Chapter 33: What the Elder Knows

"Your Queen does."

Naya turned before the old man could disappear entirely. "What do you mean? Tell me what you meant by that."

He kept walking, unwilling to answer with the crowd still watching.

Ronan stepped forward, his voice carrying the weight of the crown behind it. "You will answer her."

The elder finally stopped, but he didn’t turn around. "Not here."

"Then where?"

He looked back at Naya, deliberately avoiding Ronan’s eyes. "If you want the truth, come without your King."

Ronan’s jaw tightened immediately. "Absolutely not."

Naya glanced at him, understanding his hesitation, but this concerned her, not the crown, not the kingdom’s politics. Whatever the elder knew had been directed at her specifically.

"I’ll go," she said.

"Naya—"

"I’ll be fine," she said, though she wasn’t entirely certain of that herself. "This is about me. Let me hear it."

Ronan didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t stop her either, and Naya followed the elder toward a small house set apart from the rest of the village. She could feel Ronan’s gaze following her all the way there, protective enough that she knew he was only allowing this because she had asked him to.

Inside, he studied her for a long moment before asking anything at all. "Where were you born?"

"In Ripley territory."

"Who raised you?"

"My father. My stepmother."

He watched her carefully. "Have you ever felt strange around moonlight? Reacted to old markings, certain scents, anything you couldn’t explain?"

Naya thought of the boundary stone, the strange warmth that had passed through her fingers when she touched it, and said nothing.

The elder noticed her hesitation immediately.

"I’m a Ripley," Naya said, more firmly than she felt.

"No," he said.

The word landed like a stone dropped into still water. "What do you mean, no?"

He didn’t explain. Instead he said, "The Ripleys have been looking for your blood for a very long time."

Naya’s chest tightened. "What are you talking about? I am a Ripley."

The certainty she’d carried about her name suddenly felt less solid than it had that morning. Her entire life had been built around knowing where she belonged. If even that could be questioned, what else about her past had been carefully constructed?

He offered nothing further, his expression closing the way a door closes, final and unmoving, and no amount of pressing seemed likely to open it again.

It wasn’t long before Ronan appeared in the doorway, unwilling to stay away, worry written plainly across his face the moment he saw her.

"What did he tell you?"

Naya’s hands were still trembling slightly. She repeated what the elder had said, watching Ronan’s expression shift from concern to something sharper.

He turned to the old man. "Explain yourself. Now."

The elder finally gave them something more. "Her family has visited this region before. They weren’t looking for the village."

"Then what?" Ronan asked.

"They were looking for something buried beneath it."

"What is it?"

The elder’s eyes moved to Naya. "Whatever your family wanted, they never found it."

"What is it?" Naya repeated, her voice quieter now.

"That’s the question you should be asking your father."

Naya’s mind went immediately to the letter she’d burned in the fireplace weeks ago, the cold instructions written in her father’s cramped hand. Get pregnant with his heir. Kill him. She’d assumed his only interest in her marriage was leverage against Ronan.

Now she wondered whether that had ever been the whole truth at all. Maybe Ronan had never been the true target. Maybe she’d been sent into his life because of something he possessed without even knowing it.

The thought made her stomach twist.

The ride back to the palace was quiet. Naya sat rigid in the saddle, her thoughts circling the elder’s words without landing anywhere solid.

"You’ve barely spoken since we left," Ronan said eventually.

She almost told him everything then, the letter, her father’s instructions, the fear that had followed her since the night she’d burned the evidence in her fireplace. The words gathered at the back of her throat and refused to come out.

"I think my father has been lying to me," she said instead.

Ronan didn’t push for more. "Then we’ll find out what he’s hiding."

She looked at him, grateful for the fact that he hadn’t demanded she explain herself right then, that he’d simply offered to help without requiring her to hand over every piece of herself before he’d agree to it.

They stopped to rest as the light faded, Naya’s exhaustion catching up to her all at once. Ronan removed his cloak and settled it over her shoulders without a word.

"You’ve done that before," she said.

"You remember?"

"Unfortunately."

He almost smiled at that. "Good."

It was such a small exchange, but it settled something in her chest, the easy familiarity of it, the fact that neither of them needed grand declarations anymore to understand what had shifted between them. For a moment, the questions about her family faded, leaving only the quiet comfort of having him beside her.

By the time they reached the palace, night had fully settled over the grounds. Naya went straight to her room, tired in a way that reached all the way to her bones, hoping for nothing more than sleep.

Instead, she found a letter waiting on her desk.

Her stomach dropped the moment she recognized the handwriting. She hadn’t received anything from her father since the night she’d burned his last letter in the fireplace, certain she’d never hear from him again, certain the silence meant he’d moved on to whatever new plan he’d concocted without her.

She broke the seal with unsteady hands and unfolded the paper.

There was no greeting, same as before. Just a single line, written in the same hurried hand.

You went to the village.

Naya read it twice, the words refusing to make sense no matter how many times she looked at them.

She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not her father. Not anyone outside the small royal party that had traveled with her and Ronan.

Which meant someone had been watching her.

Or someone had known exactly where she’d go before she ever left the palace at all.

Her fingers tightened around the letter.

And suddenly, the village wasn’t the only place she needed to be afraid of.