“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I straightened and looked for him in the darkness. “Thank the heavens you found me. I set off the signal accidentally. I was afraid you would die before I could stop you.”
“I see.” Disappointment laced his words.
“The news is good,” I added quickly. “King Leofric promised to abolish the servants’ price.”
“What? Who did King Leofric make this promise to?”
“Ronan.” I couldn’t tell Alaric how it had happened or that I was on the king’s council. I settled for, “Ronan forced that concession from the king in exchange for keeping him safe.”
Silence. I couldn’t see Alaric’s face in the shadows.
“Why would Ronan do such a thing?”
“Because I asked him to. He wants me to stay at court with him.”
More silence. Alaric took off his cloak and appeared before me, one hand on his hip. “You were supposed to take his mark. Instead, you let him talk you into staying at court?”
“I’m not powerful enough to overcome him and found, when it came down to it, that I didn’t want to.” I glanced over my shoulder at the still closed door. “It isn’t safe for you to be visible.”
“I have to be visible to have this conversation with you.” He sat down beside me, eyes trained on mine. “You’ve already decided? You’re going to stay for Ronan, a wizard?”
I nodded, hating the disapproval in Alaric’s eyes. “The king said he would abolish the servants’ price. We’ve more than accomplished our goal in coming here.” I nearly added, “We would’ve all sacrificed much more to accomplish much less.” He understood the mathematics of sacrifice, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Staying with Ronan didn’t feel like a sacrifice.
Alaric frowned. “You believe King Leofric will keep his word? Why would he? Whatever sway Ronan has over Leofric will be short-lived. He’ll send Ronan packing for the impertinence of telling him what to do. Lord Clement, on the other hand, has already shown his willingness to lower the servants’ price. We should throw our lot in with him.”
“That’s not possible.” Informing Alaric of what happened would break my promise of just minutes ago to King Leofric. My tongue hesitated to do so.
Alaric placed his hand on mine. “Itispossible. We didn’t tell you this before in case something went wrong and you were caught, but Lord Clement has been helping our cause. It was he who told us about the secret passageways. Should he succeed King Leofric, he’s already agreed to lower the price in Aerador to five years and eventually abolish it.”
A chill went through me. Words halted in my mouth. All I could think was that Ronan had been right. Lord Clement had used the renegades with the aim of seizing power.
Would he have carried through with his promises, or having achieved his goal, would he have turned on the renegades—perhaps blamed them for Leofric’s death and used that excuse to hunt them down? I didn’t know anything about the man except that he was capable of treachery.
“One ruler has shown his colors already,” Alaric went on. “The other made promises under duress. Which do you think is more likely to keep his word?”
“Leofric,” I said. “Because Clement is dead.” Alaric would no doubt learn of the events tomorrow when the rest of court heard the news. Telling him now wasn’t really going against my loyalty to King Leofric. I was, after all, convincing a would-be assassin to abandon his attempts. “Not half an hour since, Clement shot Leofric with an arrow from this very passageway. It ended up embedded in his own back. I saw him die myself.”
Alaric drew back in shock, then cursed and rubbed his forehead.
“King Leofric will keep his word,” I said. “Ronan convinced him that abolishing the price would limit his nobles’ power and increase his own.”
Alaric scoffed. “A wizardwouldthink of such a thing.” His jaw went tight. “You’re actually going to stay with him?”
“He’s not like the other wizards. He asked the king to help the servants. Doesn’t that tell you something of his nature?”
“It tells me he wants you,” Alaric said bitterly. “And apparently you’ve no qualms with that.”
I didn’t. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep away the chill. “Ronan has a kind heart and is a good man.”
Alaric’s gaze went to the rip in my sleeve, then took in the general state of my dress. “What happened to you? Were you injured?”
“Oh.” I pulled my sleeve up to hide the tear. “Um, it’s nothing. I was just fighting with Ronan.”
“A kind heart, you say?”
“I was a wolf and he was a bear.”