Lily’s shoulders slumped. Even though she had tried to bring kindness and respect to Margot’s appointment as prime minister to the council, she had offended Gennita deeply by not offering the position to her. Gennita had been Raella’s advisor for decades, and she was the oldest priestess on the council.
Now, no matter how many times she had asked Gennita to keep calling her Lily, Gennita had persisted in the more formal address, and Lily had begun to doubt the break between them would ever be mended.
She said, “Now is not a good time, Gennita.”
“This cannot wait!” Gennita advanced into the room. “Your grace, you must rescind the order to send abbey priestesses and Defenders to meddle in affairs that do not concern us!”
The darkness, like grief, threatened to wash over her again, and tension clamped down on Lily so tightly she had to force a deep breath into her lungs. “This affair does concern us. It concerns everyo—”
“Calles is too small to withstand a direct, sustained confrontation with another kingdom! Even now we have the Wolf of Braugne lingering at our door. How do you think that will look to Guerlan—our closest, very large, and very powerful neighbor? You could be jeopardizing generations of peaceful coexistence!”
For a moment she felt like she had in the days directly after her appointment—beset by visions, buffeted by opposition from the more established priestesses in the abbey, and bombarded by the sheer volume of duties that were, apparently, still hers alone to fulfill despite her best efforts to delegate where she could.
She remembered those days all too well, the combination of contradictory forces that competed for her attention and threatened to pull her apart.
Shoving the memories into the past where they belonged, she gritted her teeth and tried for patience. “This is not helpful, Gennita. You are supposed to voice your concerns to the prime minister.”
“She won’t listen to me!”
Lily’s patience fractured. “Margot is doing her job! You must listen to her and do what she tells you to do.”
“I can’t believe the abbey has come to such a place.” Gennita stared at her, betrayal in her gaze. “In the beginning you seemed to have such promise, and I had such high hopes for you. Now, not only are you threatening to destroy our safeguards and traditions, but we stand to lose our allies as well. And you’re building walls around you so nobody can urge you to consider a different path. Your grace, you will be the death of Calles if you don’t change your ways!”
The words hit Lily’s solar plexus as if she had taken a physical blow. Pressing a hand to her stomach, she fought to compose herself.
When she could speak, she said, “Get out.”
Gennita hesitated, staring at her as if she expected Lily to change her mind. When Lily said nothing, she turned and left.
For a short exchange, that had been very ugly. Locking her office door, Lily hurried to the winding staircase that led to the Chosen’s quarters at the top of the seaward-facing tower. Thankfully she didn’t run into anyone.
Once inside, she barred the door, then swiped at the tears that persisted in sliding down her cheeks, still covering her stomach with one flattened hand as if she could protect herself from the emotional blow that had already been struck.
All her life she had done everything she could to ascertain what was best for Calles. She simply couldn’t try any harder. To have someone like Gennita, someone who had comforted her when she was small and encouraged her throughout school, say that she might be the death of Calles was incredibly painful.
A brush of cool air touched her hot skin, and footsteps sounded beside her.
“What a shame,” Wulf said. “I came all this way to fight with you, but it doesn’t look like you’re up to it.”
The floor slid sideways underneath Lily’s feet. Catching herself as she staggered, she whirled to stare at him.
“Are you, Lily?” He advanced. “Or should I say your grace?”
He looked ruggedly handsome in a simple white shirt, leather pants, and boots. He also looked harder, meaner, more dangerous than ever, and the normally spacious, elaborately appointed apartment felt much smaller than normal.
The fact that he stood here, in the middle of her tower, was more than outlandish. It was impossible.
“What are you doing here?!” Her gaze flew around. “How in the goddess’s name did you get in?”
She caught sight of a pile of foreign objects near one tall window. Even as she darted over to inspect them, Wulf said, “I climbed up and broke a window. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Chosen returned to her tower.”
There was a cloak in the pile, along with other woolen wrappings, gloves, and rope, metal tools, and a pair of foot-sized iron frames with spikes at the toes that looked like they could be strapped on over boots. It was climbing equipment.
And there was his sword, sheathed in what appeared to be a shoulder harness, leaning against the wall. He was so confident he wasn’t even armed, and somehow that was terrifying.
Or maybe it was mortifying. She wasn’t sure which.
She pivoted to face him. He had followed her across the wide expanse of the room and stood with his hands on his hips.
“Are you insane?”
He eyed her sardonically, mouth held at a slant. “This from the woman who decided it was a good idea to cross a dangerously icy strait by herself in the middle of a snowy night.”
“Oh, I knew what I was doing, and I was just fine!” Feeling the need to flail again, she gestured at the broken window. “But you—this—is madness! You could have fallen to your death. What if the Defenders on the walls had seen you? With a couple of well-aimed arrows, they could have killed you! Even now, your body would be dangling out there until somebody cut it down.”
“You’re not the only one with the ability to cloak her presence.” He gave her a narrow smile. “One of my witches threw a cloaking spell over me and a small fishing boat.”
Her breath caught. “You said your witches weren’t as trained as we are. You trusted your life to that spell?”
“Unlike yours, the one she cast wouldn’t have been strong enough to let me through a busy army camp and three sentries, but it was good enough to get me to the seaward side of the island. I moored the boat at the private dock, and climbed a section of your tower that none of the guards on your walls can see.”
Her mouth dropped open. The chances he had taken were breathtaking. If the newly posted guards at the bottom of the staircase had heard him, they would be dead right now.
They would, not he. She didn’t have a single doubt about it. Her mind tried to gallop down the catastrophic consequences of that, and she had to haul herself back to what was relevant.