Chapter 9: The Rumor

"Every Watch officer gets one when he takes his commission," Kieran said.

He still hadn't turned around.

"It's a seal. It means nothing."

I waited for him to say more.

He didn't, and I let it go.

He put the ring in a drawer and turned the key, and then he came to the bed and kissed my shoulder.

That was how I made the worst mistake of my week.

I believed him.

By breakfast the whole barracks knew.

I walked into the mess hall with Moth on my arm, and every voice stopped.

A hundred people looked at me.

Then the whispering started, quick and hot, passing from bench to bench.

Bran came up beside me with two bowls of porridge and a grim face.

"Don't sit down," he said. "Walk out of here with your head up."

"What's happened?"

"Cassian's been at it since dawn."

Cassian stood on a table at the far end of the hall.

He was pale, and his hair was still damp, and his eyes were red-rimmed from not sleeping.

His father stood behind him in the doorway with one hand on his shoulder.

"I have something to say," Cassian called. "I owe the Trials honesty."

The room went quiet.

"My father offered this girl the Thornwick name at his own table. Every one of you wondered why."

"He is a man who gives nothing away."

He drew a breath.

"The reason is that she already has it."

I felt Bran's hand close on my sleeve.

"Anwen Ashdown is my father's bastard," Cassian said. "He kept her in a stable, and now she has come to claim her place."

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