Chapter 25
On the third day since her return home, Bronwyn dragged Ceridwen from the kitchen where she gathered scraps to take out to the animals.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she insisted while pulling her through the hallway decorated with faded and peeling wallpaper.
“What? What is it?” Ceridwen asked for the third time.
She didn’t answer. Bronwyn’s silence held more terror than any words she could speak.
As they came into the front room, Ceridwen realized the reason for her silence. It stripped the words from her thoughts as well.
Jackoby stood just inside the front door near a heap of chests and smaller items that someone had brought in. Father was with him and had opened the largest chest. Within lay layers and piles of luxurious fabrics in colors and patterns she wouldn’t soon forget. Her dresses. The ones Drystan had commissioned.
Tears pricked her eyes at the sight of the small, long box in Jackoby’s arms. Her flute. They’d yet to order a new one—not that she’d even considered playing since her return. Leaving Drystan had crushed her will to play, even for her mother.
“Lord Winterbourne asked that these be brought for you since you accidentally left them behind in your departure.”
Ceridwen barely heard his careful words as she searched for any hint of a deeper meaning in his face. As usual, Jackoby gave little away.
“He also sent this for you as well.” Jackoby lifted the sealed envelope in his hand for emphasis. With the other treasures he’d brought, she hadn’t noticed the thick paper with a rose stamped upon its closure in crimson wax.
Ceridwen took the letter and her flute case with shaking hands. “Thank you.” It meant more than he could ever know.
He nodded. “I will pass along your appreciation to Lord Winterbourne.” Then his face softened, showing something resembling friendly concern. “Please read the letter and consider it. Not just for him, for all of us.”
The words struck deep in her chest. She hadn’t just left Drystan. She’d left them all.
“I will.” She could promise that much.
Jackoby left a final sack of gold coins with her father—payment for services rendered, plus extra. So much more than she deserved. After his departure, Bronwyn and Ceridwen relocated the chests of clothing to her room.
“This will be perfect for the winter ball,” Bronwyn said, airing out the blue dress she’d worn to honor the first snow—the same night she’d witnessed Drystan’s attack. She hadn’t known then about the monster lurking beneath the surface. Looking back, she should have, but she never considered it possible that a man could become such a beast. Especially not Drystan.
“You’re going to go, aren’t you?” Bronwyn asked.
Honestly, she hadn’t realized the ball would be held so soon. Within the manor, one day seemed much like the next, and the ball wasn’t even a consideration while she’d lived there.
From the corner of her eye, Ceridwen saw her sister lay the dress over a cushioned chair before coming to sit next to her on the bed. She took Ceridwen’s hands in hers. “You haven’t heard a word of what I’ve said, have you?”
“I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.” Ceridwen flashed a weak smile.
“Are you going to open it?” Bronwyn nodded toward the envelope on the side table, the object that had held Ceridwen’s almost full attention since Jackoby had placed it into her hands.
A deep sigh slipped from her lips. “There’s something I haven’t told you. Several things, actually, but one important one. The real reason I ran.”
“It wasn’t because of the monster in the manor?” she asked.
“It was, but there’s more than that.” She licked her lips, hesitating before sharing the next bit. “If I tell you, it can never leave this room. Promise me.”
She raised her free hand in front of her. “By the Goddess and the sanctity of the old oak we played under as girls, I solemnly promise not to tell.” Their greatest promise and vow of sisterhood.
Satisfied, Ceridwen began. “He wasn’t the lazy vagabond of a lord we suspected him to be when he came here. He seemed that way at first, even within his home, but then something changed. He softened somehow. Even cleaned himself up. Underneath it all, he was kind. Charming. A handsome young lord.”
“You liked him,” she said.
Her heart twisted. “I did, and I believe he cared for me too. And how wonderful it was to play for him. He made music come alive in my heart again.”
“Oh, Ceridwen…”
That was the easy admission. The harder one came now. “I accused him of being a lazy lord and not caring about his people being terrorized by the monster in their midst. That’s when he told me that he worked every night to keep the monster at bay.” She shook her head, recalling their time together. “I heard it sometimes while I stayed there. Always at night. But not once did I see it. Not until that last day.”
“Bronwyn…” Her hands tightened on her sister’s. “Lord Winterbourne is the monster.”
