My Fated Mate Was a Lie, Now the Alpha King Wants the Truth novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Hollin Cairn

I did not wait to be announced.

I went through the palace with my skirts in my fists and two guards running behind me, and I kicked open his study door.

Cassian was at his desk, alone.

He looked up and saw my face, and he stood.

"Tull named Hollin in my ear," I said. "Your guard went grey when I said it. What are you letting the cairns do there?"

He took a long breath.

"Shut the door," he said.

I shut it.

He came around the desk and didn't touch me.

"There are eleven ward-cairns along the northern march," he said. "Stones older than the kingdom."

"And?"

"They hold back the Hollow. Storms that come off the Sunder and kill whole villages in a night."

He looked at the window.

"Without them, the north would be empty by spring."

"They don't run on the Moon's gift. They run on bonds."

I stared at him.

"Every year the Registry sends the Crown a writ," he said. "Reallocation of bond strength to the wards, signed by the sovereign."

His mouth twisted.

"I signed five of them. My father signed thirty."

"What did the writs say?"

"That the bonds were willing."

"And you believed it?"

"I didn't read the ledgers."

The words dropped into the room.

"I was twenty-eight," he said. "My father had just died."

He shut his eyes.

"Tull put the paper in front of me and said the north would freeze without it, and I signed."

"You signed," I said.

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