Page 14 of Severe Husband Warning

If Malakor had sent her, she would have carried credentials or written authority. Instead, she arrived with only her name. Whatever has brought her here belongs to her, not to him. That possibility is considerably more interesting.

I rise from my chair and walk toward the windows overlooking the inner courtyards. The estate moves with its usual discipline. Servants cross the courtyards according to routines established generations ago, while lightning races through the conduits feeding every corner of the spire.

Experience teaches a man where to look. Once you understand how a thing ordinarily behaves, the smallest deviation becomes impossible to ignore.

Calla Alder is precisely such a deviation.

Malakor has never struck me as a man who wastes effort without expecting a return, which makes me reluctant to dismiss this before understanding why.

I turn back toward Vhoros.

“Bring her inside.”

The faintest flicker of surprise crosses his face before discipline smooths it away.

“To the metallic gardens.”

“Very well, my lord.”

After he departs, I gather the scattered patrol reports into a single orderly stack before leaving the study myself.

The metallic gardens occupy the northern terraces enclosed by towering obsidian walls that shelter them from the strongest mountain winds. Few visitors expect to find gardens within a fortress, fewer still expect these.

Silver vines climb black stone trellises in graceful spirals, their leaves hammered so thin they tremble whenever the wind passes through them. Golden flowers bloom eternally from branches of polished bronze, each petal crafted with such precision that they seem almost capable of breathing. Narrow streams of liquid mercury wind between carefully arranged pathways before spilling into a circular fountain at the garden’s center.

The cascading metal catches the stormlight overhead, transforming each flash of lightning into rivers of liquid silver.

Most visitors arrive expecting a display of wealth and leave uncertain whether the gardens were intended to impress or unsettle them.

That uncertainty is deliberate. Certainty has a way of disguising people. Remove it, and they often reveal themselves.

I stop beside the fountain.

Mercury pours endlessly over sculpted black stone without escaping the channels built to contain it. Its beauty exists because someone understood its nature well enough to guide it rather than oppose it.

Kingdoms are rarely so different.

Yesterday’s audience returns to me despite my efforts to leave it behind. Malakor came expecting agreement dressed as diplomacy, while the King needed only a single question before silence accomplished the rest.

Now Calla Alder arrives carrying some unknown purpose of her own. Whether she seeks aid, delivers warning, or unknowingly serves another’s design matters less than the simple fact that she chose my gates instead of anyone else’s.

My gaze lands upon the mercury cascading through the fountain. Footsteps approach along the stone path beyond the fountain. I hear the hesitation in them before I even turn to look. Whoever approaches is trying very hard to appear composed.

The mercury continues its endless descent over polished stone, every ripple disappearing almost as soon as it forms.

Most disturbances reveal themselves for what they are once examined closely. As the footsteps come to a halt behind me, I suspect this one will prove considerably more difficult.

I turn to face the woman bold enough to walk willingly into the heart of House Stromgarde.

7

CALLA

Commander Vhoros leads me along a winding stone path before leaving without a word, and I find myself alone in a place that feels less like a garden than a carefully crafted illusion. Silver vines climb black trellises in elegant spirals, their metallic leaves trembling whenever the mountain wind slips over the high walls. Branches of polished bronze arch overhead, each bearing flowers hammered from gold so delicately they scatter every flash of lightning into shards of living sunlight.

Desperation brought me here.

The city supplied the rest.