The Alpha Who Begged Too Late

Chapter 17 The Seer Asked for Trust

Aria's POV

The High Seer arrived as if the marsh had summoned her from a story no one told children anymore.

White cloak. Black moons. Silver hair. A face too calm for a shrine full of blood.

I did not trust calm people in violent places.

They had either caused the violence, expected it, or survived enough of it to know exactly what it cost.

Rowan swayed in the water.

That decided the first order of business.

"If the king requests my presence," I said, "he can begin by lending his healer."

High Seer Lysandra's eyes moved to Rowan. For a moment, something like recognition crossed her face.

Not of him.

Of the wound.

"Black thorn venom," she said.

Darius went very still. "That is extinct."

"So was the Broken Crown." She raised two fingers toward the carriage. "Mara."

A woman climbed down carrying a leather case. She wore no court jewels, only healer's gray, and she did not ask permission before stepping into the flooded shrine. That made me like her more than I wanted to.

Rowan tried to stand when she approached.

"Move," I told him, "and I will let Darius sit on you."

Darius said, "With pleasure."

Rowan stayed still.

Mara cut his shirt open, examined the blackening veins around the wound, and muttered something unkind about old poisons and dramatic Alphas. Rowan's mouth tightened, but he did not complain.

Good.

If he was going to bleed for me, he could at least do it quietly.

Elias sat wrapped in Riven's cloak near the broken arch. The boy kept one hand at his throat where the silver chain had burned him. He had asked twice if Mira was alive. Twice, I had said yes. Both times he cried without sound.

Mercy had consequences too.

I turned back to Lysandra.

"You followed Cassian."

"I followed the seal."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the truest one I can give without asking the reeds who listens."

I looked at the marsh.

The water was still, but stillness meant little here.

"Then speak carefully."

Lysandra inclined her head. "Lord Cassian Mor has controlled the king's petitions for nine years. Three months ago, he began restricting access to old gate records. Two weeks ago, His Majesty ordered me to review every active Moon Gate bloodline. Yesterday, your name vanished from the royal archive."

Riven's head snapped up. "Vanished?"

"Not crossed out. Not sealed. Removed. As if Aria Vale had never been born."

The war band chilled.

In the first life, they had not needed to erase me from paper. Rowan, Father, Celeste, and the pack had done it with their silence.

This time, someone had tried ink first.

"Cassian?" I asked.

"Likely."

"Likely is not enough."

"No," Lysandra agreed. "That is why I came myself."

Mara pressed a cloth soaked in sharp-smelling medicine to Rowan's wound. He inhaled once through his teeth.

The bond flinched.

I forced myself not to.

"What does the king know?" I asked.

Lysandra's face did not change. "Less than he should. More than is safe."

Darius laughed under his breath. "Court answers. I hate them."

The seer looked at him. "Then you will hate court."

"I planned to."

I almost liked her for that too.

Dangerous.

Liking people made it easier for them to get close to your throat.

"The king's first order demanded I surrender the war band," I said.

"I know."

"Did he write it?"

"No."

"Did he seal it?"

"Yes."

Riven swore.

Lysandra did not look away from me. "His Majesty sealed a stack of emergency writs prepared by Cassian after news arrived that Silvercrest had been attacked. He believed he was ordering protection for a gate site. He did not see the wording that named the war band."

"Convenient."

"Very."

"And careless."

"Also very."

There was no defense in her voice. That mattered more than any polished loyalty would have.

"Why should I go to a careless king?"

"Because careless is not the same as corrupt, and if you do not stand before him soon, Cassian will stand there first."

I looked toward the place where palace smoke had taken him.

"He escaped."

"Yes."

"To court?"

"Most likely."

"Then court is no longer a destination. It is a battlefield."

"It has always been a battlefield," Lysandra said. "You are simply arriving with a weapon they cannot pretend is ceremonial."

The war band pulsed.

Behind me, Rowan spoke. "If Aria goes to court, Cassian will move against her before she reaches the gates."

Mara shoved him back by the shoulder. "Breathe less heroically."

He ignored her, eyes on me. "He wanted her in royal custody. Now he knows she can wake marsh shrines and break his bargains."

"I know," I said.

"Then let Blackthorn escort you."

Of course.

The room inside my chest, the one I kept locked against him, stirred with old anger.

Not because the offer was wrong.

Because it was useful.

"Blackthorn's presence makes this look like a mate dispute dressed as royal politics," I said.

His face went still.

"I rejected you publicly. You fought beside me publicly. If you ride too close, men like Cassian will make the story about whether I am softening toward an Alpha instead of whether the court is compromised."

