6. Torgan
TORGAN
There is no place like Oakenshade Hall on family dinner night, and some nights I mean that as a compliment.
Tonight is not one of them.
"The dress is absolutely stunning, Ma," Ysolde says for the third time. "Duran is going to lose his mind."
"Duran lost his mind when he proposed to you," Saskia says around a mouthful of venison. "That's how proposals work."
"Chew, then insult," Ma says mildly. "In that order."
Our hall is nothing like the dining room at Valeforth.
No servants hover at our elbows, and there are no forks so flimsy they snap if you think too hard while holding one.
Just the long oak table my great-grandfather cut and planed himself, a fire large enough to roast a boar, and my family talking over each other.
They get louder the longer they talk.
Like always, I sit at Pa's right and say nothing. That's my job at these dinners, and I'm very good at it.
The vial of anti-love potion is tucked inside my coat, which hangs on a hook by the door with everyone else's. Ten strides away.
I would feel better if it were on me.
That is an insane thing to think about a coat. I know it. I keep thinking it anyway.
Why should it matter where the potion sits?
No one is going to find it.
I haven't used it, either. For three weeks now, I keep not using it.
I keep carrying it because leaving it anywhere feels worse. Like someone might find it and expose me as both a coward and a traitor.
"Torgan." Ma's voice cuts through the noise without rising at all. "You're brooding at your plate."
"I'm eating my plate."
Brynna snickers beside me.
"The food on my plate," I correct.
Ma is not impressed. "You're brooding first. Eat, Torgan. You can brood properly after I give you the news."
She sets down her knife. The table quiets.
"Parliament is in session in a fortnight, and the queen's delegation has requested me for the full term. All three months."
Pa grunts. It's the closest he comes to showing pride in front of us.
"Which means," Ma continues, "I cannot chaperone any wedding dress fittings in Starling Vale."
Her gaze lands on me.
"Any of them."
"Ma," I say.
"Ysolde's final fitting is this week. Then Brynna begins her dress. Then Saskia. Every fitting, every consultation, every collection." She picks up her knife again, pleased with herself. "You know the way. How many times have you been now? Twice?"
"Three," Brynna says helpfully.
"Three times," Ma repeats. "Practically a local. And that's only for one sister."
I shake my head. "I have duties."
"You have a season with no war and no border trouble," Pa says without looking up from his food. "Your mother and I are handling the trade negotiations. Escort your sisters."
I look down the table.
Every one of my sisters is suddenly fascinated by her venison. Every one except Mirelle, who looks straight at me with her chin raised.
I know that look.
Godsdammit.
"I want her too," Mirelle says. "The dressmaker. Lissy Sunfell. When it's my turn, I want her to make mine."
When it's my turn.
Mirelle is not engaged. Mirelle is not even courting anyone officially, not in a way brought before this family and this table. She is twenty years old and in love with a human she met at a ball three months ago.
The only people here who know how far it has gone are Mirelle, me, and probably Brynna, because those two share everything.
Including poor judgment in men.
"Your turn?" Pa repeats. "Are you planning something, little one?"
"A girl can be prepared," Mirelle says sweetly.
Brynna snorts, and the conversation moves on.
I put a piece of venison in my mouth and chew until it has the texture of boot leather.
The knock comes an hour later, after the plates have been cleared and Pa has opened the good mead. Ysolde is forcing everyone to admire fabric swatches while I sit in my chair and consider the sentence Ma has handed down.
Three sisters. Every fitting.
Four, if Mirelle gets her way.
How did one dress turn into an entire season of this?
Harek, our doorwarden, leans into the hall. He has an expression I don't recognize, which is unusual. Harek has two faces. Bored because no one is dying, or eager because someone might.
This is neither.
"Visitors, my lord. Human." He pauses. "The Voss sons."
Mirelle lets out a small shriek.
I'm on my feet before I know I've moved.
So is she.
That tells me everything I have spent months hoping isn’t true.
"Show them in," Pa says.
Then he gives me a look, so I sit down.
I hate every second of it.
The two humans enter together. Even without an introduction, I would know exactly who they are.
The one in front is polished like expensive furniture. Dark hair slicked back. Smile already in place. His eyes add up everything they touch. The tapestries. The silver. My sisters.
