The Queen's Mage

Chapter 105: Too Early For This

Daravan began every morning the same way because routine was one of the few defenses left against court life.

Rise before dawn. Wash in cold water. Shave. Dress. Check blade straps. Read the night security summaries while standing because sitting too early encouraged softness. Review guard rotations. Correct the inevitable spelling errors in reports from men who could identify six kinds of knife by sound but could not consistently spell corridor. Drink one cup of tea. No honey.

Then the queen ruined it.

Not dramatically.

No door burst open. No page arrived bleeding. No bell rang from the eastern tower. No one fell through the ceiling, which had happened once during his third year of service and had left him with a permanent distrust of decorative skylights.

Instead, at the precise moment Daravan was fastening the second buckle of his sword belt, there came a soft knock at his chamber door.

Three taps.

Measured.

Royal.

Daravan closed his eyes.

“No,” he said to the empty room.

The knock came again.

Of course.

Daravan opened the door.

Allandra stood in the corridor wearing yesterday’s gown, her hair neatly braided but not so neatly that he failed to notice it had been done quickly and by her own hand. Her expression was composed in the particular way that meant the inside of her head was conducting a siege.

Daravan looked at her.

Then at the corridor behind her.

Then back.

“Majesty,” he said.

“Captain.”

It was too early for this.

Daravan stepped aside. “Come in.”

She entered his sitting room as if visiting her captain of the guard before the morning bell was an ordinary matter and not, as Daravan strongly suspected, the visible edge of a disaster that had taken off its boots and crept into palace during the night.

He shut the door.

Allandra stood near the small table where his security reports lay stacked by district. Her gaze flicked to them, then away.

“Do you have tea?” she asked.

Daravan stared at her.

She looked back.

“Majesty,” he said, “if you have come here before dawn to ask for tea, I am retiring.”

Her mouth moved.

Barely.

Not quite a smile.

“Not tea, then.”

“Good.”

A pause.

Daravan waited.

He had fought beside Allandra in the war. He had watched her take command under arrow fire with blood on her cheek and half a cavalry wing broken behind her. He had stood in the hall when the Mantle chose her, while nobles who had thought themselves prepared for history discovered history had teeth. He had backed her first, loudly, and without apology. He had held a shield over her when assassins came through the chapel smoke. He had carried Finnian’s body with her. He had watched her daughter learn to walk by launching herself at his knees.

There had been a time when he thought there were no new categories of loyalty left.

He had been young then.

Younger.

Less burdened by romance.

Allandra looked toward the window, where dawn had only begun to pale the glass. “I need you to speak with the guards assigned to Serali’s outer door last night.”

Daravan’s soul left his body, considered the hallway, found no exit, and returned out of duty.

“I see.”

“No,” Allandra said. “You do not yet.”

“That is rarely comforting.”

She exhaled. “They saw me arrive after bedtime.”

Daravan said nothing.

“They saw me enter through the public residence corridor.”

Still, he said nothing.

“They did not see me leave.”

Daravan looked at the ceiling.

The ceiling offered no tactical support.

“I see,” he said again.

Allandra’s eyes narrowed faintly. “You are not surprised.”

“I am too tired to be surprised.”

“Daravan.”

“Majesty.”

“This is not—”

He lifted one hand.

She stopped.

That was new, too. Once, he would not have raised a hand to interrupt her outside battle conditions. Once, she would not have permitted it. Once, their relationship had possessed the clean lines of command: queen and captain, sovereign and soldier, war leader and first supporter.

Now he apparently held jurisdiction over accidental eye contact, hallway explanations, and whether the guards knew the Sun Fae Queen had spent the night in the Royal Mage’s rooms.

Life degraded.

“I do not need details,” Daravan said.

Allandra closed her mouth.

Good.

“Truly,” he added.

Her expression tightened. “I was not going to give them.”

“Also good.”

“I came to warn you before rumor could distort what the guards saw.”

“Reasonable.”

“And to give the official explanation.”

“Necessary.”

She held herself very still.

Daravan hated that he could read the guilt in it. Guilt that she had gone. Guilt that she had not gone sooner. Guilt that someone might know. Guilt that the guards might have been placed in the position of seeing too much. Guilt, likely, that Serali might bear consequences. Guilt that Allandra existed in a body with wants and that those wants had somehow become his scheduling problem.

He moved to the table, took up a blank slip of paper, and reached for his pen.

“Official explanation.”

Allandra drew a breath. “I came last night to deliver Princess Everly’s invitation to breakfast.”

