without raising his voice. "Princess Jularin of Alarna came to this house and has not been seen since. That is an Alarnan matter.”
She looked at him. Something moved behind her eyes that was not quite surprise and not quite fear. Closer to calculation. "You cannot simply—"
The doors opened.
Eight Avanki walked in.
They moved through the room and took up positions and the Queen Dowager looked at them and then at Uralish and the calculation behind her eyes ran its course and arrived somewhere she did not like.
"This is outrageous," she said. Her voice was still even. He gave her credit for that.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
"Prince Colsar will hear about this."
"He will," Uralish said. "When I am ready to tell him."
She looked at him. "And when will that be?"
"When I know what happened to my sister."
The word sat in the room. He had not intended to say it. He said it anyway.
She said nothing after that. She stood and straightened her dress and walked out with the Avanki around her and her back straight and her hands folded and the pin at her temple catching the candlelight as she turned.
One of the Avanki fell back beside Uralish.
"The servants?" he said quietly.
Uralish looked at the door the servant with the gray fingers had gone through.
"Every one of them," he said. "Search the house."
He walked out after the Queen Dowager and did not look back.
Syle fell into step beside him. Uralish walked and thought about Jularin. Another sister.
Another fucking sister.
For Bitch Dowager, she better hope Jularin was somewhere in a Filar House dungeon and not dead.
He thought about what Colsar was going to do when he told him. He thought about what he was going to do when Colsar did it.
Colsar was managing something he was not speaking about.
Uralish had suspected it from the instant he walked into that council room and read his face.
He was not going to push on it. Whatever Colsar was carrying he was carrying it for a reason.
He hoped whatever it was, it involved Asharin not truly being dead.
Uralish reached into his cloak and pulled out his flask.
Veynar ale tasted like shit.
But at least he had the Dowager.
That was enough for now.