He bows exactly as low as manners require and not a hair farther.
"Lord Oakenshade. My lady." He inclines his head to Ma. "Princeton Voss, at your service. Forgive the hour. My brother insisted, and since Caden rarely insists on anything, I've learned to indulge him."
Behind him stands the younger Voss son.
Caden is not what I expected. I imagined a younger copy of his father. Sleepy eyes. Careful voice. A man who takes his time deciding how much you're worth.
Instead, Caden has wind-tossed brown hair and keeps looking at the shields on our walls, the fire, the doors. Anywhere but us.
He's afraid.
He came anyway.
What am I supposed to do with that?
I want very badly to hate him. I sit there and work at it.
But I know duty when I see it. And Caden is bound by something that looks a great deal like duty.
"My lord." His voice cracks on the first word. He clears his throat and pushes on. Fine. That is worth something. "Lord Oakenshade. Lady Oakenshade. I apologize for arriving unannounced. I was afraid if I sent word ahead, I would lose my nerve waiting for your reply."
"Depends on what you want at this hour," Pa says.
It isn't approval.
It also isn't a refusal.
Caden licks his lips. He must have expected this. Brave enough to stand before Pa, at least.
"I've come to ask..."
His eyes find Mirelle.
Something changes in his face. I recognize it immediately, because I've seen the same helpless devotion on every sister who has fallen in love.
I hate recognizing it now.
"I've come to ask your blessing to court your daughter Mirelle. Formally. In the open. The way it should have been done from the beginning."
"We've been..." Mirelle starts, edging closer to him.
"We know what you've been," Ma says.
Mirelle wisely closes her mouth.
Princeton wanders toward the fire and warms his hands, smiling at nothing. Already bored. Or determined to appear that way.
He is more like their father.
Hiding behind manners.
"And I've brought..." Caden fumbles with the satchel over his shoulder. His hands are shaking. He pulls out a parcel wrapped in plain cloth and crosses the hall to Mirelle.
Then he drops to one knee.
Not the human proposal posture. Lower. His head bows until his brow nearly touches the stone.
An orc beginning.
Humans aren't supposed to know it.
"I asked how orcs do this," Caden says. His voice is quieter now, meant only for Mirelle even though every one of us can hear. "They told me a gift you buy means nothing. It has to be made."
He places the parcel in her hands.
Mirelle unwraps it slowly.
Inside is a small wooden box, crudely made by hands that do not understand wood. The joints don't quite meet. The lid sits crooked. One corner has been sanded lower than the others, as though he kept trying to repair a mistake and only made it worse.
By any craftsman's standard, it is a terrible box.
Mirelle looks at it like it's a crown.
Caden's ears are crimson when he gets back to his feet. He rises too quickly for proper manners, but he tried.
"I've never made anything before," he says. "I'm used to buying things. Pretty things. But I wanted to do this properly, and I ruined four attempts before this one. I'm sorry it isn't better."
Mirelle starts crying.
My baby sister once bit a tutor for putting her in a corner. She drove her heel through my boot at Valeforth Hall. Now she stands in the middle of our home, holding a crooked box and openly crying.
"The imperfections are what make it perfect," Ma says softly. "It shows how hard you tried."
I look away before anyone sees my face.
Our coats hang on the wall by the door.
Mine is among them. Inside the inner pocket is the small blue vial I've carried for three weeks.
Ten strides.
I paid twenty gold pieces for one month of Mirelle feeling nothing for the human standing in front of her.
I could use it tonight. If Pa accepts Caden's courtship, there will be a celebration. Mead passed around. Cups refilled. No one would notice a few drops of blue liquid.
My stomach twists.
I don't move.
I can't.
Pa gives a gruff answer that is as close to a blessing as Caden will ever receive.
Ysolde immediately asks what he thinks of autumn weddings.
Saskia offers to teach him to spar in a tone that should frighten him much more than it does.
Mirelle hooks her arm through his and beams at the human who stole her heart.
Just like that, he's inside the family. Everyone folds him into the noise as though he belongs here.
I keep watching Mirelle for some sign that this is wrong.
What am I supposed to find when there is nothing there?
I don't see one.
And then, uninvited, I hear Lissy's voice from the dress shop.
Why her? Why now?
