The Runt's Revenge

Episode4

*****

"You saw it too right?," Kaelen said. "Don't tell me you didn't."

Dorian shut the study door behind him before answering. "I saw something. Doesn't mean I know what it was."

"Violet spark. In her eyes." Kaelen stared into the fireplace. "I've seen that color once before in my life."

"Kaelen—"

“Don’t.” He hushed. “Not yet. I need to know more before I let myself believe anything.”

"And if it's what you think it is?"

Kaelen didn't answer. Dorian had known him long enough to read the answer in the way his hand curled against the stone.

"You brought a Vance girl into this fortress to use against her father," Dorian said. "If she's what you're afraid she is, using her becomes a very different thing."

"I'm aware."

"Are you? Because right now you look like a man deciding whether to be relieved or furious, and I can't tell which is winning."

"Neither can I." Kaelen's lowered his voice. "That's the problem."

"She doesn't know," Dorian said carefully. "Whatever she is. I don't think she knows either."

"Neither do I. Guess we're even." Kaelen straightened, "Keep an eye on her. I don't want the whole fortress deciding what she is before I do."

"What if the whole fortress already has? You know how fast rumors move in this place."

"Then find whoever's talking and remind them why nobody talks about me twice."

Dorian nodded and left.

****

"You're not what I expected either."

Elara turned. A dark-skinned, sharp-eyed girl stood in the doorway of the small stone room Dorian had left her in. A tray in her hands, eyeing down Elara.

"Everyone keeps saying that. I'm starting to wonder what they expect."

"Someone who'd probably cry the whole ride up." The girl set the tray down. "I'm Sable. I run this wing. Which means I know where everything is, including things you're not supposed to know."

"That's an interesting thing to tell a stranger."

"You're not a stranger. Not with the way the Alpha looked at you in that courtyard." Sable crossed her arms. "The whole fortress is already talking about it you know."

Elara leaned closer. "Talking about what?"

"That you did something. Nobody agrees on what. Some say your eyes changed color. Some say you're lying." Sable observed her. "Personally I've bet and made money on 'lying,' only because the other means I have to be nicer to you, and I've had a long week. Either way, I just hope you won't make my life harder."

"I don't intend to."

"Everyone says that. Half of them mean it." Sable picked at a thread on her sleeve, gazing at Elara. "You're smaller than the last one they tried to marry him off to."

"There was a last one?"

"There's always a last one, in a fortress like this. Doesn't mean much." Sable's tone stayed light, but her eyes didn't.

"What happened to her? I mean the last one?"

"She left. Or she was sent away. Depends who you ask, and nobody who knows would tell you." Sable sighed. "Point is, you're not the first girl to stand in this room wondering if she's about to be married or buried. Doesn't mean you'll end up the same way."

"That's not comforting."

"Wasn't meant to be. Just true." Sable moved over to dress the bed. " Rules, since nobody else will bother telling you." She counted them out with her fingers. "Don't go past the east archive without an escort. Don't ask the guards about the war eleven years back. And don't — for your own sake — mention the name Elyse Thorne to anyone in this fortress. Ever."

Elara’s pulse spiked. "Who's Elyse Thorne?"

"That's rule one, two, and three, all at once." Sable's face didn't change. "Meaning: don't ask."

Before Elara could push further, the door opened without a knock. Kaelen filled the frame, and Sable dropped into a quick bow, slipped out without a word.

"Settling in," Kaelen inquired.

"Being informed of the rules, apparently."

"Which ones?"

"The east archive. The war. A name I'm apparently forbidden from saying." She held his gaze. "You could just tell me yourself."

"I could."

"Will you?"

"No." He casually said it, which somehow made it worse. "Not yet."

"That's not an answer either."

"It's the only one you're getting today." He stepped further into the room. "You'll dine with me tonight. My warriors will want to see that their Alpha's new wife isn't hiding in a corner."

"And if I'd rather hide in a corner?"

"You won't." He hid a smirk. "You don't strike me as someone who hides well, whatever your father's letter said.”

There was brief silence in the room.

"What should I expect tonight?" She cleared the air. "More rules?"

"Fewer than you'd think. Mostly they'll want to look at you. Decide for themselves whether their Alpha made a mistake."

"And if they decide he did?"

"Then they'll keep it to themselves." His voice hardened. "Nobody in this fortress questions me twice."

"Lucky them. I've questioned you three times already and you're still standing here."

That caused a sharp look on Kaelen's face. "You're either very brave or very foolish."

"I've been told both. Usually by the same people. Sometimes in the same sentence."

He turned to leave, then stopped at the door, back to her. "One more thing."

"What?"

"Whatever happened in that courtyard." His voice was now quiet than before. "It's going to happen again. I'd rather you tell me what it is before I find out myself."

The door shut behind him before she could respond.

Elara sat alone, Sable's warning ringing louder than anything Kaelen had said. She thought of the way his jaw had tightened at a name he refused to explain. Everybody in this fortress seemed to be guarding the same secret from a different angle, and she was the only one who didn't know its shape.

“It would have been easier,” she thought to herself, “if any of them had simply lied to me.” Lies she knew how to handle but this careful, deliberate silence was something new, and far more unsettling.

“I am going to find out exactly why before the week runs out.” She tasked herself. “Whatever it’d cost me to know.” She traced a finger along the edge of the untouched tray Sable had left behind, at least the fortress had good bread. Small comforts, in a place clearly determined not to offer many.