bChapter /b175

    :–

    56 vouchers.

    Beta Alfonso quikly checked the girth at thest moment the way men who have learned to mistrust bstraps /bollido. /li/ol

    Monica rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to Sofia’s knee the way Bethany had pressed one to her brow: small, domestic sacrament.

    Then they were off.

    Not galloping–the road here bites horses that try to look brave–but at a steady, ground–eating pace, the sort a day can forgive.

    We watched until the willow broke them into banded shadow, until the shadows closed behind them and made a morning with two fewer hearts in it.

    No one spoke, because sometimes silence is the only grammar a leaving will ept.

    Back at the manor, the day did what days do. It waited for no one. The courtyard epted the absence and filled itself with other work.

    I went to the balcony for a minute because I am not made of stone, and some pieces of grief are private, not secret. Francesco found me there without trying. The bond tugged him the way the tide asks a shore to remember it. He slid an arm around my waist and let his forehead rest against my temple.

    “We did right,” he said. It was not a question.

    “Yes,” I answered. “And I hate how right feels like losing.”

    He exhaled augh that didn’t want to be one. “You’re honest when I want to pretend I’m made of steel.”

    “You’re steel that decided to feel anyway,” I said, which is better.

    We stood long enough for thest of dawn to fully decide itself into day, then turned toward the necessary.

    We convened in the hall where decisions have learned to find their legs.

    Julius and Bethany came; Alfonso, of course as the Beta; Marlow, vibrating at a frequency that says tell me whose throat needs guarding; Monica with her ledger of bodies and their inconveniences; Audrey with her bad leg propped and her good eye on everyone.

    “The Valois wille fast,” Marlow began, hands t on the table. “If Alpha Dorian rides light, he can reach the ridge above the east fields by dusk tomorrow. If he rides heavy, he’ll camp at the ash grove and make a morning of it to appear deliberate.”

    “Which would you choose?” Alfonso asked.

    Marlow’s mouth tipped. “If pride is the horse, it will choose the ridge.”

    “Then we set our stage for both,” I said. “We show him we expect politeness and prepare for the opposite.”

    b12:44 /bbMon/bb, /bbSep /bb15 /b

    55 vouchers

    Francesco rolled the Charter out across the scarred wood–river stamp blue bas /ba bruise, signatures like a choir of various hands. “We hold the hall for parley with the Keeper’s words ready on our tongues,” bhe /bsaid. “Neutral phrases. True ones. We don’t let rumor drag us toward an arena that isn’t ours.”

    “And outside?” Audrey asked.

    She always asks about the outside; it’s saved us more than once.

    “First ring at the lower yard,” Marlow said promptly. “Shields, not des. The second ring just inside the gate, phnx if they try to break line. Third ring“—he grinned at Audrey—“is you pretending you’re not itching to make a point.”

    “Who said about pretending?” she said sweetly.

    “Quartermasters?” I asked.

    Alfonso ticked items off on his fingers: “Tents in reserve if we need to stage a camp for optics. Bread, water, broth–we will not feed him banquets, but we will not look like we’re starving our own. A stool for every elder who’ll im age as a right to speak. Two scribes. And—” he nced at me-“a ce in the kitchen toy the Charter after we read it, because paper behaves better when heat teaches it to trust.”

    Bethany’s eyes shone. “You remember.”

    I did.

    Kitchens remember best.

    “Messengers?” Francesco asked, gaze sliding to me because he knows when I want to be the one to say it.

    “Renaud needs a line,” I said. “She stood for the Charter. If Alpha Dorian tries to call the vote on our keeping,

    I want her reeds swaying our way.” I looked at Alfonso. “Send to the Conve Keeper. Not to demand attendance–she won’t- but to remind her that the river hears more when it is invited.”

    Alfonso scribbled. “And Luc?” he asked.

    The name slid through the room like a thought everyone had been holding.

    Former Beta Luc–now foreman of foundations,ugh louder than his shame. He’de to the hall’s edge already, as if his name being spoken had woken the floor under his feet.

    “I’ll take the north wall,” Luc said before we could assign it. “My men know the weak stones and the hands that need watching. And-” he cleared his throat and looked at Francesco-“if Alpha Dorian tries to bait us about what I failed to do under old Alpha Henri, let him. I have ledger and memory both.”

    Francesco nodded, a gesture that carried forgiveness without making a ceremony of it.

    Those are the best kinds.

    “And the people,” I said. “We tell the truth, not the teeth. We gather them at noon and speak inly. Not about fangs or secrets. About rights. The right to choose a mate. The right to safety. The right to leave without being chased by the life that hurt you.”

    b12:44 /bbMon/bb, /bbSep /bb15 /b

    55 voucherS

    Bethany’s chin lifted. “I’ll stand at your side,” she said. “The old like to hear the old bsay /bthe new is bstill /bballowed/bb” /b

    Monica added, “I’ll bset /ba table in the square with rosemary water and bread. Fear metabolizes better bwhen /bbit’s /bbeen fed.”

    “They will gossip anyway,” Audrey muttered.

    “Then we give them better gossip,” I said. “Like how the King puts down his crown to carry a beam when the frame won’t lift itself. Or how the Luna gets dirt under her nails and no one dies of it.”

    “sphemy,” Marlow said, deadpan. “What next? The Beta carries his own ledger?”

    Alfonso held it aloft with dignity. “I am acquainted with paper.”

    We worked until the candles sighed.

    ns are nothing; nning is everything, Francesco likes to say when he’s trying to make me roll my eyes.

    Today the saying earned only a grim smile.

    When we broke, the air in the hall tasted different: less like waiting, more like readiness.