My Fated Mate Was a Lie, Now the Alpha King Wants the Truth novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Without Him

"If I stay in this palace because the lines run when I leave, then I'm a poultice," I said.

Cassian stood at the bedchamber window with his hands in fists.

His rut was on its second day, and his voice was nearly gone.

"Then go," he said.

"You'll hurt."

"I'll hurt. Hester will sit on me." He turned. "Go to the river quarter. Go anywhere. Come back or don't."

"I'm coming back."

"I know that." His mouth moved. "I'd like you to find out that you know it too."

I kissed him once, hard, and went out of the palace alone.

The Wrexham gate stood open when I reached it, which was strange.

The pack was in the yard, sixty people in a half ring around the hearth, and every head turned.

My uncle stood by the fire in his good coat.

Beside him were six men in Registry black, with a covered wagon behind them and a sheet of vellum in the tallest one's hand.

My cousin's wife stood at the back by the door, pink-cheeked now, with her arms folded.

"Idony," said my uncle, too heartily. "Niece. You're just in time."

"For what?"

"These gentlemen have a Council writ for your safe keeping. It's for your own good."

"Is it?"

I walked straight to the tall clerk and held out my hand.

"May I?"

He looked at my uncle.

My uncle looked at the ground.

The clerk gave me the vellum, because it would have looked worse to refuse.

Below the Council's stamp sat three witness seals in a row.

I held the vellum up to the hearth fire, in front of sixty people.

"A Council writ needs three living witnesses," I said. "Tell the yard whose seal is in the middle."

The tall clerk's mouth shut.

"Tell them," I said, "or I will read it out in front of your wives."

"It came from the Registrar's office," he said at last. "From Tull's own chief clerk. We were told not to look at it."

"You were told right," I said. "It wouldn't have survived the looking."

The tall clerk lunged for the paper.

I passed it behind my back to my cousin's wife, who had come up beside me without my seeing, and she tucked it into her bodice and glared.

"Hand it back," said the clerk.

"Come and get it," said my cousin's wife.

A tanner in a leather apron laughed.

The clerks moved then, six of them, quick and quiet, reaching for me.

I did not run.

I picked up the hearth-book from the stone ledge, the huge cracked one, with the ribbon in it, and swung it.

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