The Court

Three days after their arrival Elara was received at the palace.

Aldric wore her colors. A dark green surcoat over his armor with the heron of Greyhollow on the chest. She had given it to him the night before and she had watched him put it on and she had adjusted the collar so that it covered the scar on his neck.

"You are mine," she had said. "And now everyone will know it. Not who I am. Not what we are. But that you belong to someone. That is enough."

The palace was worse than the city. Every surface was polished. Every face was composed. Every voice was modulated. The court moved like a machine made of silk and steel and Aldric walked through it with his hand on his sword and his eyes straight ahead and he felt the eyes on him. Assessing. Measuring. Dismissing.

He was nobody. A knight in a minor house's colors. There were a hundred of him in the palace. Men with swords and surcoats who stood at doors and in corners and waited. The court did not see him because the court did not see servants.

Elara walked ahead of him. She wore a dress of deep blue that Lady Thorne had provided. It was richer than anything she had worn in Greyhollow. It fit her differently. She moved differently in it. Her stride was longer. Her posture was more open. Her face carried an expression he had never seen. A softness. A brightness. She looked like a woman who was happy to be here. She looked like a woman who was delighted by the grandeur and the ceremony and the honor of being received by her beloved brother.

It was a mask. He knew it was a mask. But the mask was so good that for a moment he doubted himself. For a moment he wondered if the woman in the hall had been the mask and this woman in the blue dress was the real thing.

Then she passed a mirror in the hall and her eyes caught her own reflection and in that instant before the mask reset he saw it. The flash of something dark and cold and real. The woman who had cut him. The woman who had tasted his blood. She was still there. Underneath the blue dress and the soft expression she was there and she was watching everything.

The throne room was enormous. Pillars of white stone lined the sides and the ceiling was painted with scenes of battle and triumph. Banners hung from the walls. Courtiers stood in clusters and talked in low voices and turned to watch as Elara entered.

King Aldous the Fourth sat on the throne.

Aldric had expected a monster. He had expected cruelty in the face. Something that matched what Elara had described. What he saw was a man in his early thirties with a handsome face and warm brown eyes and a smile that looked genuine. He was tall and lean and he wore his crown like it weighed nothing. He looked like a king from a story. He looked kind.

That was the most frightening thing Aldric had ever seen.

Elara walked the length of the throne room. Aldric followed three paces behind. The court parted for her and watched. She reached the base of the throne and she knelt.

"Sister," Aldous said. His voice was warm. Carrying. The voice of a man who has practiced sounding sincere. "Welcome home."

He descended from the throne and took her hands and raised her to her feet. He embraced her. She let him. She put her arms around him and closed her eyes and when she pulled back her face was wet.

Tears. Real tears. Or tears so good they did not need to be real.

"I have missed you brother," she said.

"And I you. The court rejoices at your return. You have been gone too long."

"I have been ill. I am better now."

"Good. We will have a feast tonight to celebrate. The whole court will attend."

He smiled at her and she smiled at him and the court applauded and the theater was perfect. Every word. Every gesture. Every tear. It was a performance worthy of a king and a princess who had grown up in this room learning how to lie.

Aldric stood at the edge of the room and watched and his hand ached from gripping his sword and he did not know which one of them he wanted to kill.

The feast was that evening. Aldric was stationed at the back of the hall. Elara sat near the king at the high table. She wore a different dress. Gold and white. Her hair was up and she wore jewelry that the Thornes had provided and she looked like a princess. She looked like she had never been anywhere else.

Aldous played the devoted brother. He leaned close to her and spoke and laughed and filled her cup and introduced her to the court. He was charming and warm and generous and every time he touched her hand or kissed her cheek Aldric felt the air in the room change. Not because of the gesture. Because of what was underneath it.

He watched Aldous's eyes. When Aldous smiled at Elara his eyes did not smile. They tracked. They measured. They watched her the way a cat watches a bird that has landed in the garden. Not hungry yet. Not ready to pounce. Just aware. Just waiting.

Elara knew. Aldric could see that she knew. She played her part and she smiled and she laughed and she let her brother touch her and she knew what he was and she did not flinch.

