Anwen
Days pass in a blur of activity. Every one is exactly the same and just different enough to drive me crazy. I wake up reliably with the sunrise, something I've never done before in my life. My steward, Frazier, is shocked the first time he comes in to wake me up and I'm already half-dressed with a few pieces of dried meat dangling from my lips.
I have too much to do to lie around in bed all day.
Kieran happily sets aside an office on the same hall as his for me to work out of, and I usually arrive there before most of the castle finishes breakfast. With a mind-link to the team still chasing the assassin, my day begins.
I take a map of the forest surrounding the castle from the library and begin marking the paths different coalitions took. I spend hours running the forest myself, trying to find the exact spot where I caught that foreign smell. It's gone, and so are the mist-deer, but I think I've found the spot anyway. That goes on the map as a bright-red pin, and every route is compared against it.
Reports filter in from the team in pursuit nearly every hour on the first day, then every couple of hours, then a few times a day as the chase wears on. Every time, it's the same thing. The trail is growing fainter, but they haven't lost it yet. One by one, I interrogate every delegate who attended the ball, an agonizing process of dodging flirtations and trying to read through lies while also asking the questions myself. I'd give almost anything to feed someone else a list of questions and simply be able to observe from the back, but my sole attempt at that ended when every answer was addressed to me anyway.
Meals arrive at my office, and I take enough bites to keep going before promptly forgetting about them. When the stars hang high in the night sky, I write my own report of everything I've learned and send it via page to the chambers assigned to Sundrop Gem. To Estrella.
We're three days into the investigation, and I haven't received a response yet.
But if I do all of this, if I push myself to the point of exhaustion, I can fall into bed at night and just about sleep without my mark keeping me awake. It's enough to stay sharp for the next day, anyway.
On the fourth day, I sit across from Evangeline of Redwood Nimbus, mother of a woman I apparently danced with the night of the peace ball, trying not to roll my eyes as she natters on about choosing her dress. She has pull with their Alpha. I can't piss her off. At least she doesn't smell like that wolf in the forest, just like everybody else I've spoken to so far.
Anything? I ask the team in pursuit across mind-link
The response is slow coming back, as it has been all day. They're at the edge of our mind-link range.
Trail faint but not gone, Whyte replies.
He's changed direction a couple times, but I don't see any pattern in it, a low-ranking soldier named Heath my father called "soft" adds.
Just like every other day.
Report if anything changes. I cross my fingers that the assassin is changing direction so my men stay within mind-link range.
Afternoon, Baz says tiredly.
I blink. His message lacks the resonance of a multi-shifter mind-link. He's talking to me alone.
What's up? I reply.
I don't think anyone else has put it together, but there's definitely a pattern, he says.
And it's something bad. I smile and nod at Evangeline, trying to keep her from noticing the mind-link look on my face.
He sighs. It looks like the trail is looping back to the castle.
My stomach drops. That means either the assassin is coming back for another swing, or-
Like they came from there originally, Baz says before I have to finish the thought.
I close the mind-link without responding and smile tightly at Evangeline. "My dear woman, I've had a lovely time talking with you today, but I've been informed of pressing business elsewhere. Could we pick this back up another day?" I offer her my warmest smile. "Say, over tea?"
My mark pulses painfully as she grins.
"I would love to." She puts her hand over mine.
"I appreciate your consideration." I stand, bow, and crush down the nausea churning in my gut. "I'll send a page with details."
And then, I escape to the hallway. My heart pounds unevenly, as it always does these days when I'm out in public. Estrella might be around any corner I turn. She hasn't been, since she left my bed, but that doesn't stop part of me from hoping.
Instead, I nearly run right into Floyd Winters, the ferrety envoy who seems to be everywhere these days.
"Ah, apologies, Prince Anwen," he says.
I shove past his pleasantries. "Have you discovered any more stable ways of preserving King Isai's body?"
He simpers. "Apologies, Your Highness, but my magic simply isn't powerful enough. There is no way for you to inspect the king's body without disturbing the ice, which-"
"Will damage the body before they can get it back to Sundrop Gem," I snarl. "I've heard the speech before. Just"-I shake my head-"keep trying, I guess."
He nods and scurries off. I run a hand through my hair, trying to rein in my temper. I can't do anything to hurt Estrella, and harming her father's body would do exactly that. But fuck, this investigation would be a lot easier if I could look at the fucking victim. Maybe I can send to the Alpha of Snowcrest and get a more powerful member of his pack out here.
I stride off down the hall. Despite my hopes, I don't even catch a whiff of Estrella. If I didn't know better, I'd guess she's left the castle, but I saw the look on her face when she demanded satisfaction. Not even burying her father will pry her from these walls until his murderer is caught.
A dark, bitter part of me whispers that I could keep her here if I just drag my feet a little. If I took my time, missed a few pieces of evidence, maybe ignored a lead or two.
My mark burns through my body. If I won't risk a little bit of defrosting because it might upset her, I can't do anything less than my best on this investigation. It's what she deserves, even if I can't give her anything else a mate should.
I arrive at the dispatch tower, the organizational hub of the military within the castle and outside of it. Jase, the field marshal who manages it all, slumps in his comfortable chair, exhausted from always extending his mind-link to the edges of its range.
"I have a strange question," I say.
His eyes open slowly. "Color me surprised. Everything has been so normal."
Exhaustion also makes Jase sarcastic. There's a reason I don't come up here often. "Are all the palace guards accounted for? Everybody who would've been around, say, four days ago?"
Jase narrows his eyes at me but doesn't ask. "Let me check."
A few moments of silence pass. I drum on my leg, pace back and forth. Every second I spend doing nothing here is a second wasted.
"One," Jase says suddenly.
"What?" I ask.
"One wolf is missing, a man named Harper." He eyes me. "He hasn't been seen since before the ball started, and the last report has him speaking quietly with King Kieran."
My stomach drops. "Don't tell anyone else that piece of information, or I will find someone else with your stamina."
Jase's eyes go wide. I turn and march away before he can say anything else.
The threat was overkill. Jase has been a good, loyal soldier for half his life now. But I can't risk this getting out. If I learned this about anyone other than Kieran, I'd be sprinting through the halls to tell Estrella I'd found the killer right now.
But it can't be Kieran. His face, half-dark and half-golden in flickering firelight, bright with righteous anger from the night he gave the speech that turned the army against Father, echoes through my mind. He was so confident he would be a different king than Father ever was. Confident enough to convince me, even before I knew the extent of Father's crimes. I gave up a chance at the throne for that speech.
If there's one skill I've cultivated all my life, it's reading people. At first, it was an accident. I was always just out of line of sight, shunted half a foot off to the side so Kieran might stand in the center but still away from the ruckus of my younger siblings. It's a perfect position to watch from. Since I couldn't do anything else, I watched. I learned how people move when they're worried, when they're sure of themselves, when they're bluffing. I learned the palace inside and out, a warren of secret tunnels lost to history. And I learned my family most of all. Kieran believed every word he was saying in that moment.
And he believed them when he took the throne. And again, every time I've spoken to him about it. Kieran couldn't lie to me any more than I could lie to myself. He's turning himself inside out over this. There's no way he instructed one of our soldiers to kill King Isai.
But I can't give Estr-anyone else my knowledge of my brother. And my only other defense is that Father was a capable, careful enough murderer that his heir-apparent wouldn't be stupid enough to use his own men.
No, the information is better kept quiet until I know what it means. I just have to hope no one else tells Estrella.