Chapter 31 — Stabilize the Crown
They buried King Alaric Thorne without his heir, and that was the first move.
Sierra learned the date from the same letter that announced it — a council dispatch, arriving eight days after the death, timed so precisely that the funeral had already happened by the time she read about it. The Council regrets that the season and the condition of the roads did not permit delay.
"Eleven days for a rider," Orin said flatly. "Fourteen for the body to lie in state, by law. They buried him on the ninth."
"They buried him early so I couldn't come."
"They buried him early so the court could watch you not come." He was pacing. "Ninety-one days absent. The old king in the ground without a Thorne standing over him. Majesty, do you understand what that looks like in