During the feast a man approached the high table. He was tall and lean with dark hair and a face that was too sharp to be handsome. He wore the colors of the royal household. Gold and white. He bowed to Elara and she turned to him and her face changed. Not the mask. Something underneath the mask. A recognition. A history.

"Lord Renard," she said. "How kind of you to greet me."

"Your Highness." He bowed lower. "The capital has been diminished by your absence."

"Flattery does not suit you Renard. It never did."

He smiled. A real smile. The kind that said they had known each other long enough to skip the pretense. "Then let me try honesty. You look well. Better than the last time I saw you."

"The last time you saw me I was climbing out a window."

The courtiers near them laughed. Aldric did not laugh. He watched.

Lord Renard. The name meant nothing to him. But the way Elara looked at the man meant something. The way she held herself when she spoke to him. Slightly more open. Slightly more relaxed. As though this was a person she did not need to be afraid of. Or a person she had been afraid of and had stopped being afraid of and the stopping had cost her something.

Renard stayed near her for the rest of the feast. He was attentive without being obvious. He spoke to her and made her laugh and once he touched her arm and she did not pull away. Aldric watched the touch and the not pulling away and he felt the thing in his chest that he had felt with Harren. The twist. The heat. The thing that said mine.

It was worse here. In Greyhollow it had been a stranger touching her. A crude man with crude hands. This was different. This was a man she knew. A man she had history with. A man who could make her laugh with a real laugh. The sound of it carried across the hall and it reached Aldric at his post and it cut deeper than the knife had.

When the feast ended Aldric escorted Elara back to the Thorne townhouse. They walked in silence through the dark streets. The city was quieter at night but not quiet. There were still people. Still eyes. He kept his hand on his sword and walked half a step behind her and said nothing.

When they reached the townhouse she went upstairs and he followed and she stopped at her door and turned to him.

"You watched," she said.

"I watched."

"Lord Renard."

"Yes."

"What did you see."

He said nothing for a moment. She waited. She was not going to let him avoid it.

"I saw a man who knows you. A man you are comfortable with. A man who touches you without permission and is not refused."

"Permission." She tilted her head. "I do not need permission to let someone touch me Ser Aldric. I am the one who gives permission. Not you."

"I know that."

"Do you. Because the look on your face at the feast said something different. It said that you believed you had a claim. That the scars on your body entitle you to something. They do not. They entitle you to nothing except the knowledge that I marked you. That is not a claim. That is a fact."

"I understand my lady."

"Make sure you do. Lord Renard is a tool. He is useful to me. He has access to information I need and he has influence with the court and he is fond of me in ways that make him easy to manage. I will use him the way I use everything. And you will watch. And you will say nothing. And you will carry it. Is that clear."

"It is clear."

She opened her door. Paused. Did not turn around.

"He was my lover. Before I left the capital. Three years ago. He was the last man I was with before Greyhollow. Before you."

She closed the door.

Aldric stood in the hallway. The candle on the wall flickered. The house was quiet. He could hear the Thornes moving somewhere below. He could hear the city outside.

He was the last man I was with before Greyhollow. Before you.

Before you. She had said before you. As though he was in the same category. As though what happened between them in the hall put him on the same list as a lord who touched her arm and made her laugh.

He knew that was not what she meant. She meant it as context. She meant it as a weapon. She had told him about Renard to put the knife in a new place. Not in his chest this time. In the space between his ribs where the jealousy lived. The space she had opened with Harren and was now widening with a name and a history and the knowledge that this man had had her in ways Aldric never would.

He went to his room. He locked the door. He sat on the bed and pressed his fingers to the scar on his neck and the scars on his chest and he felt them there. Her marks. Her claim. The only proof that what happened in the hall was real.

But the marks did not stop the image. Renard's hand on her arm. Her laugh. The ease between them. The history. The years. The things Aldric did not have and could never have because she would not let him and she was right not to let him because letting him would be a thread and threads get pulled and pulling kills.

He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and the image stayed. It did not fade. It grew. It filled the room. Renard touching her. Renard knowing her. Renard being the one who made her laugh.

Aldric pressed the scars harder. Until the pain came. Until the pain pushed the image back far enough to breathe.

He held that position. Pain and breathing. Breathing and pain. The two things that were real. The two things she had given him.

He held them until morning.