Chapter 8

The Enemy in His House.

Didn’t tell anybody about that scrap of paper right off. I sat on it a full day, turning it over and over in my head, trying to work out whether I even had the right to go digging further before Kaelan got back to hear it straight from me. I felt wrong, honestly, going around him in his own house, even with good reason behind it. But it also felt wrong just sitting there on something that might matter, so somewhere in between those two feelings I landed on this I’d look a little more, careful, quiet, and tell him the whole of it the second he rode back through those gates.

Didn’t get that long, as it turned out.

The second night after he left, I was up later than I should’ve been, a candle burned down low in my room, that torn scrap tucked inside a book on my shelf where I figured nobody’d think to go looking. Heard something. Wasn’t loud. Just a shift in the quiet, the kind of sound a house makes when somebody’s moving through it that doesn’t want to be heard doing it.

Told myself it was a servant. Told myself that right up until my door, which I’d shut and latched myself not an hour before, eased open without so much as a creak to it.

Wasn’t a servant.

The figure in dark clothes, face mostly covered, standing there in my doorway same as Kaelan had stood not too long back, except everything about the way this one held themselves said the exact opposite of that night. Wasn’t looking at me confused. Was looking at me like I was a problem needing solving, quick and quiet.

“You’ve been studying.” The voice was low, rough, flattened out deliberately so I couldn’t have picked it out of a crowd after. “What did you find?”

My heart stopped dead in my chest. Managed to keep my own voice from shaking, mostly, though my hands were a whole different story. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t.” One step closer. “Where’s the paper?”

I was already moving, quiet as I could manage, backing toward the little table where I kept a heavy brass candle dish, the only thing in reach that could pass for a weapon at all. Got my fingers around it just as they lunged at me, and I swung it hard as I knew how, caught them somewhere along the shoulder, felt the jolt of it clean up my own arm.

It wasn’t enough, though. They were faster than me, stronger than me by a mile, and I knew going in I never had much of a real chance at winning a fight like that outright knew it, and tried anyway, cause standing still and just letting it happen wasn’t a thing I had in me, never had been. Grabbed for the door, for the hall, for anybody who might hear me if I screamed loud enough, and got about two steps before a hand closed hard around my arm and yanked me clean back.

Went down hard against the edge of the table, pain shooting up my side sharp enough I couldn’t get a full breath in, and for one long terrible second I thought, clear as anything, this is it, this is how it ends, traded once for a debt and now traded again for something I don’t even understand the shape of.

Then the whole room just about exploded.

Kaelan’s roar tore through the hall before I even laid eyes on him, some sound that didn’t seem like it ought to come out of anything human at all, and the intruder got ripped off me so fast and so hard I barely registered it happening just Kaelan’s shape, blurred with speed, driving the attacker straight into the wall so hard the whole room shook with it.

I’d seen him controlled. Seen him cold, seen him careful, seen him hold himself like stone in every single room I’d ever watched him walk into. Wasn’t any of that now. His wolf was right there under his skin, close enough to the surface I could actually see it in his eyes, gold bleeding through where his eyes should’ve been, and the sound coming out his chest wasn’t anything close to human any more.

The intruder twisted free somehow, quick, desperate, and went straight out the window before Kaelan could close the gap again, gone into the dark like they’d had that exit planned out from the start.

Kaelan didn’t chase after. Turned instead, and the second his eyes landed on me, crumpled up against the table with my side aching and blood on my temple I hadn’t even felt happen yet, something in his face just broke wide open in a way I’d never once seen off him before.

“Elira.” My name came out of him rough, cracked clean through the middle.

He was down on his knees beside me before I’d even managed to get out that I was alright, hands hovering there like he was scared to touch me and scared not to, both at the same time.

“I’m fine,” I said, which wasn’t strictly true if I’m honest, but felt important to say anyway right then.

“You’re bleeding.” The voice had gone dangerously quiet, worse somehow than the roar had even been. He touched my temple gently as anything, checking it over, and I watched his jaw work like he was holding something back by pure force of will. “Who was it? What’d they want.”

“Don’t know who.” My hands were shaking bad now that it was over, now there was room for them to shake. “They asked about the study. About what I found there.”

Something went cold and still behind his eyes. “You went into my study.”

“I found something,” I said, quick. “A scrap of paper. Was gonna tell you the second you got back, I swear it, I just” Breath caught in my throat. “They knew, Kaelan. Knew I’d been in there. Somebody told them, or they were watching me close, or”

“Or they’ve been watching this house a lot closer than any of us realized.” Said it low, mostly to himself, and helped me up carefully, one arm steady round me like he thought I might just break if he let go too fast.

He didn’t leave my side the rest of that night, not once. Sat with me while Mira cleaned the cut on my head, quiet mostly, watching every flinch I made with this intensity that unsettled me near as much as the attack itself had, if I’m honest about it.

It was near dawn when one of his warriors came in carrying something they’d found down in the garden below my window, torn loose in the intruder’s escape.

A ring. Heavy, engraved, metal gone dark with age.

Kaelan went very still when he saw it. Turned it over once in his fingers, and something in his face shifted into a look I hadn’t seen on him yet. It wasn’t fury this time, it was something colder, something that looked almost like dread trying real hard to pass itself off as calm.

“You know it,” I said. Wasn’t a question, not really.

“Know the family it belongs to.” Set it down on the table between us, careful, like it might still bite him even now. “One of the oldest houses in this territory. Close to my own family for generations back.” Jaw tightened up. “Close enough I never once considered they might have reason to want me weakened.”

“Does that mean they’re behind it,” I asked. “The border post. This.”
“Means somebody wants me thinking that.” Looked up at me then, and for the first time since I’d known him, I saw something close to uncertainty sitting behind his eyes. “Or it means exactly what it looks like. Don’t know which yet. And till I do, I don’t know who in this house I can trust with knowing what we’ve found.”

Sat there, side aching, head throbbing where the cut was already starting to close over, and understood something I hadn’t quite let myself understand before that moment, if I’m being honest.

It wasn’t happening around me anymore. Wasn’t council arguments I could stand at the edge of and watch, wasn’t politics I could observe from some careful safe distance and offer up an opinion on whenever it suited me.

Somebody wanted me dead, or wanted me silenced bad enough anyway, bad enough to walk right into this estate and put their hands on me directly.

And whoever they were, they were close enough to Kaelan’s own circle that they could wear a ring like that one without anybody thinking twice about where they’d got it from.