The Gray Wolf Throne

  “I should just get dressed again,” Raisa grumbled, trying to ignore it. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “Your Highness, there’s no point. Soon as we send the jinxflingers away, I’ll take you upstairs for a long, hot bath,” Magret promised.

  Moments later, Amon returned, with Micah and Dancer. There was a grim, angry set to Micah’s mouth, a stiffness to his posture.

  When his eyes lit on Han, he stopped short in the doorway, looking from Raisa in her blanket to Han as if he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes.

  “What are you doing here, Alister?” he demanded. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you ride up at the memorial service, dressed like some kind of prince. How did you get involved with the princess heir?” He looked at Raisa. “Do you know who this is? Do you know what he’s done? He’s a murdering, thieving—”

  “Sul’Bayar!” Raisa said. “I thought you were here to inquire after my health, not malign and interrogate my bodyguard.”

  “Your bodyguard?” Micah looked Han up and down, shaking his head slowly. “Him?”

  “Indeed,” Raisa said, losing patience. “Get used to it or get out.” Sweet Lady in chains, she thought, I am so weary of wizards.

  Closing his eyes, Micah took a deep breath, then released it, mastering himself in that way he had.

  “As you wish, Your Highness,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I am already used to it.”

  He came and knelt in front of Raisa. When he lifted his head, his black eyes raked over her, drinking in every detail. Like he would tally up every cut and bruise and healing wound.

  “Raisa,” he said, “are you really all right?” He reached for her hands, and she snatched them back, out of reach. Han shifted his weight behind her, and Raisa knew without looking that he’d gripped his amulet. Amon moved up next to Micah, his sword ready in his hand.

  “Just—just keep your distance, Micah,” Raisa said, raising both hands, palms out. “I’m already jumpy. And I have absolutely no reason to trust you.”

  Pain flickered across Micah’s face, but he rested his hands on his knees, in plain view of everyone.

  “Of course,” he said. “I had to see you, to see for myself that you were all right. You’re not hurt? You’re not wounded at all?”

  Raisa shook her head. “No. I was very lucky.”

  “Yes. You were.” Micah looked at Han and Amon almost accusingly, then back at Raisa. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you appeared at the memorial service.”

  “Were you?” Raisa’s voice was cool and indifferent. “Were you really relieved?”

  Micah drew his brows together in a frown, tilting his head. “Well, yes, of course. The last time I saw you, we were in the middle of a battle.”

  “That’s right,” Raisa said. “And you put me there. How did you and Fiona manage to escape? And the Manders as well?”

  “We were able to recover our amulets,” Micah said. “After that, it was relatively easy to conceal ourselves.” He shrugged. “To be honest, Prince Gerard seemed more intent on finding you, Your Highness. He turned west, to Tamron Court, while we traveled north. When I returned home and found that you had not arrived, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “And immediately found somebody else to marry,” Raisa said. “I had no idea you were so determined to settle down.”

  “I am as much a prisoner of family and politics as you are,” Micah said. “That did not keep me from worrying that something had happened to you. I thought perhaps Montaigne had recaptured you, or that you were trapped in Tamron Court.”

  “Something did happen to me,” Raisa said. “On my way home, I was attacked and nearly killed in Marisa Pines Pass.”

  “Attacked?” Micah shook his head slowly, as if to deny it. Micah was a consummate actor, but Raisa thought his surprise was genuine.

  “Yes, attacked by someone who was expecting me to come that way.”

  Now Micah leaned forward, intent on her. “Who was it? Who attacked you?”

  “They were out of uniform, but they appeared to be members of my own guard,” Raisa said.

  Micah’s eyes narrowed. “Then it wasn’t…” He stopped himself, took a deep breath, let it out. “It wasn’t the copperheads, then?” But she had the impression he’d changed what he meant to say.

  Well, I can hold back information as well as you, she thought. She shook her head. “Hardly,” she said. “The clan healers saved my life.”

