She could still hear their mother’s voice, though. “… Bellowing at my door as if you had any right to intrude on my home after all these years?”

“Duchess.” That was the leader of the wolf-knights, his voice smoother than his friend’s. “We apologize for the rudeness of our greeting. We fought long and hard to reach your gate, and our manners were strained by the journey.”

“My patience has been strained more than enough.” Mother’s voice was colder than Cordelia had ever heard it. “State your business and begone, all of you.”

“Alas, we bring grave news that will not be dismissed so easily,” said the wolf-leader. “King Edmund—long rest his soul—is dead.”

Cordelia felt Mother’s gasp; it was a ripple of unease that billowed through their connection, sending a disconcerting chill through Cordelia’s body before Mother snapped her emotions tightly shut, closing herself off from everyone. “And?” she demanded. “What has that to do with me?”

“Your game is over, sorceress,” snarled the bear-leader. “You’ve lost. You won’t hide the heir from us any longer! And if it were up to me, I can tell you—”

“It is time, Madam,” interrupted the wolf-leader, “to return to our kingdom at long last so your child may rule over all of us.”

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Cordelia knew the taste of secrets. It was the bitterness that coated her tongue each time her mother walked away from another question about the past, why they had to hide inside their castle, and why no other humans were allowed into their forest. Over the years, she’d come up with a thousand different stories to make up for it.

She had never imagined this one.

Connall, a king? Her skin tingled with the thrill of discovery—but Connall’s face tightened with visible panic as he stared out the window at their visitors.

“You’re wasting your time here!” His voice hadn’t cracked in years, but it cracked now, and his long fingers clenched around Cordelia’s windowsill as he leaned forward to shout down at them. “There’s no one here but me and my mother and our servants!”

Servants?

Giles’s eyebrows shot up in exaggerated outrage, and Rosalind made a rude gesture at their older brother, but Cordelia’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Even more secrets.

“Give it up, Lord Connall.” That was the bear-leader, his deep voice dripping with disdain. “We won’t be taken in by any lies. We know the babe your mother carried was safely born in this cursed forest. Every seer in the nation agrees.”

Surely no one would speak to their future king that way.

But Connall had a different father from his younger siblings; Cordelia had teased that much out of him years ago. So, if the crown wasn’t coming to him …