Hanne shoved a pile of clothes—his clothes—into his arms. “Why don’t you sleep in your own bed, darling? It will be more restful.”
He was still in Hanne’s bed, he realized. “Sorry. Yes. I’ll go.” He hugged his clothes to his chest as they walked into the parlor.
“Good. I’ll be visiting Nadine until late, so don’t wait up for me.” Then she kissed him and whispered by his ear, “Unless you want to.”
Then she swept from the room, leaving Rune to stare after her as the door swung shut.
Confused and guilty and more than a little tired of being ordered about by everyone, Rune sat on the edge of the ugly fountain and sighed. If this was marriage, he much preferred unrequited longing.
30.
HANNE
Nadine poured a cup of black tea and offered it to Hanne. “So the council had no real information concerning the Small Mountain attack?”
“Nothing. All the talk was conjecture. It was one worthless meeting after another.” Hanne accepted the cup and sipped. The tea was hot and burned the roof of her mouth, but she hardly felt it. She’d been through so much worse.
“Nothing from my sources either.” Lady Sabine dropped her knitting bag to the floor beside her chair, taking the tea Nadine offered. “I dislike waiting for information. There are proper channels in Embria. But everything in Caberwill is so far from everything else, and these awful mountains make travel so difficult. And the height! I can barely keep my breath here.”
“I’m told we will all acclimate to Brink’s elevation.” Nadine sat with her own tea, gazing out the window for a moment. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Small Mountain is such a tragedy, Caberwillines or not. Can you imagine?”
Hanne could imagine.
Something suspiciously similar to guilt needled, but she pushed it down where it couldn’t bother her anymore—just like her mother had taught her.
She didn’t want to talk about Small Mountain. Those farms. Those people. They’d been attacked because she’d given Ivasland the key to the containment material, but it wasn’t as though she’d had a choice. Anyway, Mae and the other malicists would have perfected the device eventually. It would have been nice if the riot she’d accidentally started had delayed them—but she supposed rulers who wanted to destroy the world wouldn’t be stopped by one small act of rebellion.
“I’m sure we’ll know more in the morning.” Lady Sabine sipped her tea. “But it is safe to assume that the town is lost. Otherwise, the Nightrender would have returned to report good tidings to the prince.”
“Their relationship is strange.” Nadine frowned. “Why does she like him so much?”
“Because he’s very obedient.” Hanne sighed. And since he was, perhaps she needed to talk with him about the way he carried on with that thing.
The summoning, his bravery at the malsite—all for Hanne, everyone said. But could she really be sure? Even when Rune had rushed to see Hanne upon her return, the Nightrender had been there. They’d clearly come together.
Rune was Hanne’s husband now. If anyone was going to pull Rune’s strings, it should be her.
“You know, you’re right,” Hanne said. “Their relationship is strange. I’m going to have to do something about it. But that’s for another time.”
“Indeed,” Lady Sabine said. “We have more pressing problems right now. King Opus is considering sending his army into the Malice.”
Hanne looked sharply at the old woman. She had been Hanne’s parents’ spymistress before their current spymaster had replaced her, and now she was Hanne’s. “Explain.”
Sabine blew steam off her cup. “Caberwill may be large, Your Highness, but nothing in Honor’s Keep escapes me. Nothing. In the last hour, two of the grand general’s runners have been seen with maps of the Soul Gate and the Malice itself. Opus has also been in midnight meetings with his closest advisers, and someone was sent to take inventory of the obsidian-tipped weapons in the armory.”
“But there is no Incursion,” Nadine protested. “Beyond a single rancor, that is, and it is dead.”
“When did this enter the king’s mind?” Hanne asked.
“Opus and Rune had a meeting directly after the wedding,” Sabine continued. “And they have another scheduled for the morning.”
So this was Rune’s fault. Of course it was.
“I won’t allow it. We must make our move against Ivasland,” Hanne murmured. “Before any more machines are deployed.”
“The unrest Abagail and Baldric are enjoying is very fortunate for us,” Sabine said. “I plan to keep a careful watch over the five-pointed stars—as much as possible.”
“Good.” Hanne drained her tea and handed the cup to Nadine, who placed it on the table. “I will speak with the king.”
“Now?”
Hanne stood. “Now. He must know that he cannot send the Embrian army into the Malice without my approval.” It was actually her parents’ approval that such a change would require, but they would never even hear the request unless Hanne made it. And she would not, because she intended to burn Ivasland to the ground.
Nadine stood, too. “Should I come with you? Or Lady Sabine?”
“No, I’ll go alone. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Someone should.”
Neither of them named all the people who neglected to worry about the crown princess of Embria. The list would have been too long. Better would have been to list the people who did:
1. Nadine
Oh, certainly Hanne’s parents wanted her alive and cared for, but in the way they liked their crowns polished and their hunting hounds fed: she was another useful possession and they expected only peak performance from her. No emotion. No vulnerability. No weakness. They’d seared away the parts of Hanne they didn’t like, shaping her into a weapon even they wouldn’t be able to control much longer.
Hanne would be queen of everything.
After a quick, reassuring smile for Nadine, she turned to Lady Sabine, who—to be completely fair—also cared for and worried about Hanne, but in a more means-to-an-end kind of way, rather than true, loving devotion. Hanne said, “Keep me apprised of the situation in Ivasland. And find out what you can regarding the Nightrender. Why can’t she remember the Red Dawn? How close are she and Rune? I want to know everything about her.”
“As you wish,” Lady Sabine said.
Nadine pulled open a drawer and produced a bundle of cloth. “Now, I hope you won’t need it, but since they seized your dagger yesterday, I took the liberty of getting it back.”