“I’m fine. I just need to finish the barn chores.” I suck back another shiver. “If you don’t have a message for me to hold, then why are you here?”
“I have deliveries in the neighboring villages, and I thought to stop.”
“Nora could have wrapped some meat pies for you.”
“I wasn’t stopping for the food, Callyn.”
I can’t read his tone, so I frown. “Are you stopping to make sure I’m keeping your secrets? I haven’t told anyone anything.” I set my jaw. “Not even Jax.”
“Oh, I know.”
I glare at him. “Are you spying on me?”
A wicked light sparks in his eye. “Not me personally.”
Ugh. I make a disgusted noise and turn away from him.
“I’m still trying to figure out why you’re doing this,” he says. “You’re not greedy for silver like your friend. Yet you’re not opposed to the king. At least … I don’t think you are.”
“My thoughts on the king don’t matter. It’s not as though I’ll ever meet him.”
Lord Alek scoffs. “Trust me, he’s not worth your time.”
I blow a strand of hair out of my eyes, and it sticks to my rain-damp forehead. “Well,yourthoughts aren’t much of a mystery.”
“With all your recent business, have you heard the gossip about the queen?”
“That she’s pregnant again? It’s all anyone wants to talk about. That and the competition.”
He shakes his head. “More than just her pregnancy. She’s hardly been seen. I have friends in the palace who say she’s very sick.” He pauses. “That she hasn’t been eating. That she grows weaker by the day.”
“I’ve heard that can happen.”
“Wouldn’t you think her magesmith husband could put his magic to good use?”
I freeze. I don’t know the answer to that question. I think of Tycho and his magic rings, how he mentioned that the king would be quicker at healing, more thorough. He said something about how King Grey saved a pregnant woman once, or regenerated a man’s missing eye.
Why would he leave his wife—ourqueen—to suffer?
I don’t like all the answers that rush to my thoughts. I stab the pitchfork into the straw again. “I don’t know how his magic works.”
“No one does,” he snaps, “and that’s the problem.”
“Well, you’re not going to find the answer here in my barn.”
“Maybe not answers about magic.” He pauses. “But you see a lot of customers. I think the people should know.”
“Oh, so you want me to spread the word?” I say, then frown. “I’m not a gossip mill.”
He swears, his composure breaking for the first time. “This is not idle gossip. I am not telling you that our queen prefers red jewels over green ones. Our queen isunwell. The king is attempting to distract the people with a competition that will span both borders, while Queen Lia Mara suffers behind closed doors.” His gaze darkens, and standing turns to looming. “I wish to bring the truth to the people, and you act like I’m trying to sow discord.”
Lord Alek takes a step closer, and I tighten my grip on the pitchfork.
He glances down at my “weapon,” before his blue eyes lift to blaze into mine. “You’re afraid ofme, when I’ve been nothing but kind to you.”
Honestly, I don’t know what I am. My heart is slamming against my rib cage. Talking to him is so different from anyone else I know. I lift my chin and steel my spine. “I’m not stupid. You said you make a dangerous enemy. I know what you’ve done to Jax.”
“Your greedy friend who was demanding twice as much silver to hold my messages?” Lord Alek takes another step closer to me. “Jax is lucky I didn’t take off his hand to match his leg.”