"I do not care what they say about me."

"I care what they use against me."

That landed hard enough to silence him.

Darius, wisely, looked at the water.

Lysandra watched us with the expression of a woman reading two versions of the same tragedy.

I disliked that expression.

"Blackthorn can send twenty warriors under Darius's command," Rowan said at last. "I do not need to ride beside you."

"You are injured."

"I have been injured before."

"And dramatic about it, apparently."

Mara snorted.

Rowan's mouth twitched despite the poison sweat on his brow. "Apparently."

I hated the softness trying to enter the moment.

So I cut it.

"You will return to Silvercrest with Elias and the prisoner," I said. "Darius will send for Blackthorn warriors in hunting code. Riven will ride with me. High Seer Lysandra will explain herself to Mother before I decide whether her carriage survives the road."

Lysandra's brows rose. "Your mother must approve the royal seer?"

"My mother must know who asks her daughter to walk into court traps."

For the first time, the seer smiled.

"A sensible hierarchy."

Rowan tried to stand again.

This time he made it halfway before the poison took his knees.

I moved without deciding to.

My hand caught his shoulder.

Heat shot up my arm through the bond, fierce and familiar. His scent hit me beneath the blood and venom. Cedar. Smoke. Winter rain.

Mate.

The word rose from my wolf like a wound reopening.

Rowan froze under my hand.

So did I.

For one second, the marsh disappeared. There was only the place where my palm touched him and the terrible knowledge that my body remembered wanting safety from the man who had once helped take it from me.

His voice came rough. "Aria."

I let go.

"Do not fall," I said.

It was not forgiveness.

It was not tenderness.

It was not enough to be dangerous if I did not look at it too long.

His eyes said he knew every lie in that sentence.

I turned away.

"Riven, bind the prisoner. Darius, help Mara get Rowan to the carriage."

"I can walk," Rowan said.

Darius caught his arm. "You can be silent. Let us celebrate achievable goals."

The work steadied me.

The living prisoner was a Broken Crown fighter with a shaved head and teeth filed too sharp. He refused to give his name until I held the war band near his mark. Then his body arched, and he spat one word.

"Gareth."

"Who sent you with Cassian?"

He laughed. "The crown beneath the crown."

"Alaric?"

"Alaric is blood. Cassian is door. The blind wolf is throne."

Lysandra went pale.

"Blind wolf?" I asked.

Gareth's grin widened. "Ask your king what eye he closed."

Then black blood poured from his nose.

Mara lunged, but it was too late.

Gareth convulsed once and died in the shallow water.

Darius cursed.

Riven checked the corpse's mouth. "Poison capsule under the tongue."

"No," Mara said quietly. "Not capsule. Command."

The seer closed her eyes.

"Explain," I said.

Lysandra opened them. "Old oath magic. Someone killed him from a distance because he spoke too close to a protected name."

"The blind wolf."

"Perhaps."

The marsh seemed colder.

I looked at the dead fighter, then at the carriage, then at Rowan being held upright by sheer stubbornness and Darius's grip.

Cassian was a door.

Alaric was blood.

The blind wolf was throne.

The Alpha King had sealed an order he did not read.

Careless, Lysandra called him.

But perhaps carelessness was only the polite name for an eye deliberately closed.

We returned to Silvercrest under a sky the color of old steel.

Mother met us at the gate.

She took one look at Elias, one at Rowan, one at the seer, and then at me.

"Inside," she said.

No one argued.

By sunset, Elias was reunited with Mira under guard. Their sobs echoed down the infirmary hall. Rowan lay in a guest room with black venom still spidering under his skin while Mara and our healers fought it. The dead rider's body was secured. Cassian's name was written in three separate reports.

And High Seer Lysandra stood in Mother's sitting room while I told Selene everything.

Mother listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she looked at the royal seer.

"If my daughter goes to court and does not return, I will burn whatever palace remains."

Lysandra bowed. "I believe you."

Mother turned to me. "You are going."

"Yes."

"Because if you do not, they will come here."

"Yes."

"Then you will go with enough truth that lies have to work harder."

That was why she was the only home I still trusted.

I reached for her hand.

Before I could take it, a bell rang from the infirmary.

Once.

Twice.

Then a healer ran into the sitting room, face white.

"Lady Aria. Alpha Rowan is awake."

My chest loosened before I could stop it.

The healer swallowed.

"And he is asking for you because he remembers the altar."

The room tilted.

Not the chapel altar.

I knew it before she said another word.

Rowan remembered my death.