  “What about…those who attacked you?” Micah asked, his eyes fixed on her face. “Have they been questioned? Do you know why they attacked you? Were they just renegades, or… ?”

  “They are all dead,” Raisa said, shrugging, but watching Micah closely through her lashes. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  Micah sat back a little, looking disappointed and unsettled rather than relieved.

  “So,” he said, “there have been two attempts on your life within a space of weeks.” He looked up at Amon Byrne and Han Alister. “And where were you two during all of this? Or do you only surface after the assassins have fled?”

  Again, Raisa sensed Han stirring behind her, and she felt the heat of him through her skin. It seemed to roll off him in waves.

  “I beg you, Raisa, take better care,” Micah went on. “It’s clear to me that your soldier and your so-called bodyguard are not enough to keep you safe. You cannot keep tempting fate. These are dangerous times.”

  “You were the one who dragged me away from Oden’s Ford,” Raisa said. “If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d still be there.”

  “For how long?” Micah asked. “Don’t you think that those who tried to kill you would have tried again?”

  “You would know better than me,” Raisa said. “What’s the plan, going forward?” She leaned toward him, as if he might really answer.

  Micah glanced at Amon and Han, and Raisa knew he hated holding this discussion in front of this particular audience. “What I did at Oden’s Ford was for your protection. Even if you managed to stay alive, had you not returned, the Princess Mellony would have been named princess heir, and maybe queen by now.”

  “Well, that would have worked well for you, wouldn’t it, since she seems to be smitten with you,” Raisa said.

  “I am not pursuing your sister,” he said, rising to his feet. “I am telling you to take very good care, Raisa. Please.” He bowed. “Welcome home, Your Highness. I will call upon you again.” He nodded at Han and Amon. “Gentlemen. Using that term loosely, of course.”

  And so he left, leaving Raisa more confused than enlightened.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y-S E V E N

  ON THE LOOSE IN THE PALACE

  Fellsmarch Castle was like a small city in itself, familiar to Han in unexpected ways. The servants’ corridors reminded him of Ragmarket’s back alleys, where you could travel long distances unobserved by most. The audience chambers and salons were like large public squares, where the bluebloods gathered to make show and catch the attention of their rivals.

  Han explored the palace and the close, mapping it in his head as he had Ragmarket and Southbridge.

  True to her word, Raisa had moved Han into an apartment next to hers—Magret Gray’s former quarters. She didn’t have much choice of places to put him, because her room was fairly isolated in one of the gateway towers, beneath the glass gardens on the roof.

  The glass gardens where Alger Waterlow once trysted with Hanalea, the warrior queen.

  Seeming immune to Magret’s scandalized disapproval, Raisa relocated her nurse into quarters in the other gateway tower, some distance down the hall. The Maiden haunted the corridors at all hours like a tall stately spook with a lantern and long gray braid.

  Magret made it clear that she detested Han—that she blamed him for what happened to Velvet. It was too bad because Han rather liked the iron-spined nurse. He still had hopes of winning her over—but maybe he was fooling himself.

  Raisa demurred when th
e High Wizard and her council suggested that she move into her mother’s elaborate quarters in the main palace. That could wait until after the coronation, she said. The queen’s chambers held too many painful memories to move in so soon. Also, she had a sentimental attachment to her old rooms. Anyway, she preferred to mourn her mother in seclusion, not burdening the court at large. Besides, she would likely redecorate the suite once her grief had abated somewhat, and that would be easier if it were not occupied.

  She had a dozen arguments, and her story often changed depending on the audience.

  Han admired her politician’s ability to say no and keep saying no while making it seem like no one wanted to say yes more than she did. Still, he was surprised by her decision to stay where she was. It seemed like claiming the queen’s rooms would reinforce the inevitability of the coronation to those who still might hope for a different outcome.

  From all appearances, resistance to Raisa as queen had evaporated after her sudden reappearance at the memorial service. Han knew that it had only been driven underground. Even if Raisa survived her coronation, an assassin could make sure her reign was short-lived.

