The Fake Dating Spell novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Midwinter Court
Lorcan announces Sabine and calls Wynne his clerk; she declares a betrothed of her own, and Warden Tavish Morrow takes her hand and says yes.
Wynne Aldercott stood at the foot of the Queen's dais in the green gown she had sewn herself, waiting to be called.
Lorcan had promised her.
Tonight, at Midwinter Court, in front of every lord in Aurelmere, he would name her his betrothed.
She had spent two years writing the margins of his spells so he could earn this night.
She had not slept in three days finishing the last one.
The silver ring he had given her sat warm on her finger, and she turned it with her thumb.
Lorcan stepped up beside the Queen in his blue Court Mage's robe, smiling.
"My lords and ladies," he said, and his warm voice carried to the back of the hall. "I have news of my heart."
Wynne's own heart gave a hard, happy beat.
"I am to be married."
The hall cheered.
Wynne took one step forward.
"To Lady Sabine Darrow, the Chancellor's daughter."
Wynne stopped.
A woman in a silver gown rose from the front bench and walked up the dais steps.
She took Lorcan's arm.
The Chancellor beamed.
The whole hall clapped, and not one person looked at Wynne.
She stood very still, and the ring on her finger felt too tight.
Then Lorcan's eyes found her, and he smiled at dinners when he wanted her to stay quiet.
He pointed her out.
"And my faithful clerk, Wynne, who has copied out my work so well. She will stay on, of course."
A few people laughed.
Sabine looked down the length of the dais at her, and her smile was small and sharp.
"A clerk," Sabine said. "How loyal. Does she wear the ring all clerks wear?"
She had seen it.
Every head turned to Wynne's hand.
Wynne's face went hot to the roots of her hair.
She knew the next thing she did would follow her for years.
She could curtsey and go home and write his spells until she died.
She could run.
Her mouth opened, and what came out was not either of those.
"I'm not his clerk," she said. "I'm betrothed. To someone else."
The laughter stopped.
Lorcan's smile slipped. "Wynne."
"We've kept it quiet," she said, louder, because her voice had begun to shake.
"He didn't want to take attention from your night."
Sabine tilted her head. "Then who is he?"
Wynne turned and looked at the crowd.
She had no name.
She had no one.
Her eyes crossed faces she knew from dinners where she had stood behind Lorcan's chair.
They landed on the one man in the hall who was not looking at the dais.
He stood against a pillar in a black Warden's coat with snow still melting on his shoulders.
He was tall, broad as a door, with a notched left ear and a hard, tired face.
Tavish Morrow, Warden of the Northern Keep.
She had spoken to him once, when he bought a frost charm from Lorcan's shop and she had wrapped it.
He had not smiled at her then.
He was not smiling now.
"Him," Wynne said, and pointed. "Warden Morrow."
Three hundred people turned to look at him.
Wynne stopped breathing.
The Warden pushed himself off the pillar.
He walked through the crowd, and people leaned out of his way.
He stopped in front of her and looked down.
He was dark-eyed and unreadable, and he looked at her for far too long.
Then he took her hand, the one with the ring, and lifted it, and turned it over.
"You didn't say it would be tonight," he said.
His voice was low and rough and calm.
"I wanted to," Wynne whispered.
"Yes," Tavish said to the hall, without looking away from her. "She's mine."
The Queen's Sight-mage stepped out from behind the dais, a grey woman in a grey robe.
"A betrothal declared at this Court is tested at dawn," she said. "A false oath is paid in exile."
She looked from Wynne to Tavish.
"I will come to your door."
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