I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Chapter 43: Chapter 43: Her Debt

Getting Riven into the palace was the easy part.

Getting him through it without attracting attention was going to require some work.

Elian looked at him in the side entrance light. The layered clothes. The long hair, tangled from travel. The beard that had opinions about itself. The collection of things around his neck that any practitioner would clock immediately.

"You’re not wearing that inside," Elian said.

Riven looked down at himself. "What’s wrong with—"

"Everything," Elian said. "The clothes, the hair, the beard. All of it. You look like someone who does things people aren’t supposed to know about."

"I do do things people aren’t supposed to know about."

"Yes. And we’re going to keep that between us." Elian gestured for Mira. "Clean clothes. Something plain. And someone who can do something about the hair."

Riven submitted to this with the good-natured resignation of a man who had learned that some battles weren’t worth having.

* * *

An hour later he looked like a different person.

Plain clothes, well-fitted — Elian had raided the spare wardrobe Edmund kept for visiting officials. The hair trimmed, the beard gone. Underneath all of it was, Elian noted with mild surprise, a genuinely good-looking man. Sharp features, dark eyes, the kind of face that had been weathered into something interesting.

Riven caught him looking and grinned.

"Better?" he said.

"Significantly," Elian said. "You’ll pass as a household consultant. Don’t tell anyone what kind."

"Understood." Riven settled into the chair across the desk like he’d always sat there. "So. What are you fighting?"

"Before that," Elian said. "What do you want."

Riven looked at him.

Then he smiled. The specific smile of a man who had been waiting for this question and had his answer ready.

"There’s a woman in this palace," he said. "Currently in the guest wing. Arrived with the Northern Duke."

Elian went very still.

"She came to my shop," Riven continued, conversationally, like he was describing a weather event. "Some time ago. She had something valuable to offer — payment for a specific ritual she needed done." He paused. "I did the ritual. It worked. She said she’d return with the rest of the payment."

"And she didn’t," Elian said.

"She did not." Riven’s voice remained pleasant. "Debts accumulate. Interest compounds. What she owes me now is considerably more than what she owed me then." He looked at Elian. "Her debt is her life. I want it settled."

The room was quiet.

Elian looked at him.

"You want me to hand you a person," he said.

"I want what’s owed to me," Riven said. "She came to me. She made an agreement. She left without honoring it." He spread his hands. "I don’t make the rules of debt. I just collect."

"And in return."

"Whatever you need. My knowledge, my rituals, my access to things that aren’t available through conventional channels." He leaned back slightly. "I’ve heard what you’re dealing with. I know what a Varek is. I know things about them that aren’t in any library." A pause. "Things that might actually help you."

Elian looked at him for a long moment.

He thought about Isolde. About there was nothing there before. About the library, the questions with shape to them, the subjects she’d circled. About Rowan’s eyes a half-second late.

She came to his shop, he thought. She commissioned a ritual. And then she disappeared without paying.

What ritual, he thought. What did she need badly enough to go to someone like Riven, and what did she offer as payment, and why didn’t she go back.

He thought about the Varek. About an entity that cultivated networks of practitioners. About noble families funding rituals. About someone inside the palace who knew things they shouldn’t.

Or, he thought, someone who was used. The way Veylan was used. Someone who went looking for help and got pulled into something she didn’t fully understand.

He didn’t know.

That was the problem.

He didn’t know which version of Isolde was true, and he couldn’t hand her over to Riven based on a suspicion, and he couldn’t refuse Riven without losing the one person who might know how to fight a Varek.

"I can’t give you an answer today," Elian said.

Riven looked at him.

"I need to verify some things first," Elian said. "Before I agree to anything involving another person."

"Verification takes time," Riven said. "And time is—"

"Something you have more of than Caelian does," Elian said. "So you’ll wait."

A pause.

Riven studied him.

"You’re not going to just say yes," he said. Like he was confirming something he’d suspected.

"No."

"Even though you need what I have."

"Especially because of that." Elian looked at him steadily. "You said you’re morally grey. So am I. Grey people don’t hand over other people without knowing what they’re handing them over to."

Riven was quiet for a moment.

Then he laughed. Short, genuine, the same laugh from the temple.

"Alright," he said. "Verify. I’ll wait." He stood, adjusting the plain coat that didn’t quite fit his usual manner. "But don’t take too long. Her debt doesn’t get smaller with time."

He left.

Elian sat at the desk alone.

He looked at the window.

What ritual did you need, he thought. And what did you offer him to get it.

And why, Isolde, did you never go back.

He turned it over. There were two versions of Isolde and he didn’t know which was true.

Version one: she was part of it. Connected to the network of noble families, the rituals, the Varek. She’d come to Riven for something the network needed, used him, and vanished because people like her didn’t honor debts to people like Riven. She was here now because she was watching — because the Varek needed eyes in the palace and a face that could get close to Rowan was a face that could get close to Caelian.

Version two: she was used. The way Veylan was used. She’d gone looking for help with something — something personal, something she was desperate enough to go to a grey magician for — and she’d been pulled into something bigger than she understood. She’d run because she was scared, not because she was calculating. And now she was here because Rowan brought her, not because anyone sent her.

Both versions explained everything he’d seen.

Neither version was provable yet.

Verify, he’d told Riven. I need to verify.

He pulled a fresh page toward him.

What did he actually know about Isolde?

He started writing.

She’d come from a noble house — Rowan had mentioned her family in passing, a minor noble name from the western provinces. She’d never been to the capital before, or claimed she hadn’t. She’d known the shrine was new when she had no reason to know what had been there before. She’d come to Riven’s shop at some point and commissioned something significant enough to offer her life as partial payment. She’d disappeared without settling the debt.

She’d looked at Riven in the corridor and almost recognized him. Almost.

She ran, Elian thought. Whatever she commissioned, whatever she got herself into — she ran from it. People who are part of something don’t run from the people helping them. They just don’t pay.

He looked at what he’d written.

Unless she commissioned something she wasn’t supposed to, he thought. Something the network didn’t sanction. Something personal that had nothing to do with Caelian.

He set the pen down.

He needed more information. He needed Riven to tell him what the ritual was. And Riven was going to use that as leverage — information for information, the way everything worked in the grey spaces.

Fine, Elian thought. Fine. I’ll play it.

He looked at the window.

What were you so desperate for, Isolde, that you went to someone like Riven and offered your life as collateral.

He didn’t have the answer.

But he was going to find it before he gave Riven anything.

* * *

Two versions of Isolde.

He kept coming back to that.

Version one: she’s part of it. She came to Riven for something the network needed. She’s here now because she’s watching.

Version two: she got in over her head and ran. She’s here because Rowan brought her, not because anyone sent her. freewёbnoνel.com

Both explained the shrine comment. Both explained the debt.

But only one explained the look on her face when she said there was nothing there before.

That look had been — careful. The split-second calculation of someone realizing they’d said something they shouldn’t have and deciding whether to walk it back.

Version one, Elian thought. She’s watching. She knew about the shrine because someone told her what to look for.

But then why help him in the library? Why point him toward the right texts?

Because the Varek told her to, he thought. Because showing me some things and hiding others is more useful than hiding everything.

He pressed his fingers together.

Or she’s version two, he thought. She got pulled into something, she’s scared, she’s managing it, and the shrine comment was just her knowing more about this palace than she should because she’s been fed information she didn’t ask for.

He stared at the wall.

He needed to talk to Riven about what she’d actually commissioned.

But Riven wasn’t telling.

Until the eclipse, Riven had said.

Fine, Elian thought. Then I wait.

He picked up his pen.

One thing at a time.