They walked the burial ground, and Amon took notes and made sketches. His father’s urn would not take much space, so there was no need to chop a deep grave out of the still-frozen ground. He spoke to the stone carvers about an appropriate monument. All the while, he racked his brain, looking for a safe way to bring Raisa in and out of the site without exposing her to those who would be eager to finish the job they’d started.

When they returned to Fellsmarch, Amon debriefed his Wolfpack again, giving them preliminary instructions for the day of the memorial. They wouldn’t know about the Princess Raisa until the very last minute. He trusted his Wolves, but the fewer who knew, the less chance word would leak out.

He left the urn containing his father’s ashes with Speaker Jemson. It would rest in state in the Cathedral Temple until the memorial service, when Amon and his Wolves would accompany it to the burial site.

He managed a late dinner with his brother Ira and his sister Lydia and her family. Three years older than Amon, Lydia was recently married and expecting a child. She and her husband, Donnell Graves, a merchant, had rented a home within the castle close, since many of her painting commissions came from the wealthy nobility who lived in the area. With their father gone, Ira would move in with Lydia until it was time for him to leave for the academy.

Lydia would have preferred to bury their father next to their mother in the Byrne tomb in the cathedral close, but it would not be the first time she had sacrificed her desires to the good of queen and realm.

There was much to talk about—memories and grief to share—and they were reluctant to let him go. As a result, it was quite late when Amon fetched his horse from the barracks stable for the long ride back to Marisa Pines. As he led the gelding through the stable doors into the courtyard, he saw movement in the shadows next to the building.

Amon assumed it was one of his fellow guards, staying late from the previous shift or early for the next. “Who goes there?” he called softly.

But the tall spare figure who stepped into the light was not one of the Queen’s Guard.

“What are you doing here?” Amon asked, sliding his sword free, but keeping it pointed toward the ground.

Micah Bayar came forward, hands raised, palms out, to show that he was not touching his amulet. “Relax, Corporal Byrne, I mean you no harm. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s a shame, Bayar, because I don’t want to talk to you,” Amon said, sorting through what he did and didn’t know, and what he could and couldn’t admit to. “Have you been waiting for me all this time?”