  Amon Byrne was taking no chances. He kept handpicked bluejackets on duty outside Raisa’s room whenever she was in residence, and they accompanied her wherever she went, even inside the palace.

  Han’s suite was small by palace standards—intended for a servant—but it was almost too big for him—consisting of a room to sleep in and a room to sit in and another room for spares.

  He had lived most of his life with the rest of his family in a single room. If there had been more than three Alisters, they’d still have shared a single room. Except for when they visited the privy, most families in Ragmarket did everything in one room, whether it was eating, sleeping, piecework, laundry, dying, birthing babies, or making love.

  The furniture in Han’s suite was heavy and ornate, like the kind in some of the fancier parts of Southbridge Temple. The bed in particular was huge and lonely, and Han rattled around in it, plagued by an excess of space and bad dreams.

  It was so deadly quiet at night it was hard to fall asleep. Even with his shutters open, most nights all he could hear was the splashing of the fountain in the courtyard. It was almost a relief when lovers crept out there in the moonlight, breaking the silence with their whispers, laughter, and sighs.

  Except it only made him ache for what he’d lost.

  He tried to distance himself from Raisa. He told himself she was just another blueblood liar who’d use him and discard him; who would ride right over the underclass when they got in her way. Pining after a princess, as Cat called it, was the road to humiliation. He’d never be more to her than an interesting diversion.

  But the reality of her kept getting in his way.

  Twice now, he’d nearly lost her for keeps. Once in Marisa Pines Pass, and once in the attack just outside the palace gates. If not for Dancer’s armor, she’d be dead or badly injured.

  He revisited the memory of their entrance into the city again and again—the crushing pain, the vacancy where his heart used to be, the realization that he had failed once again to protect someone he loved.

  It was like poking at a deep bruise, verifying that it had not yet healed, reminding himself of his vulnerability.

  Of hers.

  And so he’d set himself this impossible task.

  He could protect himself—and if he failed, well, he’d been ready to pay the personal price for failure all his life. But how could he keep Raisa alive when so many enemies seemed bent on killing her? How could he become powerful enough to make a claim on her—to make her take him seriously as a suitor? How could he convince her to see him as a peer—someone who could partner with her in every way?

  And how could he do all that without putting her in even more danger? Willo’s warnings echoed in his ears.

  He didn’t yet know the answers, but he knew this—he wouldn’t put her at risk by allowing a romance to blossom between them until he was in a position to defend it.

  Raisa was brilliantly savvy about some things, but she’d never truly understood how it was between bluebloods and streetrunners. She’d never had to. She didn’t seem to realize that any hint of romance between them would bring both the clans and wizards down on them.

  He’d have known the rules on his old turf. Here, following his instincts would get them both killed.

  If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there, Jemson used to say. At least now, Han knew where he was going, and who with. He’d just have to find his own path.

  Raisa’s first “tutoring session” had not gone well. The tension was so thick you could’ve spread it on bread and called it a meal, as Mam would say. Raisa was constantly on the move, pacing back and forth and talking and waving her hands like she could fill up the chasm between them all on her own.

  Han sat in a straight chair, his hands gripping the armrests, hearing every third word. His mind’s eye strayed to that rose tattoo on her collarbone, to her tiny waist, to the green eyes shadowed by thick lashes and black brows set against her tawny skin.

  It was a special kind of misery to recall her fresh-air scent and forthright kisses. It had been a pleasure to kiss someone who seemed to enjoy it as much as he did.

  An inside door connected Han’s quarters to the queen’s, meant to allow the servant that was supposed to be living there to come and go in privacy. While attending Raisa in her rooms, Magret kept it locked, and rattled the lock several times a day—a warning to the wizard on the other side.

  Han mastered the lock his first day. And then it took all the self-discipline he had to stay on his side of the wall.