You'll miss them.
"I recognize that expression," someone says beside me.
Princeton Voss slides into the chair at my shoulder with his goblet. He settles in as though we're old friends.
"You must be Mirelle's older brother." His eyes pass over me the same way they passed over our silver. "She couldn't stop talking about you at Valeforth."
"Then the conversation at Valeforth must have been thrilling."
He laughs. "I'll confess, this is all... charming." He gestures lazily with his cup. "Rustic. My little brother has gone completely native, carving boxes for an interspecies courtship."
He takes a drink, then swirls the mead as he studies it.
"Do you know Starling Vale well? Sweet little town. I've been spending time there recently. On business."
The pause is bait.
I take it anyway.
"What business?"
He shrugs. "Property, mostly. It's an undervalued market. All those quaint shops along the main street, half of them held by sentimental old landlords who don't understand what they're sitting on."
He smiles at me.
"There's a dress shop, actually. You would know it. I hear your sisters are clients. Prime location. Terrible finances, from what I can find. The kind of place that will go bankrupt on its own in a year or two." He considers that, pleased. "Buying it now would be a mercy."
"Choose your next words carefully."
I don't raise my voice.
Princeton stops with the cup halfway to his mouth.
For one bare moment, the charming merchant vanishes. Something colder looks back at me.
I don't like it.
It doesn't like me either.
Then the smile returns.
"Merely business talk, my lord. Dull stuff." He stands and claps my shoulder as though we're friends. "Look after that little brother of mine, hm? He's the good one."
He drifts back toward Caden and Mirelle.
I sit there with my pulse beating in my throat.
Why do I care?
Over what? A shop that isn't mine. A woman who isn't mine. A woman who hums while she pins fabric and calls my sisters happy.
The thought of Princeton Voss tearing apart everything she has built makes my hands curl into fists.
Fuck.
I find Mirelle alone on the east parapet after the Voss brothers leave. She leans against the stone with the crooked box held in both hands, smiling down at it.
"Mirelle."
"Don't," she says without turning.
"I haven't said anything."
"You've been saying it all night. You say a great deal for a male who barely talks."
She turns. The smile is gone. The expression beneath it belongs to someone much older than twenty. Someone preparing for bad news to take her happiness away.
"Go on, then. Say it again. His family is dangerous. His father is a viper. His brother assessed our assets all evening." Her chin lifts. "I saw it too. I'm not an idiot."
"His brother is trying to buy up Starling Vale. Including the building where your dressmaker works."
Her fingers tighten around the box.
"Caden isn't them," she says. Her voice shakes.
"Caden is a Voss. When his father calls for him, and he will, Caden will go. That's what the sons of rich fathers do, Mirelle. They obey because they know what happens if they don't."
"Is that what you would do?"
I swallow. "That's different."
"Because you're the son here."
She steps close enough that she has to tilt her head all the way back to meet my eyes. She has never been afraid of me. I have always been proud of that.
Right now, I almost wish she were afraid enough to stop.
"I know you, Torgan. Duran was too old. Evander was too soft. You have never approved of anyone entering our lives."
"Because someone has to watch over you."
"No one has to!"
Her shout bounces off the stone. She draws a breath, but it doesn't steady her.
"He ruined four boxes, Torgan. Four. And I am going to marry him. You can stand beside me when I do..."
She waits, daring me to argue.
"Or you can become a story I tell about the brother I used to have."
The vial is in my coat downstairs.
It has never felt heavier. Or farther away.
"I'm asking you once," she says, quieter now. "Just don't. Don't protect me from the best thing that has ever happened to me. If you try to stop this, Torgan, if you take this from me, I will never forgive you."
What am I supposed to promise when I don't know what I'll do?
My mouth fills with the words she wants.
I can't make them come out.
I've never made one of my sisters a promise I couldn't keep.
I don't know if I can keep this one.
Mirelle watches me for a long moment. Then she nods once.
"That's what I thought."
She walks past me and disappears into the hall.
Fuck.
I stay on the parapet long after the lights below have gone dark.
Somewhere beyond the Coalhazy Mountains is a town with a dress shop in it. Its owner has no idea that Princeton Voss is waiting for her to fail.
Every fitting, Ma said. Every consultation.
Fine.
Fine.