Bronwyn’s eyes flew wide. Her lips parted.
“It must be magic,” Ceridwen hurried on, looking away from her sister’s wild expression. “He’s one of the nobles that can wield it. Though I don’t know why it causes him to change like that.”
“Magic…” her sister murmured in apparent shock.
“He’d not left his tower for two days, and I’d grown concerned. All the residents of the manor had. Yet no one would enter the tower to discover what had happened. I didn’t know why. I do now. At first, I thought it was empty, ransacked. I feared that Drystan may have been killed by the monster he claimed to protect us from. But then I found it on the top floor.”
Her chest grew tight, burning with emotion. “The monster attacked me as I tried to flee. But then it began to change, to become more human. It spoke with Drystan’s voice. He called out my name and begged me to stay, but I—”The memories finally choked off her words.
“You ran,” Bronwyn finished. Her earlier surprise faded into sadness.
Ceridwen nodded as Bronwyn pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. Tears streamed down her face.
“It’s all right. I would have too. I think anyone would when confronted by a shock like that. But—” She pulled Ceridwen back until she could look her in the eye again. “If you care about him, as I believe you do, you need to read his letter. See what he has to say. It won’t change what happened, or that he kept such a thing from you, but you should do it for yourself, if nothing else.”
Ceridwen nodded and breathed deeply. “I know. I will. I just…”
Bronwyn patted her leg. “Take your time. I’ll be here if you want to talk about it afterward. You’ve become so much braver since you left us. I know you can handle this.” With that, she left her alone with Drystan’s words, still sealed with the crimson rose of wax.
It took time for her sister’s praise to sink in. Braver? She didn’t feel like it, though she’d done a number of things she never could have imagined only a few weeks ago. Ceridwen was the quiet younger sibling. Always polite. Never outspoken like Adair and Bronwyn. Yet she’d been the one to criticize a noble and face down a monster. Perhaps, outside their shadows, she’d finally started to find her own spark.
After a few more minutes of indecision, she finally pried open the seal and pulled out the letter—one thick sheet of paper folded twice.
Dearest Ceridwen,
An apology would be insufficient for the event that occurred between us. But know that if I could have kept you from that, I would have.
I thought I was keeping you safe, protecting you from the things I wish I could change. I see now that I was wrong. I’d give anything to fix what happened, and it destroys me that I can’t.
Your music helps me more than you know, and your bright spirit is the light that brought me back from deep darkness. I miss it. I miss you.
If you would deign to return, I would be willing to increase the terms of our arrangement.
I pray the Goddess grants me your presence again before my time is up.
Drystan
She expected anger or hurt. Yet all that filled her after reading his letter was empty, numbing sadness. He’d been carefully vague, but of course he would be. Putting his monstrous side into words, and signed in his hand, would be damning if Ceridwen chose to wield that against him.
Of all his words, the last line bothered her the most. Drystan mentioned returning to the capital at midwinter, but why not say that? Such travel would not be unexpected for a noble.
A cord of unease slithered its way into the emptiness within her. Drystan held more secrets than she ever imagined, and worse ones than anyone would reasonably believe. But perhaps, she’d yet to learn the extent of them. Whatever plagued the Lord Protector of Teneboure and led to his monstrous form, she had a suspicion that he did not expect to survive it.
That night, Ceridwen chose to play again. The song she picked had been her mother’s favorite and the first she had memorized. The words of the song sang themselves in her heart as she played the tune with practiced ease from her customary perch on the usable portion of the roof of the house, letting the notes float out into the cold night.
A second song followed the first. Despite the cold that stiffened her limbs through layers of fabric, she raised her flute and began a third. As the warmed metal came to rest against her lip, an imaginary spider skittered down her back.
Always she felt eyes on her when she played outside. Her mother watching from the Goddess’s hallowed halls, she assumed. Though often, the tingles came from the direction of the manor. Perhaps Drystan had listened and watched long before they’d been introduced. Actually, she was almost certain of it.
But this new feeling was more intense. Stronger. As if whomever watched stood just behind her. She lowered her flute with shaking hands but could not will herself to turn.
“Drystan?” she whispered.
The world grew still, holding its breath with her.
When the reply came, the familiar voice nearly chilled her to the bone. “Ceridwen.”
