Vale's message came at dawn, carried by a frightened stable boy who'd been paid to deliver it and knew nothing.
It was short, and it was clever even now, even crude because Vale was never not clever, he'd just added crude to it.
The girl for a confession. Come to the old elder hall, alone, and sign what I put before you that the true line's claim is false, that you and the rogue king took Crescent Hollow by fraud, witnessed by your own hand. Do it and she lives. Refuse and I put the wolf you bled to save in the ground, and you'll have freed her only to bury her. You have until dusk. Come alone, or she dies before you reach the door.
I read it twice, and the cold clarity settled, and underneath it something that wanted to burn the whole world down.
"He's not asking for the throne," Cain
