Page 124 of Faeling
He glutted on her giggling, relieved to see her smile turn genuine. Moments like these reassured him that all would be well. She just needed time to find her footing. Every day would be easier than the last, and one day soon, he’d see her emerge the fully fledged queen he knew she would become.
Her happiness bubbled inside him, his beast content for the first time in days.
When Eydis walked into the den to join them a moment later, a grave look on her face, he almost barked at her to get out.
But Ravenna had seen. “What is it?” she asked, all the play falling from her face.
Vallek scowled at his sister, who deftly ignored it.
“A spy has been apprehended on the Spearhead. He meant to sail to the faelands with information.”
A growl punched up Vallek’s throat, his annoyance with Eydis eclipsed by his rage at the traitor. Sellswords were vermin, but to sell secrets? To endanger Vallek’s mate?
Unacceptable.
“Gather the court and bring him before me,” he growled.
Vallek had insisted, more vociferously this time, that Ravenna need not attend this. His anger was vicious, and this part of kingship was ugly, if necessary. It wasn’t a part of him he wished for her to see.
But, ever stubborn, she accompanied him to the basilica and took her throne. “It wouldn’t do to be absent now,” she reasoned. “It would show weakness.”
While that may have been true, it didn’t lessen his desire to hide her away from this. Petitions and politics and feasts were one thing—meting out justice to traitors was another. Threats to her couldn’t stand, and he had no qualms over spilling blood to prevent them, but that didn’t mean he wished for her to see it.
Curious murmurs echoed from the court, no one sure why they had all been summoned. The king had been gathering his court much more often than usual, and so they no doubt expected another unprecedented announcement.
However, the whispers abruptly ceased when the prisoner was led in.
With hands shackled before him and a thick iron collar circling his throat, the spy was led forth into the center of the basilica. The guards held him by flexible staffs inset on the collar. When they stood before Vallek and Ravenna and the traitor wouldn’t kneel, pressure was exerted on the staffs, bending the orc to his knees with a grimace.
Upper lip peeling back, Vallek bared the full lengths of his tusks at the traitor. He recognized the orc, a berserker. One of his own most trusted warriors.
Although he’d needed reminding of the warrior’s name, Byrk, the male not having distinguished himself within his service, to know that one of his own elite warriors was the culprit struck deeply. He could rationalize, even expect betrayal from an ambitious paladin or even just a disaffected orc looking to make a sack of coin.
But his own berserker?
Unforgivable.
If he couldn’t trust his best warriors to keep him, but more importantly his mate, safe, who could he trust?
The question soured his stomach. In that moment, he hated this orc. For betraying him. For endangering Ravenna. For undermining his trust. Every warrior, from seasoned berserker to fresh recruit, would need to be investigated again. There was never just one spy—they coiled together like snakes for warmth, hiding in shadow.
A single orc had made the whole of Vallek’s city unsafe for him and his mate. Such treachery had to be dealt with swiftly and brutally.
Rising from his seat, Vallek took hold of the newly repaired Hormhím before descending the dais steps.
Mattias met him at the basilica floor, the captain’s disgust for Byrk Broad-Back pulling down the edges of his mouth. Bowing his head in shame, he handed over the gorget that had once hung from Byrk’s neck, a sign of his status as the king’s warrior.
Vallek folded and crushed the soft gold in his fist, letting the mangled gorget clatter to the flagstones.
“Byrk, you have been brought before your king, accused of the crime of treachery. How do you answer this charge?”
The orc snorted. “Guilty.”
The court gasped, whispers rebounding between the red limestone columns.
There was no reason to lie; he’d been caught in the act of selling secrets, followed to a remote lakeshore beach on the Spearhead where he’d meant to meet a small boat of fae scouts. Eydis’s people had given her their sworn testimony, and a raid of Byrk’s home had revealed a stash of fae silver.
His betrayal had gone on long before Ravenna was revealed as Vallek’s mate, but the timing of his most recent journey to the Spearhead was telling. Different friends and kin had differing stories on where he was, none of them matching and none the truth.
