Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ayanna
Aric leaves with Eero and my father under the polite label of errands—which, in their world, covers anything from negotiations to threats to violence. That leaves me with my mother and sister, though Naomi vanishes upstairs as soon as mother and I move to the drawing room.
Traitor.
Maylin follows me exactly as Aric ordered her. Half a step behind me, silent, and watchful, and most likely armed.
“Maylin.” I turn toward her. “Would you mind waiting outside while I speak with my mother?”
“I can’t leave your side, Mrs. Vold. Boss’s orders.”
Of course.
Well then. I straighten, just enough to remind her that technically, hierarchy has shifted. “Don’t forget I’m Mrs. Vold now. Which means I outrank you, too. My husband made it clear I’m entitled to give orders.”
Maylin’s brows lift. Across the room, my mother’s mouth parts.
“So you should comply. Otherwise I might have to mention to my husband that you ignored me.”
Maylin hesitates. “But it’s your order against his, Mrs. Vold.”
Fair argument.
“Is he here right now?” I tilt my head. “No? That simplifies things. I’m not asking you to fly to Norway. Just wait outside. Five minutes. Ten. Lord knows I’m not planning an escape through my mother’s drawing room.”
A smile fights at the corner of her mouth and loses. “Yes, ma’am.”
She steps out, closing the door behind her with an expression that tells me she’s already drafting how she’ll justify it later.
I’ll handle Aric if it comes to that.
My mother sits on the lilac settee by the low brass table, a cup of mint tea cooling beside her.
Spine straight, hands folded—exactly the way she taught me.
Dark hair swept up off a face that’s only a softer, older echo of my own, every feeling locked behind it the way I was taught to lock mine. A queen in everything but title.
She studies me the moment we’re alone. “How is your new life?”
Images flash in my mind before I can find an answer.
Aric throwing himself over me as the bullet flew.
Aric holding Luca captive. Aric, cold as a fjord one moment and unbearably gentle the next.
Norway. Elske. Vidar at the head of his table.
The endless tightrope stretched between safety and danger. Him.
Not the life I imagined.
Not quite the nightmare I feared, either.
“It’s… not as bad as I expected,” I admit.
Her shoulders come down a fraction. “I’m glad he’s behaving like a decent man.” The skepticism doesn’t leave her eyes. “Given that family’s reputation, we feared he’d treat you like a beast.”
“He’s different from his father.”
That part, at least, is true. Vidar radiates domination—control for the pleasure of it. Aric controls because the world built him to. It’s a distinction I never expected to make.
“Don’t let that fool you, Ayanna,” she says. “He’s still an enemy.”
Enemy. Funny word for a husband.
“The enemy you’re describing is my husband,” I remind her. “And you’re the one who arranged it.”
Her lips press thin. Pride, stung. “We did what was necessary.”
Necessary. That word has ruined more lives than hatred ever has.
She reaches for the tea, takes a graceful sip, then sets it down again. “And your…” She hesitates—and my mother never hesitates. “Your wedding night?”
The awkwardness settles over us both at once, and I understand the silence that follows. We don’t speak of such things in this house. It isn’t proper.
“We didn’t exactly have one.” I lower my gaze for a fraction as I say.
Her head lifts, eyes snapping to mine. “What do you mean?”
“We haven’t slept together.”
“Ayanna.” She presses a hand flat to the table as though the floor’s tilted beneath her. “If the marriage isn’t consummated, it can be annulled. You must secure your position.”
Position. Not happiness. Not love. Position.
“You need an heir.” The words hit harder than they should. Perhaps because Luca’s grave isn’t even filled yet.
Because that’s the thing no one in this house will say out loud—not my father at lunch, not my mother now, not a single soul since I stepped off that plane.
No one has spoken his name. I came home to bury Luca, and this family has already decided the kindest thing to do with him is pretend he never existed.
