Chapter 382 Heroes Don’t Poison Princesses

DARKHOWLER

The first Fae portal opened in a ravine two miles south of the castle.

Agnes had said ravine. Agnes had said low ground. Agnes had said the least likely position, and the ravine that split the southern approach was so tactically irrelevant that Darkhowler’s patrol maps didn’t give it a name, which was exactly why Reginald Viremont had chosen it.

It was going to need a name now. Agnes would suggest one later. Something petty. Something her father would hate.

And shocker. Her father had run the exact play she had described, in the exact location she had flagged, using the exact method she had warned them about.

“SOUTHERN RAVINE! FAE SIGNATURE! PORTAL IS OPEN!”

The shout came from the mage pair Agnes had insisted on stationing at every ley line intersection within fifteen miles.

Gold magic surged toward the portal’s anchor point, slamming into the Fae aperture with enough force to destabilize the edges. The portal flickered. Contracted. Three wolves cleared the aperture before it collapsed, hitting the ravine floor at combat speed, already shifting, already moving toward the castle.

Darkhowler’s archers, repositioned to the southern battlements on Agnes’s recommendation forty minutes ago, were already drawn.

Captain Aldren’s voice cut through the wall. “Southern archers. Kill zone is active.”

Twelve bows released. The wolves made it ninety yards before the first volley found them. Ironic. Her father’s wolves went down in a ravine her father chose, killed by ammunition his daughter recommended.

Inside the war room, Agnes listened to the engagement report holding Andrew, who was fast asleep.

✦✦✦

DRAKENFELL — KING’S STUDY

Three hundred miles east, Tiberon Drakenfell rolled the parchment into a tight cylinder and set it on the desk with the deliberate precision of a man placing a loaded weapon on a flat surface.

“Walk me through what she actually gave us,” Dex began. “Viremont is moving with Orosia. Knew that. Cascading invasion. Obvious play given Darkhowler and Bloodmoon sizes and locations in Skardos.” He took a sip. “She wrapped an obvious play in a story about climbing walls and stealing children so we’d feel something about it back, and now we’re treating her like a strategic asset.”

He pushed off the wall. “The only new piece of information in this entire package is that Agnes Viremont was running a double operation inside an allied castle, and given what that woman is capable of, I find the revelation that she was also a spy to be the least surprising sentence I have read this year.”

“Agreed,” Hyran commented as he looked out the window. “The intelligence provides no capabilities assessment we lacked and no strategic insight we hadn’t already modeled.”

He turned from the window. His arms stayed crossed.

“What concerns me is the framing. This intelligence is being presented as a defection. Agnes Viremont, the woman who poisoned the Crown Princess, who drugged the Crown Prince, who ran an espionage operation inside Darkhowler for months without detection, is now positioned as the hero of Darkhowler’s defense.” His eyes found Tiberon’s. “An agent burns her handler, provides just enough accurate intelligence to establish credibility, and earns a position of trust inside the target she was originally sent to infiltrate. The only difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2 is that Phase 2 comes with gratitude.”

Dex’s jaw tightened. “Garrett is compromised. Their matebond makes him incapable of objective assessment. We already knew that.”

Tiberon listened. The king sat behind his desk with both hands flat on the surface. Men who mistook his quiet for absence of opinion learned the mistake once. The opinion was always there.

“Garrett Darkhowler is in love,” he said, speaking for the first time since the parchment landed on his desk. “Love and compromise are different conditions, and I have managed both in men under my command for thirty years.”

His eyes moved from the parchment to Dex, then to Hyran.

“The cascading strategy is sound,” he continued. “Take Darkhowler to draw Bloodmoon. Take Bloodmoon to stretch Drakenfell and Shadowclaw. Orosia invades the gaps. Whether the source is trustworthy is a separate question from whether the intelligence is accurate. I have been expecting Viremont to move. The timeline is the surprise, and planted intelligence does not typically include accurate timelines, because accurate timelines allow the target to prepare.”

“Unless the preparation is the point,” Dex countered. “If Viremont wants us to fortify in the wrong position—”

Tiberon held up a hand.

“Then he would have provided intelligence directing us to the wrong position. This intelligence directs us everywhere. We prepare for the scenario described.” He looked at Dex. “I would rather be over-prepared for a deception than under-prepared for an invasion.”

Dex swirled his glass. “We prepare. But I will not be strategizing with her. Garrett? Yes. Her? Absolutely not.”

“Fair,” Tiberon replied. “And perhaps a woman who drugged you and poisoned Serena and ran a spy operation for her father also scaled five stories of wall, freed a slave child from a pillory, and rode a wolf through a forest with an arrow flying past her head because she chose Garrett Darkhowler over the man who raised her. Perhaps she is compromised from her matebond too.” He paused. “People are capable of both good and bad, Dexmon. The question is never whether they did terrible things. The question is what they do after.”

Dex drained his whiskey. “I still don’t like her, and that’s not changing tonight. But Shadowclaw and Bloodmoon need the full package, so my feelings can get in line.”

Hyran met Tiberon’s gaze over Dex’s shoulder, where several objects had quietly left their surfaces and were hovering with the calm indifference of things that had forgotten how gravity worked.

“What?” Dex asked.

He turned around.

Gravity remembered its job and everything fell at once.

Dex shrugged, turned back around and finished his whiskey like nothing happened.

“That was only six objects. You’re maturing,” Hyran said flatly.

Tiberon rose. “Prepare the war room. I want every commander in this castle seated within the hour.”

His eyes moved to the empty chair at the far side of the study, the chair that had been occupied by the same woman for thirty years of war councils and political briefings, the chair whose absence was louder than its presence had ever been.

The pause lasted one second. He moved on.