“Are you ready?” she murmured.
When he offered his arm, she placed her obsidian-jeweled hand there, and as one, they turned to face the crowd of both Caberwillines and Embrians.
Everyone stood, applauding so loudly the temple threatened to shake apart. Even the guards broke protocol to cheer. An alliance. Between two kingdoms. It was the first of its kind—and with no time to spare, as the messengers’ arrival and the Nightrender’s dramatic exit were fresh in everyone’s memory.
This was where the breaking of the Winterfast Accords had led them.
Even with the thunder of approval rolling through the temple, even with the clever and fierce and beautiful wife at his side, that unsatisfied sadness rose up in Rune again. He wished he could follow the Nightrender—help somehow, like before—but this was not the time. Not only was the Nightrender the only one who could save Small Mountain, but Rune had just gotten married. It would never be the time again.
And there was no point in wishing things could be different.
* * *
Less than an hour later, Rune joined his parents in their office. He’d promised the Nightrender he would ask them for the army, once the wedding was finished, and he meant to keep that promise.
“Speak, but be quick.” Opus sat at his desk, and Grace sat at hers. The office was a fine room of dark-lacquered walls, narrow lancet windows, and waiting heaps of papers and reports.
Rune sat in a chair between the two desks, feeling small in spite of the fact that he was a married man now, his future slightly more secure than it had been an hour ago. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now—”
Opus sighed.
Perhaps he should have come up with a better opening than saying he knew they didn’t want to hear what he had to say. That was a terrible way to get people to agree with him.
“We will talk about this until you do something about it.” Rune made his voice hard. “The Incursion won’t wait.”
“What do you propose?” Grace asked. “Our options are limited, especially after this attack on Small Mountain. I know we said we’d discuss Dawnbreaker trials, but we simply can’t spare the soldiers. Ivasland has already moved. Now everyone else will know they’ve broken the Winterfast Accords. We must respond.”
Rune swallowed hard. “Are we certain that it was Ivasland? It’s well before schedule.” The autumn equinox—the suspected date for everything to be completed—was still over a month away.
“It must be them,” agreed Opus. “If, indeed, a machine is the source of the calamity in Small Mountain, I intend to learn the truth of that. Sometimes the common people are confused or exaggerate or—Well, you’ve heard the sorts of things that they say. They cannot always be trusted.”
“Fortunately,” said Grace, “the Crown Council is assembling to address this crisis. And then, of course, we’ll have another meeting that will include the Embrian dignitaries.”
“This is the wedding day I always dreamed of,” Rune muttered. “Meeting after meeting.”
“Your sarcasm is inappropriate,” Opus said. “However, if Abagail and Baldric are responsible for this attack, then the alliance is even more important, and the conflict even more urgent. If we find that Ivasland is responsible for the destruction of an innocent Caberwilline farming town—particularly Brink’s breadbasket—then we will march on Athelney with the might of two armies. We will lay waste to their cities and universities.”
This was the worst time to say it, but he’d promised the Nightrender. “Instead of going to war against Ivasland, you should send both armies into the Malice to stop the Incursion.”
Silence.
His parents stared at him as though they were waiting for him to reveal he was being sarcastic yet again, even more inappropriately.
Rune plowed forward. “The situation is worse than you know. The Nightrender killed the rancor that Lady Nadine and Princess Johanne encountered, but there are almost certainly more.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asked.
“I mean the Nightrender didn’t return to Honor’s Keep because she missed me.” Rune rose from his seat and opened an expansive, relieffronted cupboard. The sack the Nightrender had brought last night was here, where he’d asked John to put it this morning. As he carried it to his father’s desk, a sharp, ozone stink washed over the room. “She came to bring me this.”
“Dare I ask what’s in here? More melted rancor parts?” Opus wrinkled his nose as he pulled the tie. The bowl and satchels spilled out, and the king lifted his eyes to Rune’s. “What is this?”
“Items one would need to summon a rancor.” Rune took his seat again. “I don’t know where she found this—she refused to say—but it is more than possible that there is at least a second rancor out there.”
“A second.” Grace glanced at Opus. “This is not proof of a second rancor, only that someone attempted to summon one—or give the appearance of summoning one. Regardless, we have no reason to believe this wasn’t the one killed days ago—in which case, the threat has been dealt with.”
That was possible, Rune supposed.
Opus pressed his palms to his desk and pushed himself up, looming over the sack. “This is a desperate attempt to change our minds. But we have not chosen the situation we find ourselves in, and neither can we alter it. Ivasland is the threat we must address.”
Rune stood, too, his back straight and hands at his sides. “I know Ivasland is breaching the Winterfast Accords, but I can assure you that this danger is just as real. She’s warned me repeatedly that the Malstop is failing, and we now have a rancor and rancor-summoner. If we don’t give the Nightrender our armies right this instant, thousands of people could die.”
“They are dying right now,” Opus declared. “In Small Mountain.”
Rune flinched from the sting of those words. “They are, but the threat of an Incursion is even more serious than you fully understand.”
“What do you mean?” Grace frowned.
Rune’s heart pounded. He didn’t want to say it, because it wasn’t his secret, but he’d already said things he shouldn’t, and if it would persuade his parents…“You already know that the Nightrender has lost some of her memories.”
“Yes,” Grace said. “She does not remember the Red Dawn.”
He just hoped the Nightrender would forgive him for telling his parents her secret. “What I didn’t tell you before is that she is still losing memories. We cannot afford to wait.”
His parents looked at each other, some unspoken communication passing between them. In the back of his mind, Rune wondered if he’d ever develop that connection with Princess Johanne. Even if they never grew to love each other—as his parents had—he hoped they might at least understand each other.