Chapter 35: The King’s Summons
Nobody slept properly that night.
Ryuji sat at the kitchen table with the king’s letter spread flat before him, reading it for the fourth time as though the words might rearrange themselves into something less dangerous if he simply looked hard enough.
"It doesn’t accuse us of anything," Selene said, sitting across from him, exhaustion carved into every line of her face. "It requests our presence. That is different from a summons to answer charges."
"For now." Ryuji tapped the parchment. "Kings don’t request things from people they don’t already suspect of something. This is a courtesy wrapped around a warning."
Renka paced near the hearth, ears flat against her skull, the particular agitation of someone who took failures in her own intelligence network personally.
"I need to know how he learned about the courier," she said. "If there’s a leak somewhere in the chain, I need to find it before we walk into Aldenmarch blind."
"Could Ober have reported faster than expected," Alexei asked. "Perhaps he suspected the interception despite our efforts."
"Possible," Ryuji said, "but that doesn’t explain the King knowing. Ober reports to Ashcroft, not directly to Theron. Someone would have had to move that information up the chain fast, and dukes don’t usually rush to share intelligence with their king unless they think it benefits them."
Seris, seated near the fire with her arms crossed, finally spoke. "Or Ashcroft told him deliberately."
Everyone turned toward her.
"Think about it," she continued. "If Ashcroft suspects you intercepted his courier, he has two choices. Escalate quietly and risk you learning more about his network, or go to the King first and frame the narrative before you can. A duke accusing a princess and her classless husband of interfering with royal correspondence sounds a great deal more damning than the truth."
The kitchen went quiet, the particular silence of people recognizing a move they should have anticipated.
"He’s turning our own defense against us," Selene said slowly. "Making it look as though we are the ones hiding something, rather than him."
"That’s exactly what I’d do," Ryuji admitted. "If I were him."
[System Log: Day 50]
[NEW HYPOTHESIS: LORD ASHCROFT PREEMPTIVELY REPORTED THE COURIER INTERCEPTION TO KING THERON HIMSELF]
[THIS WOULD FRAME THE HOUSEHOLD AS AGGRESSORS RATHER THAN DEFENDERS]
[THE ENTITY IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED THIS AS A STRATEGY HE HIMSELF WOULD EMPLOY]
[I FIND THIS SIMULTANEOUSLY REASSURING AND DEEPLY CONCERNING]
[...]
[FIFTY DAYS INTO OBSERVATION AND I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHETHER TO ADMIRE OR FEAR HIS MIND]
"If that’s true," Selene said, "then Ashcroft has already told the King a version of events designed to make us look guilty before we ever speak a word in our own defense."
"Which means whatever we say in Aldenmarch needs to correct that narrative without revealing everything we actually know," Ryuji said. "We can’t mention the letter’s true contents. We can’t mention Ober by name without exposing that we know he’s compromised. We definitely can’t mention the Wardens."
"That leaves very little room to maneuver," Alexei said.
"It leaves exactly enough room," Ryuji said. "Kings don’t want the full truth. They want a version they can act on without looking foolish for having asked. Give Theron something clean enough to satisfy him, and he won’t dig for the mess underneath."
Selene studied him for a long moment, something complicated behind her tired violet eyes.
"You speak as though lying to a king is a simple transaction."
"It’s not simple. It’s just familiar." He met her gaze steadily. "I’ve negotiated with worse men holding more power over me than Theron holds over us. The rules don’t change much. Only the crowns do."
She reached across the table, her hand finding his, and for a moment neither of them said anything else, the weight of the coming journey settling into the space between them.
"I do not like watching you carry this alone," she said finally. "Even when I am standing beside you."
"You’re not watching me carry it alone. You’re the one who’s going to walk into that throne room with me."
"I know. That is precisely why I do not like it. I would rather you did not need to carry anything at all."
He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through hers properly, and felt something warm settle into his chest despite everything the coming days threatened.
"Selene."
"What."
"We’re going to walk in there together, tell Theron enough truth to satisfy him, and walk back out together. Same as everything else."
She almost smiled at that, small and tired but genuine. "You say that with such confidence."
"I’ve been wrong before. I try not to let it show."
The household spent the next two days preparing for the journey with the same careful precision they’d applied to Ceris’s visit and Ober’s disinformation campaign, deciding exactly what version of events they’d present, rehearsing answers to questions Theron might ask, planning for the ones they hoped he wouldn’t.
Marro packed formal clothing that had never once been necessary before the wedding, the particular irony of a classless man needing court finery to defend himself in front of a king who’d never wanted him summoned in the first place.
"You’ll need this," Marro said, presenting a dark, well-tailored coat that fit Ryuji better than anything he’d worn since arriving in Avarthos. "A gift from the estate’s previous stores. It has waited a long time for someone worth wearing it."
Ryuji studied the coat, thinking of the tragic lord who’d died in this house decades ago, silent and grieving, and wondered whether Marro had chosen it deliberately.
"Thank you," he said.
"Wear it with more honesty than its last owner managed, sir. That would honor it properly."
Renka worked tirelessly through the preparation days, tracing what fragments of information she could gather about how news had reached the capital so quickly, and by the morning of departure, she’d confirmed enough to sharpen the household’s strategy considerably.
"Ashcroft petitioned for an audience three days before your letter arrived," she reported. "Formal request, filed through proper channels. He framed it as concern over ’irregular activity threatening the border peace.’ The King granted the audience the same day."
"Three days before," Selene said. "That means he acted almost immediately after Ober’s visit."
"Which confirms he suspects the disinformation, even if he can’t prove it," Ryuji said. "He’s not waiting for certainty. He’s moving to control the narrative before we can."
Selene’s jaw tightened with the particular determination Ryuji had come to recognize as her preparing to fight a battle that couldn’t be won with a blade.
"Then we will simply have to control it better than he does," she said.
They departed for Aldenmarch at dawn, the estate’s gate closing behind them with Renka, Seris, and Marro remaining to hold the household in their absence, the same careful arrangement that had protected the estate during the Khar’noctha journey weeks before.
Selene rode close beside Ryuji, formal traveling clothes replacing her usual combat attire, silver hair braided back in the particular style reserved for court appearances.
"You look different," Ryuji said, studying her.
"I look like a princess instead of a wife who fights assassins in her nightgown." She glanced at him, something dry and affectionate threading through the exhaustion in her voice. "Which am I to you, Ryuji, when we walk into that throne room."
He considered the question seriously, the old machinery in his head working through an answer that mattered more than any careful political calculation he’d made in days.
"Both," he said finally. "I’m not leaving either version of you at the door."
Her breath caught, and she reached for his hand across the space between their horses, the gesture worn smooth now by weeks of practice, certain and unhesitating.
"Good," she said, quiet, fierce. "Because I do not intend to leave either version of myself there either."
The road toward Aldenmarch stretched long and gray beneath a sky that couldn’t decide whether to rain, and somewhere ahead, in a capital neither of them fully trusted, King Theron waited to hear a story that would decide, in ways neither Ryuji nor Selene could yet predict, whether the fragile peace their marriage represented survived the confrontation at all.
Behind them, though none of the traveling party knew it yet, a second courier had already left Ashcroft’s estate the previous night, carrying instructions meant to reach Aldenmarch before Ryuji and Selene ever arrived.
The narrative Ashcroft intended the King to believe was already being written.
They were riding into a story someone else had started telling first.