PART 13: The Crown Between Our Hands

While a guard fetched the sealed correspondence, King Edmund removed the ceremonial chain from his shoulders.

He laid it beside the charter without looking at anyone.

The sound was small.

The effect was not.

Several nobles began speaking at once.

He stopped them with a raised hand.

“No more speeches offered in place of evidence.”

I studied him across the table.

He had ordered my aunt brought safely.

He had made the physician answer.

He had allowed the documents to be opened even when each one threatened the ground beneath his feet.

But he had also gone silent when I asked what he knew.

I could not fit those truths together.

“Did you know my mother wanted to keep me?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you know she married my father?”

“I knew she intended it.”

“Did you love her?”

His eyes lifted.

“She taught me to ride.”

The answer was so unexpected that I almost missed the grief beneath it.

“She used to tell me the horse knew when I was pretending to be brave.”

I looked toward the crystal rose.

My mother had existed outside the portraits.

She had teased a younger brother.

She had eaten pears at her wedding.

She had known the shape of my hand.

The court had reduced her to a dead branch on a family tree, and I felt a sudden fierce need to put the person back inside the history.

“Then help me understand what happened to her daughter.”

Edmund pressed both hands against the edge of the table.

“The household closed during the fever, and reports contradicted each other every hour.”

“That explains confusion.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t explain nineteen years.”

“No.”

The old noble looked away.

I wondered whether the king’s refusal to excuse himself was a form of honor or simply the recognition that excuses had become useless.

Lucinda watched us with terrible patience.

Her seals had been taken, her scheme exposed, and guards stood on either side of her.

Yet she still looked like someone waiting for a final card.

Marian rose unsteadily.

An attendant offered an arm, but she stood without taking it.

“Rowan, I should have come for you.”

“Yes.”

“I should have told him what I signed.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot ask you to forgive it.”

I held her gaze.

“Then don’t.”

The words were quiet enough to belong only to us, though the whole hall heard them.

She nodded.

I saw pain pass through her face, but I did not feel responsible for easing it.

For most of my life, important people had expected comfort to travel upward.

Tonight, I had no comfort to spare.

Mara stood beside me with the linen cloth folded in her hands.

I touched her sleeve.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“When the winter court was over.”

“Why then?”

“Because I found out what tonight’s declaration would say.”

She looked toward Lucinda.

“Once they certified the senior line extinct, I was afraid the evidence would be dismissed as an attempt to overturn a settled crown.”

“You should have told me before I came inside.”

“Yes.”

No excuse.

No claim that love made secrecy harmless.

I leaned against her shoulder for one brief moment.

It did not repair everything.

It reminded us what needed repairing.

The guard returned with a black case bearing three old wax seals.

Marian’s hands tightened.

Edmund looked at the case as if he recognized the weight of it.

The old noble inspected the seals before anyone broke them.

He confirmed that the case had remained closed since the end of the fever winter.

The clerk wrote that down.

Lucinda spoke softly.

“Read every order.”

The king looked at her.

“I intend to.”

“Even the ones you signed.”

The room fell silent.

I stared at him.

He did not deny that there were any.

A memory returned to me from the gardeners’ lodge.

When I was little, Mara used to stop speaking whenever a royal proclamation was read in the village.

I had assumed she disliked crowds.

Now I wondered whether she had been listening for the voice of a man who might still decide to undo her life.

The old noble opened the case.

Inside lay a bundle of folded papers arranged by date.

He found the instructions concerning the eastern household.

My name appeared on the first page.

Not Rowan Vale.

Rowan of Wintermere.

Underneath it, a later hand had written one word.

Deceased.

The old noble turned the page.

His expression changed.

I looked at Mara.

She had gone utterly still.

Then the king said something that frightened me more than a denial could have.

“Let her read it herself.”