Daravan wrote: Everly invitation.

“While there, I discussed Mistress Lia’s recommendations regarding the Royal Mage’s continued recovery and scope of duties.”

He wrote: Lia. recovery. duties.

“The discussion ran late.”

He wrote: late.

“And because the matter involved medical privacy, no clerk was summoned.”

He paused.

Looked up.

“That is not bad.”

“It was partly Serali’s.”

“Of course it was.”

Allandra’s gaze sharpened.

Daravan looked back blandly.

She said nothing.

He returned to the note. “Did the guards hear anything?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

Her face did something very controlled.

Daravan immediately regretted the question.

Not because it was improper.

Because the answer attempted to exist.

“I mean,” he said quickly, “conversation.”

Allandra’s ears turned pink.

The queen’s ears.

Pink.

Daravan set down the pen with great care.

“Gods preserve me,” he said.

“Daravan.”

“No. I am entitled to one.”

“To one what?”

“Moment of spiritual retreat.”

Her mouth twitched despite herself.

That helped.

A little.

He rubbed one hand over his face. “The guards?”

“Pell and Orran.”

“Good.”

“You trust them?”

“Yes.”

“With discretion?”

“Yes.”

“With this discretion?”

Daravan considered.

Pell was steady, unimaginative, and so devoted to procedure that he once filed a report noting a suspiciously damp umbrella in the west vestibule. Orran was younger, sharper, too observant, but loyal down to the bone and terrified of disappointing Mara, which had recently become a useful governing principle in the residence wing.

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“Yes,” he said. “But I will speak with them.”

“Not as if they have done anything wrong.”

“Of course not.”

“And not as if there is something to hide.”

Daravan looked at her.

Allandra looked back.

They both knew there was something to hide.

Several things, presumably.

He decided not to know how many.

“That,” he said, “will be more difficult.”

“Yes.”

He sat, because routine had already been destroyed and softness could no longer make the morning worse.

Allandra remained standing.

He gestured to the chair opposite.

She did not sit.

Of course not.

The queen, who had spent the night elsewhere, had come to his room before dawn in last night’s gown to request security discretion regarding the guarded door of her Night Fae Royal Mage, and somehow sitting was the intimacy she resisted.

Daravan hated politics.

He hated romance more.

“Majesty,” he said. “Sit down.”

Her brows rose.

There was the queen.

For one brief, blessed second, old lines reappeared: command and defiance, rank and duty.

Then she sat.

Because the lines were not gone.

Only changed.

That was almost worse.

Daravan picked up his tea and remembered he had not yet drunk it. It had gone lukewarm. Naturally.

He drank anyway.

Allandra watched him.

“What?” he asked.

“You are handling this very calmly.”

“No,” Daravan said. “I am handling this silently. The two are often confused.”

“I am sorry.”

“No.”

She stopped.

He set the cup down.

“No,” he repeated. “Do not apologize to me for having a private life.”

Allandra’s face changed.

There.

He had found the wound faster than intended.

He softened his tone, though not much. Too much softness made her suspicious. “Apologize if you compromise security. Apologize if you ask me to lie badly. Apologize if you make me explain anything involving feelings to Prince Hagen before breakfast. But not for this.”

“This,” she said quietly, “could compromise security.”

“Yes. Which is why you are here.”

A faint laugh left her.

Not amusement. Recognition.

Daravan leaned back. “May I speak plainly?”

“You always do.”

“That is untrue. I often wrap plain speech in survivable cloth.”

“Then unwrap.”

He regretted asking.

Still.

He had begun.

“Your Majesty’s relationship with the Royal Mage, whatever word you are or are not currently using for it, cannot be managed as though it is both nonexistent and harmless.”

Allandra went still.

He continued before she could retreat behind queenly frost. “I do not need to know private details. I do not want to know private details. I would pay a meaningful sum never to infer private details again.”

Her mouth twitched.

“However,” he said, “the palace is full of people whose profession is noticing things they can sell, repeat, resent, or misunderstand. Servants notice. Guards notice. Pages notice. Mara notices everything, which I accept because she uses the information for order rather than chaos. Usually.”

“Daravan,” Allandra said.

He held up one finger. “I am not finished. I have earned this.”

She closed her mouth.

Good.

“The official explanation is usable this morning,” he said. “It will not hold indefinitely if there are repeated mornings.”

Color touched her face again.

He looked at the far wall out of mercy and self-preservation.

