When Valerian steadied the mantle at her shoulder, Elena drew away.
His hand fell to his side.
“Then let them draw,” she said, her voice raw from the mineral steam.
Elena dragged herself upright against the wall.
Her knees trembled so badly that she had to spread her feet before letting go.
At Silvercrest, a stumble in front of the elders had earned Tyler another excuse to put her down.
She waited until the stone stopped seeming to move.
“You cannot hold a blade tonight,” Valerian said.
“Then I have until tomorrow to make my hand steady.”
He straightened beside her on the flagstones, blocking the torchlight.
Water ran from the seams of his chest plate.
“The council wants to see whether the southern stray bleeds like common meat.”
“They have already seen me bleed.”
She lifted a shaking hand toward the residue on her chin, then lowered it.
Valerian had spoken for her in the courtyard.
The elders who had watched her rejection had stood just as close and said nothing.
“Tomorrow’s banquet begins with the dusk horns,” he said.
“I postponed your formal hearing until the council calls it. After the Moonwell, they cannot hear the same charge they prepared today. My guards stay with you until it is heard.”
He held out another mantle, black wool lined with wolf hide and fastened by twin iron fang pins.
Elena looked at the pins and shook her head.
“I will not wear your crest,” she said.
“It tells the hall you belong to the throne.”
“I belong to myself.”
She refused to be claimed as another man’s trophy.
Valerian watched her, the silver rings in his irises hard and cold.
“A wolf without a crest is open prey to thirty warlords.”
“Then let them come hungry.”
At the stairwell her knees failed.
Elena caught the rail and waited until they held.
She climbed one step at a time, with Valerian close enough to catch her and neither hand on her arm.
She spent the night beneath blankets, waking when the southern ache tightened.
When the healer brought broth, Elena asked for the apothecary testing kit.
“They will offer wine,” she said.
In the morning she rubbed a narrow bone sliver with the white testing wash used in Silvercrest’s dispensary.
The healer watched her try it in clean wine, where it stayed pale, then in the bitter root sample from the kit, where the point blackened violet.
Elena wrapped a fresh prepared sliver in dry wool.
Through the day she ate, slept in broken stretches and tested her legs between bed and door.
By the dusk horns she could cross without the wall.
Elena stood beside the high archway of the great hall, dressed in a plain grey gown of rough-spun wool.
The prepared bone sliver lay wrapped inside her belt.
She felt the heavy gaze of the spearmen standing at the iron-banded doors.
Her marrow still throbbed from the pool, and her ribs ached where her wolf had torn through her skin.
Valerian stepped up beside her, smelling of cold iron and cedar smoke.
He wore a dark leather tunic banded with heavy plates.
“They will test you before the first platter is cleared,” he said.
“I know.”
He pushed through the timber doors, and Elena stepped onto the raised gallery directly at his shoulder.
Cups struck wood as servants pushed between benches with roast meat and steaming trenchers; sparks rose from the hearths into the rafters.
Elena felt the heat through her gown before she reached the stairs.
Valerian took the first step down.
The cup nearest the dais stopped halfway to a man’s mouth.
Silence spread from table to table until only the hearths and a servant’s hurried feet remained audible.
Elena kept pace at his shoulder.
Men looked from her bare neck to the cheap wool of her skirt.
The stair edge pressed through her boot sole; she used that small, certain pressure to keep her steps even.
Valerian walked down to the center of the dais with slow, heavy strides.
He stopped beside two high chairs raised above the court.
One was a wide seat carved from black stone and banded with studded iron.
Beside it rose a pale throne sculpted from solid white stone.
It had stood untouched for three centuries, waiting for the bloodline that could break armies.
Valerian gestured toward the pale seat.
“Take your place, Elena.”
Cassian began to rise from his bench, one hand on his sword.
The murmur below the dais spread.
Valerian had offered her a seat from which she would be expected to break armies; she had not yet managed a single stride in her wolf’s body.
Taking it would give Cassian his question before she had an answer: what could the north demand of her in return?
Elena passed the white throne and walked to the scribes and scouts at the far end of the high table.
She pulled out a wooden bench.
Its legs scraped over the stone, loud enough to turn the nearest heads.
She sat and smoothed her skirt over her knees.
Cassian was still watching.
She met his gaze, leaving the pale seat empty between herself and the king.
Valerian’s hand remained extended for a moment.
Elena waited for him to call her back; beneath the table, her fingers tightened around the edge of the bench.