She spun around, desperately seeking the source of her name. The rooftop was empty, but near the edge, the snow had been marred and scraped away as if someone had climbed onto the roof from the street below. Yet she’d never heard a sound.
She hustled through the packed snow to the edge of the low railing. Her hand found purchase in the marred snow, the imprint almost warm under her glove, as she gazed down into the street below. Empty. No Drystan, no monster, nor anyone else. With the snow shoveled in haphazard mounds and the tracks of many footprints and animal hooves in what remained, finding fresh tracks proved impossible. Yet she knew what she’d heard, what she’d felt.
“Drystan…”
Sleep did not come easily after the strange, almost encounter the night before. When the rooster finally crowed with the dawn, Ceridwen had already been awake and staring at the dark ceiling of her room. She slipped back inside after feeding the animals to hear a deep pounding echoing down the stairs from the main hall. Someone knocked at the front door. Aggressively.
They weren’t expecting anyone. The whole town would be busy preparing for the winter ball that evening, yet this visitor had no intention of waiting. Or being polite.
Only one face came to mind, and that image had her rushing through the halls toward the door. When she finally made it there, lightly huffing for air, Bronwyn had arrived from somewhere, only a few paces behind her.
Ceridwen’s pulse raced with excitement as she closed her palm around the heavy metal handle and pulled. The sight that greeted her, however, sent her heart plummeting into her stomach.
Malik stood on the doorstep, dark hair slightly tousled. His green eyes sparked with mirth, and his characteristic smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth.
Of all the people Ceridwen imagined showing up at the door, he’d never come to mind at all.
“Hello again, dear Ceridwen.”
“Is that…” Bronwyn began.
Malik’s brows rose as a grin stretched wide across his face. “Oh, so you’ve heard stories about me, have you?” He brushed by her and strode toward Bronwyn. To her sister’s credit, she held her ground and stared him down.
“No. I haven’t spoken of you at all.” Ceridwen stepped in front of Malik. “You’re not welcome here.”
Malik cocked his head to the side.
“She said you’re not welcome here,” Bronwyn echoed in a show of solidarity.
His grin dropped into a dramatic frown. “Really, that’s such a pity.” He leaned on the wall, showing no intention of leaving. “Though before I go, tell me one thing. Why did you leave him?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “That’s not your business.”
“Oh, it might be,” he said.
His gaze settled on Ceridwen like a slimy eel as his lips quirked up in one corner. That’s right. He’d been sent to watch Drystan, to report on his actions. Turning into a monster would certainly be a mark against him.
“We had a disagreement.”
“Is that all?”
Ceridwen pursed her lips and held her ground.
“Well, just a disagreement doesn’t sound too bad. Perhaps you’d consider returning?” He cocked his head in question.
Her brows furrowed. “Why do you want me to return?”
He smirked. “Who doesn’t want a pretty view around such a dreary manor?”
Ridiculous.She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. Bronwyn rolled her eyes.
“But honestly, you help him,” he added, his smirk smoothing out into something resembling a decent gentlemanly demeanor. “The last time I was here, I saw a glimmer of the man he used to be, and perhaps could be again—with your help, that is.”
“You want to help him?” Ceridwen asked, incredulous.
“Maybe, depending on his intentions.”
So vague. Just like Drystan’s letter. Some puzzle piece eluded her, but Ceridwen couldn’t begin to find it or determine where it fit.
“Besides,” he added, finally crossing the room and stepping out the door onto the threshold of the house. “We are cousins. What’s family for?”
“I’ll consider it.” Anything to get him to leave and stay gone.
“Good.” He nodded before looking past Ceridwen. His gaze fixed on something, likely Bronwyn, and glittered with mirth before he turned to walk away.
Ceridwen didn’t waste a breath before she slammed the door closed behind him with more force than necessary.
“Who was that?” Bronwyn asked. When Ceridwen turned to her, she slid a metal hairpin into her pocket. That’s what Malik found amusing? Her sister’s desire to skewer him?
“Drystan’s cousin,” Ceridwen replied, letting all her bitterness fill her words.
A soft whisper slipped through her sister’s lips. “Is he a monster too?”
“Of a different sort.” Though if he turned beastly in the flesh as well, it wouldn’t surprise her.