“Repeated private visits,” he amended. “Through any door.”

“Understood.”

“I recommend formalizing late consultations.”

Her gaze returned sharply. “What?”

“Not that kind.”

“I did not say anything.”

“You thought loudly.”

“That is Serali’s phrase.”

“Then she is right.”

Allandra stared at him.

Daravan continued. “If the queen and Royal Mage sometimes have reason to meet after hours regarding magical threats, recovery, wall analysis, or emergency consultation, then there should be an existing pattern that is legitimate.”

“You are suggesting we create cover.”

“I am suggesting the truth needs architecture.”

“That sounds like Marielle.”

“I am unwell.”

Allandra almost smiled.

He pressed on. “Set two evenings a week for private Royal Mage briefings. Put them on the internal schedule. Sometimes use them for real work. Sometimes cancel them. Sometimes hold them with a clerk for the first hour and dismiss the clerk. Sometimes have Lia present. Sometimes have Verya. Sometimes do not meet at all. Make the existence of private consultation boring.”

Allandra listened.

Properly now.

The queen was back, but not as shield. As mind.

Good.

“Then,” Daravan said, “if you need to speak with Serali privately, it does not automatically become interesting.”

“And the guards?”

“I will rotate only officers who understand residence-wing discretion.”

“Will that look suspicious?”

“Everything looks suspicious if done abruptly. I will begin under the pretext of adjusting to the Royal Mage’s increased public exposure after recent unrest.”

“That is true.”

“Conveniently.”

Chapter 106: The Sun Queen’s Shadow Bride

Allandra looked toward the window.

Dawn had brightened slightly. The first pale line of winter sun touched the sill. It made her look tired. Younger, somehow, which he disliked seeing. Allandra should not look young. She was queen. Queens did not get to look like women who had just realized happiness came with paperwork.

“I do not want Serali made into rumor,” she said.

“No.”

“I do not want Everly exposed to gossip.”

“No.”

“I do not want—” She stopped.

Daravan waited.

Allandra’s hand rested on the arm of the chair, fingers curling once against the wood.

“I do not want this to become another thing the realm believes it owns.”

Daravan said nothing for a moment.

Then, quietly, “I know.”

Her eyes moved to him.

There were few things he had earned the right to say to her that simply.

I know.

He had earned that one in war tents and funeral halls, in council chambers and corridors outside Everly’s nursery while Allandra pretended she was not crying behind a closed door. He had backed her when the Mantle chose her. He had held the line when others asked what parts of a queen belonged first to law, blood, succession, grief, men, children, crown.

He knew.

Not completely.

Enough.

Allandra looked away first.

Daravan picked up the slip of paper. “Pell and Orran will be reminded that matters involving the Royal Mage’s recovery and office duties fall under crown privacy. They saw nothing improper. They heard nothing. They will repeat only the official explanation if questioned by an authorized superior and will otherwise maintain silence.”

“Good.”

“I will also speak to Mara.”

Allandra’s brow lifted. “Do you think that is necessary?”

“No. I think it is prudent to know whether she has already solved six problems we have not discovered yet.”

“That is fair.”

Allandra stood.

Daravan stood with her.

For a moment, they faced each other across the table, the old reports between them, the morning not yet fully begun.

Then Allandra said, softly, “Our relationship is different now.”

Daravan froze.

He had not expected her to name it.

Neither, apparently, had she.

But once said, it stayed.

Daravan looked at her.

He thought of the first time he had sworn to her. Not at her coronation. Before. In a field command tent after the western flank collapsed, when she was not yet queen and he was only a captain with blood under his nails and a clear view of which person in that tent still had courage enough to think. He had followed her because she was right. Because she listened. Because she did not waste lives to preserve pride. Later, when the Mantle came, loyalty had become office, office had become life, and life had become a series of doors he guarded because someone had to.

Different now.

Yes.

Once, she had needed him to defend her throne.

Now she needed him to protect the fragile, private space in which she could be something other than throne.

He did not know which duty frightened him more.

“Yes,” he said.

Her expression tightened. “I am sorry.”

“I just told you not to apologize.”

“That was for Serali.”

“It extends.”

Allandra looked down, and for one impossible second she seemed almost embarrassed.

Queen Allandra Luina, Bearer of the Mantle, whose command voice could stop a cavalry charge, embarrassed in his sitting room because she had fallen in love and made him logistical custodian of it.

A secret love affair between the Sun Fae Queen and a Night Fae bastard princess.

Daravan closed his eyes.

