Page 7

CHAPTER 7

W hen Etra’s sloth-footed guards finally made their way to the scene of the attempted crime, they came with their queen tucked between their ranks like a porcelain doll wrapped in padding to protect her from bumps and cracks. She swept into the destroyed sitting room with the guards, the regent right behind, and stared at the disheveled room like it was a badly behaving child.

Usually Callum would have been impressed to have the queen—or queen-to-be, whatever she was—give her own inspection. She strode into the room so fearlessly. A family trait, perhaps.

But when he followed, he found her tapping her index finger on her bottom lip, frowning. “Are you sure Laena did not fabricate this situation, Captain?” she asked.

Hot anger boiled into Callum’s stomach, conspiring with the whiskey to place an impertinent response on his tongue. But when he caught sight of Laena, who was leaning against the wall—she ought to be resting after her ordeal—he forced himself to speak amicably. As Hawk would want him to .

Laena’s brown hair was in disarray, her skin so ghostly pale that it revealed a scatter of freckles along her cheeks he hadn’t noticed before. The paleness worried him. That bump on her head might be serious.

Injured or not, he half expected her to bite out her own response to her sister’s accusation. But shock had glazed her green eyes with a distant expression, and he wondered if she’d even heard what Katrina said.

“Her injuries are plain enough,” Callum said. Angry bruises were already forming on her neck, and that bump on her head was startlingly large. She really ought to see the physician.

To say that he’d been surprised when the woman had come barging into his guest rooms would be an understatement. He’d been in the shallows of a bottle of whiskey and heading for deeper waters when she’d come barreling in, flushed and breathless, as if a demon were on her trail. For a moment, he’d assumed—momentarily—that she was a hallucination. A drink-induced vision. Or that he’d fallen asleep before the fire, prompting what promised to be the world’s greatest dream.

But this was no dream, and Laena was injured and frightened, having fought off an attempted murder. And her sister thought she had fabricated it? Callum wanted to give the queen-to-be a shake.

“The former princess has a reputation for attention seeking, you see.”

Callum had not yet heard the regent speak, but apparently this situation called for his involvement. The man held his head high, and something about his posture suggested that he would dive in front of Katrina at the slightest hint of danger. Callum recognized coiled muscles when they were ready to strike, like a soldier’s. Though this man clearly wasn’t one.

A snake, perhaps.

They couldn’t truly think Laena would have made this up. Could they? He’d known the woman for a bare few minutes altogether, and unless she was an exceptional actress, her distress was incredibly clear.

He was half inclined to step in front of her himself. Alas, he couldn’t protect her from their words. And he had a feeling she wouldn’t thank him for trying.

“Be that as it may,” Callum said slowly, “I saw the intruder myself. I gave chase. Do I also have a reputation for attention seeking?”

If the words were acidic, so be it. Even Hawk could not object. To speak of Laena—her own sister, disgraced or not—like she wasn’t even in the room, after she’d endured such a trial? In Aglye, it would not be tolerated.

Katrina pressed her lips together, as if she wished she might snap back at him. He almost wished that she would.

Unfortunately, one of the guards chose that precise moment to speak. “The window was broken from the outside,” he said. “Glass on the floor. Someone was in here.”

“By the mages,” Laena said sarcastically, “were they really ?”

Callum suppressed a snort. So she had been listening after all.

Truly, he ought to have heard the disturbance. His room was directly diagonal to Katrina’s sitting room. The settee had tipped over and she’d shattered a vase.

He’d nearly allowed a woman to perish while he lazed around in a daze of his own making. It felt so much like a repetition of history that his breath caught in his throat, threatening to drown him.

In truth, he’d not done anything to help Laena at all. He’d merely run fruitlessly after the assassin, whose dark clothing gave nothing away about their origins. Not that he needed to guess; they could only have come from Silerith.

“I think we must assume,” the regent said, “that the assassin was after Princess Katrina.”

So they were accepting the assassin theory now. Excellent .

“Because we look so much alike.” Laena raised her hand as if to prevent the regent from uttering a retort. “No, Declan, that was a jest. You’ve heard of them? I’m neither dressed like a queen-in-waiting, nor golden-haired like my sister. I cannot believe the attacker mistook me for her, even from behind. Perhaps they meant to kill whomever they found here.”

She spoke strongly enough, but she still looked like death had passed over her. Before Callum quite realized what he was doing, he said, “Have you eaten since your arrival, my lady?”

Katrina swiveled slowly in his direction, eyebrows raised, while the regent popped his mouth open like a fish. Almost as if they’d forgotten he was there.

Laena met his gaze, her own expression startled. Or maybe it was… curious. Birdlike, almost. “No, my lord,” she said slowly. “I have not.”

Callum had never been one for politics or maneuverings, but he could piece the situation together easily enough. He’d met her at the gate in the early afternoon, and the assassin had not come until well after nightfall. Which meant they’d withheld dinner, at the very least. Intentionally.

Callum might not be a royal, but he knew that visitors to palace sitting rooms were typically provided with an unceasing parade of sandwiches and pastries, to say nothing of the teas and coffees and carafes of wine.

It would have to be intentionally withheld, the servants instructed to send nothing.

These roaches had not even given her a guard. Suspicion crawled up his spine, and he found himself leaning toward the sniveling regent, wishing he could wring the man’s neck.

Callum didn’t know why she’d come back here at all. No wonder her paramour had chosen to remain in the countryside. Callum forced himself to picture the man. He found he needed to remind himself of the fellow’s existence, and though he’d never met the famous stablehand, he opted to imagine him with a bulbous nose and knobby knees.

Even in his imaginings, the man was kind. Nothing like these people. And nothing like Callum.

Callum nodded in Laena’s direction. “I’m no lord,” he said, echoing her protests about him calling her a lady. He jerked his chin at the guard who’d spoken up about the shattered window. He, at least, was not in the regent’s pocket. “You. Go to the kitchens and obtain the lady some dinner. She’s staying in…?”

He looked to Katrina, who shook her head and—for the first time that he’d noticed—deferred to the regent.

Who cleared his throat. “No rooms have been prepared,” he said.

By the black poison, what sort of people were these? And Hawk hoped to bargain with them for an alliance? The regent had tipped his chin toward the ceiling, standing by his statement, but the slight shift of weight between his feet gave away a hint of shame. Or at least embarrassment. That was something, at least.

Both he and Princess Katrina were looking at Callum. And he could feel Laena’s eyes on him, too. Would she be angry with him for interfering? When he glanced her way, though, she merely looked bemused. As if she wasn’t used to someone speaking on her behalf.

In Callum’s mind, the stablehand grew a wart in the middle of his forehead. He should be here to defend his lover. His wife? Perhaps they’d wed by now.

“Have the food sent to my rooms, then,” he said, the words coming out as a growl. “And be quick about it.”

Katrina opened her mouth as if to object to someone else giving orders in her palace. But Callum was finished with propriety. No doubt General Landon Moore would’ve simpered for the queen-to-be, laughing as she sent her injured sister away in disgrace. But Moore had been too slow, and Callum was here in his place.

He turned on his heel, nodding at Laena to follow, and made for the door. “We mustn’t linger any longer,” he said. “The king must know of this attack. The delegation leaves at dawn.”