Chapter 4 The Council’s Eyes

“Don’t.”

That single word had followed me into sleep and was still sitting in my chest when I woke, and I hated that it had. I hated that a man three days into holding me prisoner could say one syllable and leave it lodged under my ribs like a splinter.

I was still turning it over when the shouting started outside my door.

Not shouting at me. Below, in the corridor beyond the east wing, voices raised loud enough to carry through stone. I crossed to the door and pressed my ear against it, and one voice rose clear above the rest.

“…guard your tongue, Corwin, unless you’d like the council to hear exactly what you’ve been repeating in every corridor in this wing.”

Rhys. I recognized the dry, unhurried edge of it from the hall three days ago.

“I only told you what I saw, Elder.”

“And I’ve told you to keep it to yourself until I’ve spoken with the Alpha directly. There’s a difference between reporting and gossiping, and you’ve crossed well into the second.”

Footsteps retreated. I stepped back from the door before anyone thought to check if I’d been listening, and sat on the edge of the bed with my pulse loud in my own ears.

Reporting. Reporting what, exactly. I already knew. 

Corwin had watched Kieran come out of my room two nights ago looking like a man who’d lost an argument. Now that look had a name attached to it, whispered in hallways, climbing its way toward a council chamber I’d never set foot in.

Mira brought my breakfast an hour later, hands unsteady enough that the tray rattled when she set it down.

“You’ve heard something,” I said.

“I shouldn’t say.”

“You’re already halfway to saying it.”

She glanced at the door, then lowered her voice. 

“There’s a full council session called for this morning. Elder Rhys requested it himself. They’re saying…” She stopped, started again. “They’re saying it’s about you.”

I didn’t eat. I sat with the tray cooling in front of me and thought about the word insurance, about the way Kieran had said it like he was convincing himself as much as the room, and wondered exactly what a council full of old men would decide to do with insurance that had stopped behaving like a prisoner.

I didn’t see him until well past midday, and when I did, it wasn’t in my room.

I’d talked Mira into a second walk… a small negotiation, ten minutes for good behavior, the same trick that had worked before, and I was rounding the corner toward the training yard when I heard him before I saw him. Not shouting. Kieran didn’t seem the type. But his voice had an edge to it that carried anyway, low and clipped, the voice of a man holding something back by force.

“…I haven’t claimed anyone, Rhys.”

“Not yet.” The old elder’s tone stayed even, which somehow made it worse. “But you dismissed a guard to be alone with a girl whose home you burned three days ago, and you came out of that room looking like you’d been handed a question you couldn’t answer. I’ve watched you rule six years. I’ve never seen that look on your face before her.”

I stopped walking. Mira, a step behind me, froze too.

“Lyra Vesk arrives within the week,” Rhys went on. 

“Her father’s made his intentions clear for two years. An alliance with Vesk territory secures our northern border permanently. The council favors it. I favor it.”

“I’m aware of what the council favors.”

“Then you’re aware a hostage girl, dangerous or not, cannot be allowed to complicate an alliance this pack needs.” A pause, and I could picture the old man smoothing his coat, unhurried even now. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m only telling you what happens if this becomes something the council notices before you’ve decided what it is yourself.”

I didn’t hear Kieran answer. I heard footsteps instead, Rhys’s, moving away, and I pulled Mira back around the corner before either of us could be seen listening.

An alliance this pack needs. I turned the words over and didn’t like the shape of them, didn’t like how much they mattered to me when they shouldn’t have mattered at all.

I found out what happened next the way everyone else in Ashguard did… secondhand, and fast.

By the time Corwin’s replacement walked me back to the east wing that evening, a different guard already stood outside my door, new, unfamiliar, gripping my wrist harder than necessary when he thought I’d wandered too close to the washroom without permission.

“You’re hurting my arm,” I said.

“At least you’ll live.”

I didn’t get the chance to answer. Kieran’s voice cracked down the corridor before I’d even seen him coming.

“Let go of her.”

The guard released me so fast I stumbled a step. Kieran closed the distance in four strides, and something moved through his face I hadn’t seen from him yet… not the careful suspicion from the hall, not the restless frustration from two nights ago. Something sharper.

“Who assigned you to this wing?” he asked.

“Corwin, my Alpha, he said..”

“I don’t care what he said.” His voice had dropped quiet, which every guard in that hallway seemed to understand was worse than shouting. “You do not put your hands on her like that again. Report to the training yard. Extra drills. I’ll decide later whether you keep your post.”

The guard fled.

I stood there rubbing the mark already blooming on my wrist, looking at Kieran breathe like he was working to steady himself.

“That’s a violation of pack law,” I said quietly. “Punishing a guard for enforcing a prisoner’s confinement.”

“I’m aware.”

“You could be brought before your own council for it.”

“I’m aware of that too.”

Neither of us moved. By the time I finally stepped back into my room and the door shut behind me, I already knew the guard wasn’t the only one who’d seen it. Two servants had been in the corridor. One of the new elders’ attendants had passed not thirty seconds before.

Word would travel through this pack before the hour was out, and there would be no quiet way to explain why an Alpha who’d never broken a law in six years of rule had just broken one for a girl he claimed was only insurance.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​