Elowen set her cup down. "Attend the Compact revision sessions. Speak when asked about the wyvern's behavior—plain speech, no poetry. Train under Yarrow so that if the crimson continues to choose your company, you do not get yourself killed through ignorance. Visit Perrin once, with me, so the boy sees you as a cousin who bowed out, not as a ghost waiting to replace him. And write to Millcross only through Morr's couriers until spring. Vaunt's men will watch the roads."
"And you?" Bram asked. "What does this cost you?"
She was quiet long enough that he thought she might not answer. Then: "Three council allies will peel away because I elevated a common-blood complication. Vaunt will call me soft on borders. The chapel priests will say I desecrated Mara's tomb by admitting she lived in sin with a farrier." Her eyes flicked to him. "Orrin. I mean no insult to him. I am listing the sermons."
"He can take sermons," Bram said. "He's taken worse."
"I will also," Elowen continued, "have to tell Perrin that his grandfather lied about a sister's death. That conversation will not make me beloved. I am prepared to be unbeloved. I am less prepared to be the regent who put a collar on a thinking creature because a duke wanted a flying siege engine."
Bram nodded slowly. "For what it's worth—I don't forgive you for the knife shape. But I understand the hand that held it."
Elowen's laugh was brief and real. "That is more honesty than court usually budgets for. Keep it. Spend it carefully."
---
King Perrin was a serious child with dark hair and a habit of asking questions that arrived like arrows.
They met in the nursery solar, where wooden soldiers lay in careful formations and a window looked over the kitchen gardens. Elowen sat beside him. Bram sat opposite, feeling too large for the small chairs, which was perhaps the point.
"You're my cousin," Perrin said.
"So they tell me," Bram answered.
"You gave up being king."
"I gave up trying to be king. I never was one."