I drew Lydia into the alcove behind the tapestry, the same shadowed nook I'd used before to speak without palace ears listening in, and studied Lydia's face in the dim light. Lydia's usual haughty composure had cracked at the edges not broken, never broken, but strained in a way I hadn't seen since the day she'd first approached me in the concubines' garden with an offer neither of them had dared name aloud yet.
"Tell me," I said quietly.
"Alaric doesn't know his men were used." Lydia's voice was low, urgent, stripped of the icy detachment she usually wore like a second skin. "I've shared his bed enough times now to know the difference between a man plotting and a man simply too foolish to notice he's being plotted around. He was drunk on his own wine last night, boasting about a hunting
