Looking back, he could see it clearly, and the change no longer seemed at all natural.

Annoura wasn’t Marked. He took what comfort he could from that, but someone had been playing on her fears. Undermining the love and trust Dorian and Annoura had shared for decades. Rousing all the suspicions bred into her by her Cappellan upbringing. Tricking her into betraying herself, just as the Lady Ellysetta said the Mages tried to do with her. And he, so used to her changeable nature, her manipulations, and the small ways she’d always tested his love, had thought nothing of it.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Mage influence was the only explanation that made sense. And since the changes in Annoura had begun before Lord Bolor came to court, that meant Lord Bolor wasn’t the only Mage who’d been influencing her.

So who was it? Who had been closest to her? Who could have had the time and opportunity to play on his queen’s suspicious nature and amplify her fears?

Jiarine, Lady Montevero, was an obvious candidate—considering that she’d been the one to befriend Lord Bolor at court—but she’d been taken to Old Castle for questioning after Bolor’s unmasking. Tortured by some too-zealous prison guard, too, according to his Prime Minister Lord Corrias’s report. And she’d known nothing. She was, apparently, as big a dupe as the rest of them.

Annoura’s other Favorites were possibilities, including, of course, the oh-so-charming Ser Vale, a handsome, minor noble sponsored to the court years ago by Jiarine Montevero. He’d wormed his way into Annoura’s inner circle quickly enough. If Dorian didn’t trust Annoura so much, he might have suspected the relationship between her and Vale had become deeper than mere friendship and flirtation.

He scrubbed his scalp in frustration. Did he really think Lady Montevero and that silky-smooth lordling, Ser Vale, were agents of Eld, or was he just an angry, jealous husband trying to blame someone else for the disintegration of his marriage to a complicated and temperamental queen?

Dorian spun away from the window and stalked across the room to his desk. Maybe he was angry and jealous. But maybe he was also right. He needed someone he could trust to conduct an investigation. If there really were still Mages at work in Celieria City, his queen and his entire kingdom lay at risk.

Dorian sat down, pulled a fresh sheet of blank vellum from his paper box, and uncapped the inkwell.

CHAPTER FOUR

Eyes filled with cold blood-fed

seeking, enjoying their amusement’s dread

Eyes that look forward to bloodsfied

anxious, desperate to taste the dead.

Shadow’s Eyes, a Fey poem

Celieria ~ Celieria City

29th day of Verados

Hooves thundered down the North Road as a royal courier—the last in a network of couriers posted every ten miles from Celieria City to Kreppes—galloped towards the city gates. As one of the four riders assigned to run the ten miles stretching between the royal palace and the first posting exchange on the North Road, his face was well-known to every guard who worked the gate, but he still flashed his courier’s flag as he approached—a bright red square of fabric to indicate that he carried dispatches from the king. The guards hoisted a larger version of the same flag over the gatehouse and raised the gate so he could ride through without stopping.

“Make way!” the city guards cried. “Make way!” They rushed to clear the crowded city street as the courier galloped past.

Five chimes later, his horse lathered and panting, the courier arrived in the small, private courtyard of the king’s dispatch office. Alerted by the signal flags raised at the north gate, Lord Renald, the king’s minister of communications, was there to greet him and to take the pouch bearing the king’s dispatches. Lord Renald had never trusted vital communications to any servant or underling.

“Thank you, son,” Lord Renald said, when the courier handed over his leather satchel. “I will have a return pouch ready to go before twelve bells. Take your rest until then. I understand there are fresh burberry buns and clotted cream in the courier’s hall.”

“Thank you, my lord.” The courier tugged the brim of his hat and grinned. Lord Renald was a favorite among the palace servants. He never spoke a harsh word, and always ensured the comfort of those who served him.

Lord Renald carried the precious mail pouch into his office, closed the door, and sat down to personally sort and log its contents. A bell later, he emerged from his office to deliver the post.

A young serving maid entered the now-empty room to collect the tea tray she’d brought to him earlier. Three letters lay under the linen tea cloth—one written in Lord Renald’s hand, the other two sealed and marked with the king’s personal signet. She dropped the letters in her apron pocket, picked up the tray, and headed for the kitchens.

Lord Renald was indeed a man of impeccable character and incorruptible loyalty to the crown, but he was also a devoted husband and the adoring father of three young children. And that was the leverage the Mages had used to claim him.

A knock rapped on the door of an apartment in the courtiers’ wing. “Morning keflee, Ser,” the maid called through the door.

A moment later, the door opened to reveal Ser Vale, Queen Annoura’s most favored of her Favorites. “Thank you, my dear.” He stepped aside to let the servant deliver the tray and flashed his famous, dazzling smile at one of Annoura’s other young Dazzles, who was eyeing the keflee enviously as he walked by. One of the perks of being a Queen’s Favorite—besides the luxury of claiming a slightly larger room in the palace—was the option of having the palace staff deliver meals to one’s room rather than being required to eat with the other Dazzles in the queen’s breakfast room.