The Luna Queen's Rebirth novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Terms

She offers Rhydian Carrow an army-for-an-army marriage with equal rule, proves her worth with secrets only Leoric's circle knows, and he signs, to wed at dawn.

Two sentries stopped me at the edge of the camp, and both of them drew steel.

"Name," said the first.

"Seraphine Greywater."

They looked at each other, and I watched the name travel through them.

"The one who rejected the King," said the second, slowly. "That was an hour ago."

"It was loud." He lowered his blade an inch. "What do you want?"

"A word with your Alpha. I'll leave my knife with you."

I unbuckled the silver knife from my hip and held it out by the blade.

That decided it. They walked me through the fires with a spear at each shoulder.

Rhydian Carrow's tent was a plain canvas thing, no banner, no guards, and a lamp burning inside.

The man at the table did not look up when I came in.

He was writing a letter, and he finished the line before he spoke.

"You've caused my Beta to lose a bet," he said. "He swore the Luna-elect would be sobbing in her father's carriage by now."

"I never sob in carriages."

"So I see."

Now he raised his head.

He was a lean man of thirty-odd, with short tawny hair and a wind-browned face.

His eyes were the colour of strong tea held up to a lamp.

A long burn scar ran down his left forearm from wrist to elbow, and he wore a plain iron ring and nothing else.

His wolf looked out of his eyes at me for one second, and I felt it.

Something in me went very quiet.

I put it away.

"Sit," he said. "Eirik, stop hiding."

A mountain in a leather jerkin stepped out from the tent shadows.

He had a dark beard braided in two and a nose that had been broken at least twice.

His grin did not seem to fit on a soldier.

"I was not hiding," he said. "I was admiring her entrance."

"Seraphine Greywater," I said. "I came to offer your king a marriage."

Eirik's grin vanished.

Rhydian set down his pen.

"Go on."

"The Rite is broken, and by dawn the elders will try to cage me until I take it back."

I kept my voice level.

"Under Moon Court law, a woman already married to another Alpha cannot be bound to Leoric."

"You want a husband for a night."

"I want a husband for the rest of the war."

"What war?"

"The one Leoric starts when he finds his nerve."

I sat down across from him.

"You have an army and he has the richest land in the realm. I have everything he thinks I'm too proud to use."

"Which is what?"

"His secrets."

Rhydian leaned back, folded his arms and waited.

"Cold Ford," I said. "Eleven barns there have false roofs and winter grain to the beams."

I let it sink in.

"He is holding it back to starve the river towns when your border talks fail."

Eirik swore softly.

"His steward meets a rogue from the Ashen pack in the Hare and Lantern at midnight tomorrow."

I folded my hands.

"Leoric is paying them to burn your northern villages and call it bandits."

"I've heard no such thing," said Rhydian.

"Send a man to the Hare and Lantern, in the corner by the well."

"And?"

"The rogue wears a copper ring on his left thumb."

The silence stretched.

"If this is a trap," Eirik said, "it's the cleverest one I've seen."

"It isn't."

"How do you know these things?" Rhydian asked.

"I was going to be his Luna." I met his eyes. "People told me everything."

It was half a lie, and I held his gaze through it.

He studied me a long time, and I let him.

He would find nothing. The one true thing about me had no words he would believe.

"What do you want in return?" he said at last.

"Equal rule. A voice in your council, a vote on war and peace, and my name on every treaty as yours. In writing."

"Many women would settle for a throne."

"I want a say in who sits near it."

Something almost moved at the corner of his mouth.

"And what do I get, besides Leoric's secrets and his bad temper?"

"The Moonstone Pass, when he falls. Aldermere's river tolls. And a wife who will never ask you for love."

His eyes flicked up at that.

He did not argue. I was grateful, and a little disappointed, and I did not look at why.

"Eirik," he said. "Ink."

We wrote it out by lamplight, the three of us, with the wind pulling at the canvas.

He wrote the first terms, and I corrected two of them. Eirik made rude noises about the grammar.

Equal vote on war and peace. Equal seal on every treaty. My own seat at the table and my own guard.

Rhydian wrote one clause I had not asked for.

"If either of us wants out," it said, "we say so to the other's face. Never to a court, never to a crowd."

I read it twice.

"That's fair," I said.

"It's the only thing in the document I care about." He signed with a hard slash and passed me the pen.

The ink had barely dried on my name when he stood.

"The Moon Court priestess is camped at the river stone, a mile east," he said. "She witnesses vows at dawn without a banns."

"Dawn," I said.

"The elders will ride at first light to cage you." He picked up his coat. "I'd rather be your husband before they do."

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