He lowered his hand and took the black chair.
Only then did she ease her grip.
“The southern stray has some sense,” Cassian barked, his rough voice carrying across the silent hall.
“The throne of white stone was not cut for exiles.”
“She is my guest,” Valerian said, his tone dropping the heat from the dais in a single breath.
“Speak another word against my guest, Cassian, and I will hang your tongue from the main gate.”
Cassian grunted in anger, but he sank back onto his bench.
Servants hurried between the long tables, carrying heavy silver pitchers of hot, spiced wine to accompany the roast.
From the center table of the minor valley clans, a woman rose to her feet.
She wore a crimson wool gown and a thick iron torque set with dark stones.
Elena remembered the name Kenneth had muttered earlier: Lady Theresa of House Black-Briar.
Theresa lifted a silver goblet from a servant’s tray and walked toward the high table.
“A toast from the southern border clans,” Theresa said, stopping three paces from Elena’s bench.
“The road through the mountain pass is harsh. Our northern winters are cruel to southern girls. Drink, child, and let northern spice warm your blood.”
Elena looked into the steaming wine.
Clove and burnt cinnamon rose from it, but beneath them lay the bitter-root scent that had once coated her mouth while she scrubbed Silvercrest’s stone mortars.
Wolfsbane dust burned even when she had not swallowed it.
“You honor me, Lady Theresa.”
“It is our custom.” Theresa extended the goblet.
“Drink to the King’s peace.”
Elena brought her hand toward the cup and stopped short of its rim.
Drinking would leave Elena unable to answer anything.
She unwrapped the bone sliver.
Its testing coat was still white.
Before Theresa could withdraw the goblet, Elena dipped its point beneath the wine.
“What are you doing, girl?”
Elena counted two breaths, then lifted the sliver into the torchlight.
Its white surface had blackened; violet stains spread from the submerged point.
The nearest lord leaned back from the table.
A hiss passed along the benches.
“Wolfsbane,” Elena said.
“Concentrated mountain root, crushed fine beneath the clove. One sip paralyzes the lungs. That cup would stop an Alpha’s heart in twenty heartbeats.”
She held the stained testing coat beside the wine, where Theresa and the hall could see both.
Theresa backed away, her face turning pale.
“She lies! She brought southern venom into this keep! She tainted the cup herself!”
Valerian moved before the sentence finished.
He vaulted the high table in a single blur of iron and muscle.
His heavy hand clamped around Theresa’s throat, slamming her down against the table with enough violence to split the wood.
His claws tore through her crimson collar, drawing dark beads of blood.
“Who gave you the root, Theresa?” Valerian demanded.
“My King,” Cassian shouted, his bench scraping back as he stood.
“You cannot execute a clan head without council trial!”
Valerian pressed his claws deeper into Theresa’s windpipe until her heels drummed against the boards.
“Name the hand, or I rip your throat out before your clan.”
Theresa choked, clawing at his iron gauntlet with bloody fingers.
“The ravens!” she screamed, terror breaking her voice.
“The birds came three days ago from Camilla Moore! She promised my house the southern trade routes if the stray died before the new moon!”
The hall went dead still.
Elena watched the lords exchange glances.
Theresa had named Camilla before the whole hall.
Somewhere in her rooms there might be a letter, a payment, something Valerian’s claws could not tear out of her.
“Take her to the execution block in the outer court,” Valerian commanded, his voice shaking the stone walls.
“Hang the Black-Briar banners from the gallows.”
Guards seized Theresa’s arms and dragged her screaming toward the doors.
Elena caught the goblet before a retreating servant knocked it over.
“Her rooms,” she said to Valerian.
“Keep the letters. The books too.”
“Vane,” he called.
“Seal her study. Bring everything she used to buy that cup.”
He wiped his claws on linen and looked at Elena’s hand.
“You smelled it before it touched your fingers.”
“I know dried root.” She wrapped the stained blade in a clean corner of the tablecloth and set it beside the goblet.
“Those stay together. Have your guard take them.”
He gestured to a spearman, who lifted both while Elena watched.
Elena stood.
The movement hurt, but she crossed to Valerian and laid two fingers against his sleeve, drawing his attention from the departing guards.
“Tyler sent a collar. Camilla reached your table.” She spoke low enough that the lords had to watch without hearing.
“We have her name and Theresa’s books. Ten days gives them time to send something else. Let us cut off the snake’s head in the south.”