“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to trace their backgrounds, but the records are thin. They claim to be from a small Fitzgerald offshoot in the east, a group that disbanded decades ago. I haven’t been able to verify or disprove that.”
“Could they be from another clan entirely?”
Gregor’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. “The thought has crossed my mind.”
“Which clan?”
A long pause. The wind picked up, sending a flurry of snow crystals skating across the walkway between them. “I don’t want to say it without evidence.”
“Gregor.”
“The Murphys.”
The name landed between them with the weight of a stone dropped into still water. Fergal felt the ripples spread outward—through his understanding of the last few years, through every interaction he’d had with Duncan and Donovan, through every dismissive response his father had given when Fergal raised concerns about omega treatment.
“If they’re Murphy plants,” Fergal said slowly, his mind spinning, “then everything they’ve done—the influence over my father, the guard loyalists, the consolidation of power—it’s not ambition. It’s an operation.”
“Yes.”
“They’re not trying to advance their careers. They’re trying to control the clan from the inside.”
“That would be consistent with the Murphy tactics. It’s how they’ve always operated—not through direct conquest but through infiltration and influence. Why fight a war when you can win it from within?”
Fergal turned back to the valley view, but he wasn’t seeing the mountains or the forest or the darkening sky. He was seeing a chessboard, and for the first time, the pieces were arranging themselves into a pattern that made terrible sense. “I could talk to my uncle.”
His Uncle Brian, his father’s younger brother, was more engaged with the clan and its operations than the king. He could, from time to time, be made to see reason, especially when it concerned things he knew his brother wouldn’t care about.
“I doubt he’d go against your father’s wishes,” Gregor said. “And alerting him to the possibility of Duncan and Donovan being traitors could backfire if he confronts them.”
True. So how could they find out the truth then? That left only one way.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. He felt Gregor’s attention sharpen, the way it always did when he assessed a potential threat. “My influencer ability… It’s not my only gift.”
Silence. Then, carefully, “Go on.”
“I can read minds. That time I touched your consciousness,” Fergal continued, keeping his voice steady even as his pulse hammered. “I wasn’t trying to influence you. I was trying to read you. I hadn’t refined the distinction yet—I was still learningto separate the two gifts—but what I did was closer to mind-reading than influencing.”
Gregor was quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the mountains. The last light was fading from the sky, leaving behind the deep blue-black of a northern dusk. Stars were beginning to appear, sharp and bright in the thin air. “I knew it wasn’t your influencer gift.”
“You did?”
“I wasn’t certain it was mind-reading, but I suspected it.”
“You did?” He was starting to sound like a parrot, and the quick quirk upward of Gregor’s lips showed he’d noticed too.
“How long have you had this ability?”
“I discovered it about two years ago. Accidentally. I was trying to use my influencer gift on one of the servants and instead slipped into her mind completely. Her thoughts, her emotions, everything. It was—” He searched for the right word. “Overwhelming. And terrifying.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
Fergal could practically hear the gears turning behind Gregor’s carefully neutral expression. “That time in the library, when I caught you, you said you wouldn’t use your abilities on me again. You’ve kept that promise.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been practicing,” Gregor said.
