Chapter 6: A Guest on This Rock

Linnet's POV

I woke before dawn with a hand pressed flat to my breastbone.

It had been happening for a week.

It was an ache, low and dull, and it pointed east like a compass needle.

I told myself it was the sea air.

Biscuit lay on my feet and looked at me with one eye open.

"Don't," I said.

He closed the eye, disapproving.

At noon the ferry captain's nephew came pounding up the hill with his boots unlaced.

"There's a royal cutter coming into the harbour," he said. "Black sails. The pennant's the king's."

I put down my tea.

"How many guards?"

"Two. And one man on deck gripping the rail with both hands."

Edith had gone very still by the stove.

"Do you want me to say you're out?" she asked.

"I'm the Alpha," I said. "I don't hide in my own house."

By the time I reached the quay, half the island was already there.

Nobody had organised it.

They had simply come, with nets over their shoulders and flour on their hands.

They stood in a loose half-circle on the stones.

The cutter bumped the pier.

A guard threw a line.

The nephew caught it and took his time tying it off.

Alaric came down the gangway slowly.

He had lost weight in two weeks, and the skin under his eyes was grey.

He had not brought the crown, or the cloak, or the ring.

He stopped on the quay and looked at me.

"Linnet," he said.

"Majesty."

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