Page 76 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“Let’s not waste the day on nerves.” Duskmere snapped another order to his men.

The hunt resumed under tighter discipline—bows higher, laughter shorter, voices lower—and the ride back to Emberglade unfolded largely in silence while Duncan debated the duke’s intentions. He made little headway, keenly aware only of the duke’s talent for smiling with one side of his mouth while hiding the other.

As the castle rose ahead, Duncan tried once more to press him, to draw out what truly moved the man.

“I meant to send congratulations,” he said cautiously. “I hear your daughter’s wedding to the prince is nearly settled. A proud match for Duskmere.”

Ernst’s grin widened. “You are kind to say so.”

“Do you expect Wolmer will heed your counsel more readily once the vows are sealed?” Duncan asked, testing for an opening.

“I expect,” Ernst replied with a sidelong glance laced with cunning, “that Wolmer will have little choice but to hear me more often.”

Duncan watched him closely. “And when His Majesty speaks of drawing the legislature more tightly under his hand… what counsel would you offer?”

Ernst hummed thoughtfully. “I see the advantage,” he said, tone polished and careful. “Unified law may strengthen the realm. Order has its own appeal.”

The neutrality only sharpened Duncan’s suspicion. “Yet you don’t fear that such order comes at the cost of our own authority? Central rule leaves little space for a duke’s voice.”

Ernst smiled faintly. “Law is a fine thing for poets and judges. But we both know men don’t follow laws. Men follow power. A wise ruler doesn’t fret about words on a page. He ensures he has those willing to enforce them.”

“Laws exist so power answers to something beyond itself,” Duncan said quietly. “Power without principle is tyranny waiting to be challenged.”

“Perhaps. But law doesn’t feed your people or ride beside you in war. Alliances do. Men who stand with you. Without them, every decree in the Empire isn’t worth the wax sealing it.”

“Alliances sour as easily as law fractures.”

Ernst chuckled. “Which is why I plant seeds in many fields.” Then, winking, “And you? Have you an heir on the way yet? Were that young beauty my wife…” He whistled, rich with insinuation.

The road seemed to narrow, the river’s murmur fell away, and anger flared at the edges of Duncan’s vision. “My marriage is young,” he managed to say evenly. “There is time.”

“Time,” Ernst mused, “is a luxury I’ve never trusted. Men die suddenly for lack of it.”

Duncan thought immediately of the arrow. Of the consequences that would have followed had he died today. Of his grief, no longer fresh, but still impossible to ignore.

Panic should have flared, but Kora’s soft voice came to mind instead. It calmed him.

Ernst studied him a moment before shifting lightly in the saddle. “How fares my baron in Norrelia?”

Duncan straightened. “Pietre is as well as one might expect in fae hands. Though no release has been agreed upon.” As he said it, he found himself wondering how the young man truly fared. Over a month back in human lands, and Norrelia already felt like a distant tale, blurred by the endless concerns of everyday life.

Ernst clicked his tongue. “A shame. Pietre was a fool, but a loyal one.”

“He isn’t the only one missing from near the border,” Duncan said, his tone cooling. “What do you make of the other disappearances?”

Duskmere’s grin slipped. “Missing?” His smile returned without warmth. “Rumors. If I chased every shadow in Duskmere, I’d have no silver left to shoe my horses.”

Duncan knew he had learned nothing new—and everything he needed to. Ernst derStrom served no cause but his own. He would bend to the emperor, the moons, or the Dark Brother himself, so long as the price suited and the reward benefited.

Suspicion slid coldly along Duncan’s spine, sudden enough that he straightened and moved toward the window of his study, as though distance alone might push it away.

Beyond the glass, the gardens lay still, their hedgerows faintly aglow with the mingled light of Selvarath and Hanurath, violet and green washing over silvered stone. His attention caught on the bench by the old yew where his father had so often sat in the evenings, papers spread across his knees, his voice carrying as he read aloud or argued with himself.

Tonight, the memory did not strike as fiercely as he had come to expect. There was a softness to it, a gentleness touched with gratitude that he had known those moments at all. Duncan let out a breath, and the day’s concerns began to ease.

The rustle of his chamber door opening pulled him back, urging every muscle to alertness. It wasn’t unusual for Garric or Kora to visit him late. But they always knocked.

Everyone knocked.