When Ser Lucen stepped out of the heavy oak doors of the king's study, he did not head toward the grand council chamber or the garrison guardhouse. Instead, he turned his steps down the long, shadowed eastern gallery, making his way toward his daughter's private quarters.
The image of her face at the dining table still burned in his mind—the subtle, paralyzed terror in her dark eyes the moment the dispatch from the East was said aloud. She had tried to mask it behind royal posture, but a father who had spent forty years reading the subtle shifts of northern courts could see the sheer panic beneath her skin. She knew what Aurelia's restoration meant for her fragile existence within Aiseryn.
As he reached the carved threshold of her anteroom, he found her personal maidservant, a young northern girl named Elspeth, folding fresh woolen wraps near the doorway. The girl straightened immediately, bowing low.
"Ser Lucen," she murmured.
