Chapter 20
Everly
Wynnie requested a bottle of icewine the moment she reached the rooms, several minutes after Draven icewalked me here.
Lumen padded in behind her, silent as snowfall, settling near the hearth with his ears pricked toward the door like he expected trouble to follow.
Mirelda only raised her eyebrows at my sister, but Wynnie stared her down.
“No, none of that one glass per person rule today. That rule does not apply when one’s whoremonger of a father shows up like the shards-damned village hero after months without a single word and then talks about making babies. ”
My stoic maid looked as unfazed as ever while Batty squeaked from my shoulder in what I could only assume was support. I couldn’t help but notice that Wynnie had left out the most important detail, the whole, probably dying thing.
“Have you had dinner yet, My Lady?” Mirelda asked pointedly.
Wynnie turned to my husband, a mix between a demand and a plea playing out on her features. “Tell her we deserve wine without judgment today.”
An unexpected laugh escaped me, only a little edged with hysteria. Asking Mirelda to reserve her judgment was like asking the snow not to be cold.
“Don’t worry about it,” I directed my words at Wynnie. “We can always just go ask Soren for his stash of Emberkiss.”
It was a mostly empty threat, but Draven let out a long-suffering sigh.
“We will take a bottle of wine with our dinner tonight, please,” he said to Mirelda, who smiled at him like he was responsible for the sun and moon and the auroras themselves, just as she always did.
I had come to suspect she had been something of a grandmother to him, the way she beamed with pride at his barest attempt at civility.
Wynnie looked at him after Mirelda left, giving him an approving nod.
“I knew you couldn’t possibly be a shartwyrm all of the time, unlike other males who have recently entered the palace.” It was as close to a thank you as she would come where Draven was concerned.
He blinked, then seemed to make a choice not to acknowledge her at all.
Instead he turned to me, surveying me in that too-observant way of his.
I tried to show some semblance of strength, but my limbs felt heavy, my pulse a little too loud in my ears.
Batty nudged her head beneath my jaw, sensing my exhaustion instantly.
He looked between me and my sister, then at Batty, who was standing sentry on my shoulder like a frost-furred gargoyle.
“I’m going to shower before dinner,” he announced after a beat.
I nodded, grateful for the way that, in spite of his generally overprotective nature, he always seemed to sense when I needed a moment with my sister.
It was moments like this I could almost see our future coming together, could see the ways we intrinsically understood one another in between all the ways we intrinsically didn’t.
When he left, I fixed my attention on Wynnie, who was storming toward the closet while she irritably ripped at her buttons.
“You had better give me some comfortable shards-damned nightclothes this time, Closet,” she called out. “I swear to the Shard Mother I will slowly unravel every one of your favorite gowns if I have to wear another lacy monstrosity on the top of this shardsforsaken day.”
Lumen lifted his head at Wynnie’s tone, giving her a slow blink that looked suspiciously judgmental before resting his chin back on his paws.
The closet was ominously silent for several heartbeats before it apparently decided her threat was genuine. A flannel nightgown sailed out to smack her in the face.
It was patterned in puce green and an even more offensive shade of orange, colors I hadn’t been aware existed in my wardrobe. My sister narrowed her eyes, running her hands along the fabric while Batty let out what I could have sworn was a tiny snort.
“Take your wins where you can get them,” I warned Wynnie.
“Fine. Another one for my sister, but warmer,” she demanded.
The second nightdress was also flung directly at Wynnie’s person, but this one was navy and silver, intricately patterned and lined with plush fur.
“Yes, you’ve made your point,” Wynnie snapped, tossing the fabric at me with far more gentleness than the closet had thrown it at her.
We changed in silence, but for the curses Wynnie grumbled under her breath. Batty curled herself into the fluff of my collar, her tiny heartbeat thrumming along my shoulder like she was trying to soothe mine into matching it.
When Mirelda returned with heaping plates of food and the world’s smallest bottle of wine, she cast a predictably displeased glance at our comfortable state—wholly inappropriate for dinner even in one’s own rooms, according to her—but said nothing.
Lumen chose that moment to scoot closer to me, sniffing not-so-subtly toward my plate. I snuck him a small piece of food, and Mirelda pretended not to notice, lest she have to express her disapproval for that as well.
