Page 36 of The Night Prince

“I’m a half-wolf. I’d not been bitten yet when I moved to King’s City. It was easy enough to hide.”

“Blake was in the King’s Guard, wasn’t he? Is that where you met him?”

He inclines his head. “Something like that.”

“And you came with him, to the north?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Arran chuckles. “You’re very direct, aren’t you?” He shrugs a shoulder, but darkness passes over his face. “I owe Blake my life. I’d follow him anywhere.”

Ahead, Elsie pretends to be a monster whose diet consists of naughty “wee pups” who upset the livestock, much to Alfie’s delight. A smile ghosts Arran’s lips before his throat bobs.

“I came to the city the summer your mother died,” he says. “My uncle took me out for her funeral. I’d never seen so many people gathered in one place before. People lined the streets, throwing flowers, sending prayers to the Sun Goddess.”

My throat tightens as I remember that day—the scorching sun, the scent of incense, following the coffin into the domed Church of Light and Sun. Everyone was watching, and all I wanted to do was scream, yet I held it inside as I walked behind my father toward the front row of pews.

My brother, Philip, turned up late. He stumbled down the aisle, stinking of alcohol. Yet Father turned his back on him and hissed at me to pull myself together when a tear slipped down my cheek.

“She must have been very loved,” says Arran.

Her people didn’t know her, not really. They didn’t know she smelt like lavender and horses, or that her eyes crinkled in the corners when she smiled. They never heard her stories about brave princesses who fought monsters.

Though perhaps—if she was a wolf—I didn’t know her either.

“She was,” I say softly.

It’s not yet midday when we reach the village, and the rain finally stops.

Stone houses scatter across the sloping landscape, many with smoke coming from their chimneys. The streets are packed with people heading in the same direction as us, toward a market by the edge of a loch. The women wear simple dresses beneath their cloaks, and most of the men wear the same black-and-grey tartan of Arran’s kilt. Blake’s colors.

“They don’t all wear the Lowfell tartan,” I observe, as an older man stalks past us, wearing a blue-and-green pattern on his kilt that I’ve not yet encountered.

“Some of the older generation still wear Bruce’s tartan.” Elsie’s lips harden. “Blake changed it after he’d killed him, but it didn’t catch on with everyone.”

“Do they not all support Blake as alpha?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Most like him well enough. Our father caused a lot of disruption. He was constantly grappling for more power, invading villages and taking nearby territories. It wasthe villages like this one that suffered for it when other alphas decided to fight back. Blake has given them some semblance of peace, and most respect him for that, even if he is an outsider.”

“Most?”

“He killed a lot of the Wolves who were in Lowfell Castle the night we arrived,” says Arran quietly. “Most of them had family in villages like this one.”

Elsie points at a building isolated from the others, with black stone walls that look like they’ve been charred. “Plus, he banned the worship of Night, which didn’t go down well with some of the older folks. He’s managed to dowse any sparks of rebellion over the past few years, but some wear the old tartan to remind him that they supported his father, not him.”

Elsie keeps Alfie closer, now, as we pass vendors selling eggs, fruit, and grain from carts. A few say hi to her, and others dip their heads in deference at Arran—clearly recognizing him as one of Blake’s close confidants.

We pass a stone building by the water’s edge, with a sign readingThe Star Innabove its doors. The faint scent of ale comes from within, and adds to the scents of fish and woodsmoke that come from the market stalls. Elsie tenses.

“I’ll take him to get his apple juice,” says Arran, putting his hand on Alfie’s shoulder. “I have no desire to go dress shopping.”

Elsie grips Arran’s bicep, her gaze flitting to the tavern once more. “Just the apple juice. Aye?”

He stiffens, and a muscle ticks in his jaw. I tense because he’s an imposing man. He doesn’t seem like he has a temper like my father, but it’s hard to truly tell. He steers Alfie through thecrowd. When he’s reached a cart filled with apples opposite the tavern, Elsie sighs and continues walking.

I don’t want to pry, but...“What was that all about?” My voice is barely audible over the sound of a woman shouting about the cheap price of her fresh mussels. The water ripples in the loch, behind her.

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