They’ll lower him into Monserian soil and into the same silence they keep for everything inconvenient—and in the very same breath, they’ll ask me about heirs.
“This alliance gives your father access to power,” my mother continues, without ever noticing the pain I’m carrying inside. “It protects Monsera.”
Of course it does. Everything protects Monsera. Everything except the people sacrificed for it.
I nod, because nodding is easier than the truth clawing its way up my throat. Even here, in the house where I grew up, I was never a daughter.
Just an asset that learned to walk.
My old bedroom hasn’t changed. Same cream walls. Same carved headboard. Same balcony doors breathing in that warm Monsera air. Everything exactly where I left it weeks ago, and standing in the middle of it feels like walking through someone else’s life instead of coming back to my own.
Norway did that. Stripped the comfort out of the familiar. Taught me how quickly a home can turn into nothing more than an address.
My suitcase sits unopened by the wardrobe. I don’t bother with it. I won’t be here long enough for unpacking to mean anything.
Maylin remains posted outside the door. She planted herself there the second I left my mother as though I might evaporate the moment no one’s watching.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, fingers trailing the embroidered duvet, when a knock comes soft against the door. It cracks open before I answer, just wide enough for a familiar face to slip through.
“Can I?”
“Always.”
Naomi steps in and eases the door shut. She looks exactly the same. Dark brown hair spilling past her shoulders, hazel eyes brighter than mine have ever been. Father’s coloring, Mother’s temperament. The lucky half of each.
“I missed you.” She gives me that sheepish little smile.
Something in my chest unclenches for the first time since I landed. “I missed you too.”
“So. Is the big scary husband keeping you entertained?”
I huff a laugh. “Scary’s a strong word.”
“Mom thinks it fits.”
“Mom sees monsters in the cutlery.”
We both laugh, though it fades too fast, and her hands start that anxious twist in her lap I’ve known since we were small.
“Out with it,” I say.
“It’s nothing. I—”
“Naomi.”
Her breath leaves in a thin stream. “I think they’re arranging something.”
The warmth drains out of me like a plug pulled loose.
“What kind of something?”
Her eyes lift to mine, careful, like the words might cut us both on the way out.
“A marriage.”
For one ridiculous second, I’m sure I misheard. Then the cold floods in behind my ribs and settles, and I know I didn’t.
“You’re barely eighteen.” My voice has already sharpened to a blade. “You’ve been an adult for all of five minutes.”
She nods, eyes glazing. “I heard Father with Uncle Sofiane yesterday talking about a new alliance.”
Of course. Could’ve expected that. My father sees his daughters the way other men see land—what it’s worth or who he can trade it to.
“No.” Anger flares through me. “No,” I repeat, gentler, taking her hands to still them. “That is not happening.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can.”
Because Father swore to me—swore—that Naomi would stay out of it. That was my price. The one condition I bled out of him before I’d put my name on that contract: my life for the alliance, and my sister left her own.
And he’s already breaking it.
I pull her into me before the fury can reach my face. She folds in instantly, the way she used to when storms rattled the palace windows and she’d climb into my bed, certain I could keep the thunder out.
“I won’t let them do this to you,” I murmur into her hair. “I’ll handle it.”
“How?” The word wobbles. “You’re married. You live on the other side of the world.”
“I do.” I draw back enough to hold her gaze. “I’m also married to a man whose name opens doors and ends arguments. A man my father wanted badly enough to trade me for.”
Which means, for once, that alliance might bend in our favor instead of theirs.
“They wanted power,” I tell her. “They got it. They don’t get you on top of it.”
She searches my face like she’s hunting for the bluff. “You really think you can stop them?”
“I know I can.”
I don’t feel half the steel I’m handing her. But she needs me certain, so certain is what I’ll be. I’ve faked harder things.
She exhales, shaky, and nods. “Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary.”
She hugs me again anyway.
One arranged marriage in this family was already one too many.
Two?
Over my dead body.