Only when she had excused herself and Wynnie was already pouring the wine did I finally ask the question I had been mulling over.
“Is he… a shartwyrm all the time?” I asked, my fingers absently stroking Batty’s back.
She let out a humorless laugh, tossing back her spiral curls.
“Surely you know that better than I do. He’s your husband, after all.
But no, I don’t actually think that as much as I think he’s in need of a solid stick-from-ass removal.
He’s shown hints that one day he could even be fun, post-removal, obviously. ”
I shook my head, lips tilted in a smirk at her deliberate misunderstanding. “No, I meant our father.”
My sister went still. For several seconds, the steady stream of wine trickling into the glass was the only sound in the room. Even Batty’s wings froze mid-flutter, a few errant snowflakes settling on my shoulder. Then Wynnie set my glass next to me, settling into a chair with her own.
“I don’t know, really. Is being absent the same thing as being a shartwyrm? I suppose it could have been worse.” She shrugged, though bitterness bled into her words like ink spilling onto fresh parchment.
“Was he like that before I showed up?” I asked, shifting as the fur collar suddenly felt too warm.
I had wondered more than once what their relationship would have been like if I hadn’t arrived. Was he already a drunkard? Did my arrival tip the scales? Did she only hate him for my sake?
“Not as bad, I suppose,” Wynnie said, taking a sip of wine that seemed to sting on the way down.
“But he was always distant. When you came it was like… like looking at you hurt him. I never knew if it was because he had loved your mother or hated her, but he must have felt something for her if it bothered him that much.”
I weighed her words against what I knew of the male, then his confused plea in the infirmary. He had pushed my mother to leave… for her own safety, and for mine.
“Do you think so? With the way he loves to whore around, I’ve wondered if it wasn’t just a… moment of escape in grief.” My throat tightened, my fingers curling into Batty’s fur.
Wynnie and I were only a couple of years apart. Her mother had died when she was an infant, but that still didn’t leave much time for… my conception.
We made twin faces of disgust at the idea of our father having any kind of escape.
“No,” Wynnie countered. “He might have cared about my mother, but theirs was an arranged marriage. He didn’t love her.”
“Does he love anyone?” I muttered.
Even as I said the words, I wondered how much I meant them.
He had taken me in when he knew I posed a threat to his entire existence, to the daughter he claimed.
He had acknowledged me as his daughter when he could have claimed me as a ward, had given me his name instead of leaving me with a single name, which was the custom for bastards in the Seelie Courts.
I had never brought myself to ask him why, and now… now maybe I never would. I swallowed back another sip of wine, watching my sister do the same as she fixed her gaze on the puffy clouds just outside my window.
“I don’t know,” she said again. “I like to think he’s at least capable of it.
Otherwise, why risk his life to keep you close?
And even with Yorrick.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I was so angry to be sold off to the highest bidder like a prize Aldrath steed. But Father didn’t need money.
I’ve seen the state of the accounts. He didn’t care about status.
He married me to someone who was known to be…
eccentric. Out of court life. Placid. Yorrick’s family was old, untouchable. ”
I digested her words, looking at her marriage in a different light. Had it been to keep her safe… or both of us? Away from politics and shrouded in the protection of an ancient family line, no one would ask questions about her shut-in bastard sister.
Did his motives even matter when he had still been an absentee whoremongering drunk?
“It doesn’t excuse everything else he was,” she said as though she had plucked the thought from my mind. “But also…” Wynnie trailed off uncharacteristically, biting her lip.
“What?” I pushed, my chest tightening again.
“Do you remember all the servants who disappeared?” she asked, returning her gaze to me.
I tilted my head. “Yes, but I always assumed they just left when he wasn’t there to keep them in line.”
“Well… maybe.” She took a reluctant bite of her roll, chewing slowly.
I narrowed my eyes. “But?”
A breath of air whooshed out of her. “But it was always after you had lost control of your wings, or one of them had questioned why you never used your mana.”
“So the stableboy didn’t just abandon his post…” My mouth went dry. Batty pressed harder into my collarbone as if she feared my heartbeat might outrun the room.
I had taken a risk, losing my virginity to anyone at all. Even then, I had been prepared. Lanterns off. Clothes on. Measures that were wholly unnecessary when his downstairs fumbling left me in no danger at all of losing control.