I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Rowan

They arrived mid-afternoon.

Elian heard them before he saw them — the particular noise of a traveling party coming through the main gate, horses and wheels and the controlled bustle of staff moving to receive guests.

He’d dressed for it. Not elaborately — the body’s wardrobe had good instincts and he’d learned to trust them. Something appropriate for receiving family. The chains, the rings, the small earrings. He looked in the mirror and decided it would do.

Caelian was already in the entrance hall when Elian came down. Formal but not stiff — a different quality than his usual severity, something that had relaxed slightly around the edges. Family, Elian thought. Even complicated family did that to people sometimes.

The doors opened.

Rowan came through first.

He was younger than Caelian by several years — it showed in the face, something less settled about it, the kind of features that were still deciding what they wanted to be. He was tall like his brother but carried it differently, with less weight. He wore ceremonial travelling clothes that he’d clearly put on for the occasion and was equally clearly not entirely comfortable in, and his eyes — lighter than Caelian’s, more grey than violet — moved around the entrance hall with genuine curiosity before they found his brother.

"You haven’t redecorated," he said to Caelian, by way of greeting.

"I haven’t," Caelian agreed.

They clasped hands. Something passed between them that Elian didn’t try to read — the specific shorthand of siblings who had grown up in the same difficult house and come out of it differently and were still figuring out what they were to each other now.

Then Rowan turned to Elian.

And smiled. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

It was an immediate smile. The kind that arrived without calculation, that meant exactly what it looked like it meant.

"You’re Elian," he said.

"I am," Elian said.

"I’ve heard very little about you," Rowan said, "which tells me quite a lot."

Elian glanced at Caelian.

Caelian’s expression said nothing, as usual.

"This is Isolde," Rowan said, stepping aside.

The woman beside him was — Elian’s brain registered it plainly and without ceremony — very pretty. Dark hair, warm eyes, the kind of face that was easy to look at and kept being easy to look at. She moved with the ease of someone comfortable in her own skin.

"She’s never been to the capital before," Rowan said. "I promised her it was worth the journey."

"It’s a beautiful palace," Isolde said. She looked around the entrance hall with genuine interest. Not the performed appreciation of a diplomatic visit — actual interest. "The light in here is something."

"It is," Elian agreed.

She smiled at him. He smiled back.

* * *

Dinner was the best the kitchen had produced since Elian had started quietly improving the household’s trade connections, which meant it was excellent.

They sat — Caelian at the head, Elian beside him, Rowan across, Isolde beside Rowan — and ate and talked and Elian watched Rowan the way he watched everyone and found, somewhat to his surprise, that there was nothing to watch for. The man was simply — present. Easy in his manner, genuine in his attention, the kind of person who asked questions because he was actually curious about the answers.

He asked Elian about the palace changes. The symbols Elian had drawn in certain places, the arrangement of things in the corridors, the general atmosphere of the rooms.

"It feels different," Rowan said. "Lighter than I remember."

"I made some changes," Elian said.

"To the décor?"

"To the atmosphere."

Rowan looked at him with the grey-violet eyes. Something in them that was shrewder than the easy manner suggested.

"Mm," he said, and went back to his food.

Caelian said nothing, which was its own kind of commentary.

* * *

The evening wound down slowly. Rowan talked enough for both brothers, which Elian suspected had always been the arrangement. By the end of it something in the dining room had relaxed in a way it didn’t usually — even Caelian, who sat at the head of his own table every night, looked fractionally less like a king and fractionally more like a person.

Elian noted this and filed it away and decided it was probably good.

They walked out together — all four of them — toward the guest wing where Rowan and Isolde had been settled. The palace corridors in the evening, warm-lit, the smell of sandalwood still faint in the air from the morning’s work.

Isolde slowed near the east garden entrance.

"Is that new?" she said.

Elian followed her gaze.

The shrine. Visible through the garden passage, the small structure he’d built, the offerings the maids had left that morning still fresh on the stone.

"Yes," Elian said.