“What?” Allandra asked.

“I have had a terrible thought.”

“Must I know it?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I suffer aloud now, apparently.”

“Daravan.”

He opened his eyes.

She waited.

Fine.

“It occurs to me,” he said, “that if someone wrote this down badly, it would sound like one of Serali’s romance novels.”

Allandra stared.

Then she laughed.

Not the controlled court laugh. Not the brief amused exhale. A real laugh, startled out of her so suddenly that Daravan found himself smiling despite every instinct toward self-preservation.

“Do not,” he said.

“I said nothing.”

“You are picturing the title.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

She covered her mouth.

Daravan pointed at her. “Majesty.”

“The Sun Queen’s Shadow Bride,” she said.

“Absolutely not.”

She laughed again.

Daravan looked at the ceiling.

“Retirement,” he said. “A cottage. Chickens. No queens.”

“You dislike chickens.”

“I could learn.”

“You would organize them.”

“They would appreciate it.”

Allandra lowered her hand, the laughter fading but not vanishing entirely. Something of it remained in her eyes.

Good.

Perhaps the morning was not entirely ruined.

Then she said, “Thank you.”

He inclined his head.

“No,” she said. “Not like that.”

Daravan stilled.

Allandra looked at him directly. “Thank you.”

There it was again. The changed relationship. Not queen to captain. Not only. A woman thanking the man who had become, gods help him, custodian of the most dangerous private truth in the palace.

He accepted it because refusing would be cruelty dressed as discipline.

“You are welcome,” he said.

Then, because too much sincerity before dawn caused structural weakness, he added, “Please endeavor to make future scandals easier to schedule.”

Her mouth curved. “I will try.”

“You will not.”

“No.”

“Send Serali to breakfast through the public halls.”

Allandra blinked. “What?”

“If she hides after you leave, it confirms something happened. If she attends breakfast as invited by Princess Everly, it suggests everything is ordinary.”

“Everything is not ordinary.”

“Precisely why we must make it look so.”

Allandra absorbed this.

Then nodded. “I will tell her.”

“You already left.”

Her face changed.

Barely.

Daravan sighed. “You intend to go back.”

“No.”

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

“Not immediately,” she amended.

“Majesty.”

“I can send a message to Mara.”

“That would be wiser.”

“I dislike how often wisdom now involves Mara.”

“Everyone does.”

A knock sounded at Daravan’s door.

Both turned.

Daravan crossed to open it.

A page stood outside, pale and formal. “Captain. Mistress Lia requests confirmation that Irian is relieved from morning duty and asks whether Her Majesty has ‘remembered that honesty includes not editing the inconvenient portion.’”

Allandra closed her eyes.

Daravan looked at the page.

The page looked terrified.

“Tell Mistress Lia,” Daravan said, “that Her Majesty has remembered enough to ruin my morning and I will respond in writing.”

The page blinked.

Then bowed. “Yes, Captain.”

Daravan shut the door.

Allandra was looking at him.

“What?” he asked.

“You handled that well.”

“I handle many things well. It is my curse.”

“And your salary.”

“My salary is insufficient.”

“I will speak to Yvander.”

“Please do not. He will try to pay me in grain.”

Allandra smiled.

The queen returned fully as she moved toward the door. Not hiding the woman beneath. Not entirely. But arranging herself for the corridor, the guards, the palace, the day that would ask everything from her and then be shocked when she bled.

At the threshold, she paused.

“Daravan.”

“Yes, Majesty?”

Her eyes were steady.

“If this becomes dangerous—”

“It already is.”

She accepted that without flinching.

“If it becomes more dangerous,” she said, “tell me.”

“I will.”

“Not gently.”

“I rarely do.”

“Good.”

Then she left.

Daravan stood alone in his sitting room while dawn pressed pale gold against the windows.

His tea was cold.

His reports were unread.

His morning routine lay in ruins.

He picked up the slip of paper containing the official explanation and read it once more.

Everly invitation. Lia. continued recovery. scope of duties. late. private.

A bad romance book, he thought.

No.

A very bad romance book would be simpler. There would be fewer guard rotations.

He rang for a page, requested Pell and Orran report to him quietly, and reached for his cold tea.

Then, after a moment, he added one more line to his private notes:

Create standing Royal Mage briefings. Make boring.

He underlined boring twice.

In his experience, most disasters became less dangerous once bored people were forced to describe them accurately.

Unfortunately, he suspected this particular disaster was only just learning to speak.