Chapter 37 37

Chapter 37 37
Lena's POV

I found Croft in his rooms.

He answered the door himself, which meant his staff had already retired for the night, which meant this conversation was going to be exactly as private as I needed it to be.

He looked at me.

At Mira one step behind me.

At the hour.

"My Luna," he said carefully.

"I need twenty minutes," I said. "And I need you to hear me out before you say anything."

He studied my face.

Then he stepped back from the door.

I went in.

\---

I told him everything.

Corvin. The three years. What the work was and what it required and how I had tried to leave and discovered that leaving was not as simple as walking away from a man who considered you an asset.

Ashwood. Cain finding me. The arrangement. The morning I became someone else and rode north in a carriage with a name that was not mine and documents that belonged to a woman who had run from exactly the situation I was riding toward.

The bond. What I had known when I chose it and what I had not known and what had become true since.

All of it.

Croft sat across from me with his hands on his knees and his face doing the careful thing and did not interrupt once.

When I finished the room was quiet.

He looked at the fire for a long moment.

"Why are you telling me this tonight," he said.

"Because Rael is two hours from this gate," I said. "And he knows everything I just told you. And he is going to walk into this fortress tomorrow and use it the same way Lena used every sitting room and corridor in this building for three days." I held his gaze. "I will not let him hand you my history as a weapon. So I am handing it to you myself."

Croft looked at me.

"You could have said none of this," he said. "You could have let tomorrow come and managed it the way you have managed everything else since you arrived here."

"Yes," I said.

"But you came here instead," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He was quiet again.

I waited.

"The bond," he said finally. "When you chose it. You were aware of what you were choosing."

"Completely," I said.

"And the King," he said. "He knew who you were before it formed."

"Yes," I said.

"Then it was not deception," he said. Not to me. To himself. Working through it out loud the way a man worked through something he had been looking at from the wrong angle and was slowly turning to find the right one.

"No," I said. "The name was wrong. Everything else was real."

He pressed his lips together.

Looked at the fire.

Then looked at me.

"Rael Dunc," he said.

I looked at him. "You know him."

"I know of him," Croft said. "He has been attempting to extend his influence into the northern territories for years through back channels and council manipulation." He paused. "I received a communication from his office three weeks ago. An inquiry about the Luna's position. The legitimacy of the bond."

I stared at him.

"I did not respond," he said. "But I noted it."

"You noted it," I said slowly. "And then Lena arrived."

"Yes," he said. "And I will admit that the timing did not immediately register as significant." He looked at his hands. "That was a failure of judgment on my part."

The fire crackled.

I looked at this man. At the thirty years of service in his face. At the genuine discomfort of someone who prided himself on clear sight and had been successfully blinded.

"He is good at this," I said. "Rael. He has been doing it for a long time. You are not the first person he has worked around."

"No," Croft said. "I imagine I am not." He straightened. "What does the King need from me tomorrow."

I blinked.

Just like that.

No more argument. No more challenge. Just what does the King need.

"Stability," I said. "In the room. Whatever Rael puts on that table, whatever he says about me or the bond or the deed or any of it, the council does not fracture." I held his gaze. "That is what he is counting on. Division. He cannot take this fortress by force and he knows it. But a divided council is almost as useful."

Croft nodded slowly.

"Vane," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"I will speak to him tonight," Croft said.

I looked at him.

At the man who had challenged the bond in a formal council session three days ago and was now offering to manage Vane before breakfast.

"Why," I said.

He looked at me with those sharp eyes.

"Because I serve this territory," he said simply. "Not Rael Dunc."

I stood.

He stood.

We looked at each other across the room.

"My Luna," he said. "For what it is worth." A pause. "What you did in the gathering today. Stepping in front of him." He stopped. Started again. "Three Lunas served in this fortress before you. I watched all three of them." He held my gaze. "None of them would have done that."

I said nothing.

"Goodnight," he said.

I walked out.

\---

Mira fell into step beside me in the corridor.

We walked back toward the Luna's wing in silence.

"Well," Mira said.

"Don't," I said.

"I was only going to say that went better than expected," she said.

"I know what you were going to say," I said.

She said nothing for a few steps.

Then, "You handled that well."

"Mira," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"When this is over," I said. "When Rael is dealt with and the deed is back in the vault and everything is settled." I looked at her sideways. "You and I are going to have a conversation about Seren."

Mira was quiet.

"A real one," I said. "Not the managed version. Not the version where you give me what you have decided I need to know." I held her gaze. "Everything."

She looked at me.

Something moved through her face that I had not seen there before.

"Yes," she said quietly. "We will."

We reached the Luna's chamber.

I stopped at the door.

"Get some sleep," Mira said.

"You sound like him," I said.

"He is not wrong about everything," she said.

I looked at her.

At the woman who was thirty years of service and a network I had not fully mapped yet and tea left outside my door in the morning and a seventy year old body that had walked a dark passage without a torch and had not hesitated once.

"Mira," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"I am glad you came back," I said.

She looked at me for a moment.

"So am I," she said.

She walked away down the corridor.

I went inside.

Lay down.

And was asleep before I finished the thought I had been trying to complete.

\---

The knock came before dawn.

Three times. Fast.

I was on my feet before I was fully awake, which was what three years with Corvin did to your nervous system, apparently permanently.

I opened the door.

Percy.

His face said everything.

"He is here," Percy said. "Rael. He did not wait until morning."

I stared at him. "It has been six hours."

"He rode through the night," Percy said. "He is at the gate now. All forty men." A pause. "He is asking for the Luna."

I went completely still.

"Not Damon," I said.

"Not Damon," Percy said. "He asked for you by name." Percy held my gaze. "Your real name."

The corridor was very cold.

"He said," Percy continued, and something in his voice made my stomach drop before he finished the sentence, "that he has someone with him. Someone he says you will want to see before you decide how today goes."

I looked at Percy.

"Who," I said.

Percy looked at me with the face.

The worst version of the face.

And said a name that stopped my heart completely.