Already, Kael and Selena took up their places near the back gates with the rest of the household.

I scooped up a handful of berries from a basket on the back stoop and rolled them around in my palm until some of the iridescent juice dribbled through my fingers. A ruse, a distraction, I’d learned well over time.

Keep the Stav looking elsewhere and they rarely cared to look such a common woman in the eye.

“A great many have come,” Selena muttered.

Kael nodded. “Captain Baldur’s unit. I’m surprised. They’re the fiercest. Threats against the prince’s betrothal must’ve increased.”

It was no secret, Dravenmoor would not want a true royal match between kingdoms. Jorvan royals wed Myrdan nobles, but this was the first union in nearly a hundred winters where a Myrdan princess was of age and title to wed a Jorvan prince.

I’d seen the prince only once before, during my fourteenth winter when I was tasked with aiding Thorian with the fishing trade in a nearby township. While there, the king’s caravan arrived to recruit a bone crafter into the Stav.

Thorian led me to the docks once our business was done, and as we’d pulled away from the shore, I caught a glimpse of the prince. Only a few seasons older than myself, Prince Thane had been draped in fine white fox furs, surrounded by Stav Guard, tossing pebbles into the tides.

He’d seemed so utterly bored.

Thane had caught my gaze as our ship peeled out to sea, and shouted, “Watch me skip it, my lady.”

Without knowing me, the prince addressed me like noble blood ran in my veins. Then like all boys my age, rife with arrogance, the prince tossed a pebble, bowing with a flourish when the stone skipped four times before sinking into the tides.

I blew out a breath and stepped closer to Kael. The prince had been kind as a boy, but the Stav today looked nothing of the sort.

Each man was dressed as though he might be meeting the front lines of battle in his dark tunic embroidered with the white wolf head of Stonegate. Scattered throughout were servants and attendants who carried satchels and stuffed leather packs for gathering any weapons we traded.

“There’s Baldur.” Kael used his chin to point out the man at the head of the line.

Baldur the Fox was broad and stern. His beard was not yet to his chest, but he kept it knotted in a single plait secured with bone beads.

The captain was known for his fealty and ferocity, both in battle and in life. Young for a Stav officer, but he moved like a man who’d lived for centuries and had no patience for people around him.