Finding Her Magical King novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Borrowed Crown

Anselm's POV

I woke at dawn warm, for the first time in eight years.

I lay still so as not to lose it.

Sorrel was already up.

She stood at the window in my shirt, with her arms crossed and her braid undone.

"He put it on his own head," she said, without turning. "Ivor says forty lords watched him do it."

"I heard."

"Anselm, why can he?"

I thought about it, and the answer came up from a lesson I had half slept through at nine.

"Because the crown makes the man," I said.

"Whoever sets it on his own head is the king, by the oldest law we have."

She turned around slowly.

"My mother's letter says she cursed the king," she said. "Not the Beauclerks. The king."

"Then..."

"Then he's under the curse," said Sorrel.

"He's the first man in two hundred years to wear that thing who isn't a Beauclerk."

We stood and looked at each other.

"I have been trying to find a way to hate him with a purpose," she said.

"You may have found one."

"And if I'm wrong?"

"Then we run," I said, "with the wolves and the cat."

She smiled, a small tight one, and came to the bed and kissed me.

We dressed in silence.

Ivor, nine wolves and five lords were waiting at the bottom of the stair.

The Great Hall was full.

Nobody wanted to be there, and nobody had dared stay away.

Thrale sat on the throne in a black coat, with the crown of Hallowmere on his silver head.

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