Chapter 17: The Moonstone Answers

The harvest festival began at dusk, in the great court, with a thousand torches.

Every pack in the realm stood in rows on the flagstones, and the Council sat on a dais under the old oak.

In the middle of the dais, on a pillar of black marble, rested the Moonstone.

It was the size of a loaf of bread and the colour of milk.

I stood at the foot of the dais with Edith and the nephew and the two elders from Willowmere.

My hands were cold.

Alaric stood beside the pillar in the king's dark coat, with the crown on his head for the first time since the funeral.

He had not told me he would wear it.

That morning I had shown him the courtyard from the window, where Verity had stood with her lantern.

He had looked at the lavender bed for a long time and said only, "She stood in what I planted."

He had not mentioned the bed since.

The eldest of the Council rapped his stick.

"Tonight the Moonstone speaks," he said. "It answers one question only. Who is the king's bonded mate?"

A hush ran across the court.

"Verity Lorne holds the writ of succession. She will lay her hand on the stone first."

She came up the steps in a gown the colour of a pearl, with her hair pinned high.

I smelled lavender from forty feet away.

She smiled at the crowd and then at Alaric, and she set her hand on the Moonstone.

Nothing happened.

She waited, with her smile fixed.

The stone sat there, cold and white.

"It takes a moment," she said.

Nobody answered.

The torches hissed.

A long time went by.

Someone near the back coughed, and a murmur began.

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