"I thought so," she said. "There was nothing there before."

She said it casually. Moving on already, eyes drifting to the garden.

Elian looked at her.

She had said, at dinner, that she had never been to the capital before. Rowan had confirmed it — she’s never been, I promised her it was worth the journey. She’d looked around the entrance hall with the genuine curiosity of someone seeing it for the first time.

But you didn’t know something wasn’t there before if you’d never been there before.

You only knew something was new if you knew what had been there instead.

"It’s lovely," Isolde said, still looking at the garden. Warm. Uncomplicated. The face of a woman making pleasant conversation at the end of a pleasant evening.

"Thank you," Elian said.

He smiled at her.

She smiled back.

Rowan said something to her and she turned away and the moment passed and nobody else had been close enough to hear it. freewebnøvel.com

Elian kept walking.

Filed it.

Said nothing.

* * *

He found the letter waiting on his desk when he got back to his room.

Sable’s handwriting.

Tomorrow. I’m coming tomorrow. Clear your morning. There is a great deal to tell you.

He folded it. Set it down.

Looked at the window.

Tomorrow, he thought.

Outside, the palace was settling into night. Somewhere in the guest wing, Rowan was probably still talking. Somewhere in the study, Caelian was probably still working.

And somewhere out there, Sable was traveling back with whatever she’d found in the east.

Tomorrow, he thought again.

He sat down and waited for it.

* * *

Rowan appeared at the door of the study the next morning.

He looked at Elian across the desk with the expression he’d had at the garden entrance the night before — the one that wasn’t quite readable, that had been doing its own calculations quietly.

"Can I sit down," he said.

"Please," Elian said.

Rowan sat.

He was quiet for a moment. Long enough that it was deliberate.

"The shrine," he said. "Isolde mentioned it."

"I saw."

"She said she’d seen shrines like it before." He paused. "I don’t know where. She didn’t say."

Elian looked at him.

"She’s never been to the capital," Elian said.

"No," Rowan said. "She hasn’t."

They sat with that.

Rowan looked at the desk. At the books and notes and the careful organisation of a man working on something he hadn’t explained to anyone.

"My brother," he said. "He looks better than I’ve seen him in years."

"I’ve noticed," Elian said.

"Whatever you’re doing—" Rowan stopped. Started again. "I don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve been trying to figure it out since I arrived. The incense, the symbols, the herbalist, the new consultant." He looked at Elian directly. "I don’t know. But I know my brother sleeps now. And he wasn’t sleeping before you came."

Elian said nothing.

"So," Rowan said. "Whatever it is. Thank you."

He stood up.

Went to the door.

Stopped.

"Isolde is a good person," he said. Without looking back. "I believe that. But I’ve been watching her since last night." A pause. "Something about the shrine bothered her. In a way she didn’t expect."

He left.

Elian sat at the desk.

Good person, he thought. He believes she’s a good person.

But he’s watching her.

He went back to his notes.

* * *

That night he wrote to Sable.

Short. Just the key details. Rowan had arrived. His girlfriend had noticed the shrine and known it was new. Something was off about her but he couldn’t place it yet.

He sealed it and set it aside.

Then he sat at the desk and thought.

Isolde had said there was nothing there before.

She’d never been to the capital. Rowan had confirmed it. She’d said it herself.

You only know something isn’t there if you know what was there instead, he thought.

Which means she’s been here before. Or she has information about this palace that she shouldn’t have from a first visit.

He thought about what that meant.

The shrine was new. He’d built it weeks ago. Before Rowan had arrived. Before Isolde had ever come through the palace gates.

How do you know it’s new if you’ve never been here, he thought. How do you know there was nothing there before.

The answer was obvious when you stopped avoiding it.

She had information about this palace.

From before she arrived.

From someone who had been watching.

He stared at the wall.

Who told you about the shrine, he thought. And what else do they know.

He added it to the list.

Went to bed.

Lay awake for a while.

The list kept getting longer and the answers kept staying just out of reach.

One thing at a time.