  He fetched his own water from the pump in the courtyard and either ate in the dining hall or carried food back from the kitchens himself. While he wanted to fit in with bluebloods, he wasn’t going to chance food or drink that had been sitting unattended in the hallway or carried by a servant. There were too many people who would like to see him dead, and too many slick clan-made poisons that could be added to food and water undetected.

  Each of his rooms had its own fireplace. Darby Blake, Han’s personal servant, had the idea he would slip in when Han was out and replenish the stack of wood and fill the water pitcher and empty the chamber pot. Han had to break him of that because he’d laid charms on all the doors and windows to keep out intruders. Servants could be threatened, charmed, or bribed. So Han carried his own wood from a bin along the corridor just outside his room and set his chamber pot outside when it needed attention.

  Darby was always there, ready to receive his slop jar like it was a privilege or a gift.

  For Han, living in the palace was a lot like living in Ragmarket—surrounded by enemies, with death always a footfall away. Only plusher. There were several dining halls. Like taverns, some catered to the quality and others to the working class. The food was always good and there was plenty of it, even though others in the queendom might be starving. Any time of the day or night, food could be had.

  His sitting room led onto a terrace that overlooked the courtyard in the center of the palace. The stone walls of Fellsmarch Castle afforded plenty of handholds and footholds for an experienced second-story thief. The walls took him to the roof, to the glass gardens up there, and the roof took him wherever else he wanted to go.

  Han was amazed at how many rooms there were in the palace, some of them used only rarely. Even after several weeks, there were parts of the palace he’d not yet explored, including the Bayar stronghold. No doubt they’d have laid traps for intruders, knowing Han was in the castle. He wanted more training on detecting and disabling magical locks and killing charms before he ventured there. And that meant he had to find a way to make up with Crow.

  Han’s proximity to the queen, and his apparent role as her favorite, made him the subject of endless servant gossip. At first the maids froze like deer when he passed by, and the chamberlains elbowed each other and clamped their mouths shut when
they saw him coming.

  Their attitude toward him was a mixture of fear, fascination, and pride of ownership. His reputation as a ruthless streetlord, thief, and knife fighter had preceded him into the palace. Added to that were the stories about Queen Marianna’s memorial service, churned and expanded by the palace rumor mill.

  A wizard from Ragmarket? Who’d heard of such a thing? He was one of them, and yet he wasn’t. Wizards breathed the rarefied air on Gray Lady and moved in blueblood circles. Wizards hired folk to give orders to their servants so they wouldn’t have to talk to them directly.

  The Gray Wolf queens were known to be lusty and venturesome in matters of love, and the servant underground assumed that Han was their queen’s dangersome plaything who would soon be discarded for someone more biddable.

  Han figured bets had been laid on how long he would last, and whether he’d go quietly when the time came. He would have wagered himself, but he didn’t know what odds to demand.

  Only bluebloods seemed unaware of the ongoing speculation. The notion that the queen of the realm would romance a thief seemed beyond comprehension to them. Which was a blessing, and he meant to make it last.

  Han made a special effort to win over the servants. His mother had worked in the palace for a time, and he was well aware of how powerful a network the palace underground was, how much information it carried, and how gossip could remake a person.

  He was free with Queen Raisa’s coin when he asked the palace staff for favors, and he made sure to learn their names and stories. He made it clear that he would make it worthwhile for those who brought him information. He would double the payment of any who sought information about him.

  He also made it clear that anyone who entered his room intending mischief would die a horrible death.

  Han had never realized that queens worked so hard—at least this one did. Maybe the old queen hadn’t done much of anything in the past year, or maybe it just seemed that way. Raisa toured the city’s fortifications, reviewed the Highlander Army, and attended services in temples all over the Fells. She sat through meeting after meeting—with her stewards, with the Queen’s Council, with the committees laying plans for the coronation. Some meetings were routine, while others had to do with projects Raisa herself was pushing. It wasn’t easy. Her advisers couldn’t agree that water was wet and the sky was blue. Also, there didn’t seem to be any money.