Chapter 10 #3
Suddenly, his body transitioned from heaviness and guilt to feeling a unique sensation where his heart skipped to the tune of something sweet and rhythmic.
His stomach felt like it was plummeting.
His chest felt like it was fluttering. He felt warm and fuzzy all over.
Like he wanted his fingers to always be laced through Suzumi’s.
He never wanted to let go.
That thought alone was enough to make him blush. Not because he was unfamiliar with such contact, but because it was skin to skin contact with her.
Yet all at once, Draven was plagued by other thoughts, too.
Memories of his father shouting, making his mother curl into herself, reducing her grandness measure by measure with each passing tongue lashing.
A montage of slaps and bruises, always justified by his father’s silver tongue though never excusable.
He saw a river of tears and felt the heaviness of watching his mother’s emotional attacks begin.
Words, fears—they echoed in Draven’s mind like a harsh reminder of all that he could never have.
I have his blood. What if I end up just like him? What if it’s unavoidable?
I don’t want to be anything like him…
“Draven?” Suzumi asked, confusion pinching her perfectly delicate features. “What is it?
“I—I,” he stammered. “It’s nothing,” he eventually said with a shake of his head.
Draven looked away, unable to hold her inquisitive gaze, and pressed his palm against his forehead.
The intensity of all the vastly different passing emotions he just felt left him feeling whiplashed and exhausted.
So, he gave himself a moment, and Suzumi afforded him the luxury of uninterrupted space to have it.
“What is your secret?” he asked Suzumi once he regained himself.
She let go of his hand—an action that left his skin feeling inexplicably cold—and bundled her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. “My mother was Sakura Akechi, of House Akechi.”
Draven fought against his jaw as it threatened to split open his lips and drop. “House Akechi?” he asked carefully. “As in the disgraced noble house that has been shunned from all Erandor court life and societal affairs?”
“Yes,” she answered through an exaggerated sigh. “That one.”
He found himself at a loss for words. Eventually, his memory caught up with his shock, and he remembered what he was taught by his tutors surrounding the fall of House Akechi.
The eldest daughter of Lord Akechi—a beautiful woman whose warmth and intellect garnered many marriage proposals—fell in love with a commoner.
But not just any commoner—a groundskeeper who worked on her family’s estate.
Lord Akechi was convinced the man had brainwashed his daughter.
Had possessed some form of magic or elixir that made her act in the ways of a lovestruck teenager and forgo her responsibilities to her House.
Lord Akechi fired and banished the groundskeeper while locking his daughter away in their estate.
On her behalf, he accepted the most advantageous marriage proposal, offering a neighboring House his daughter’s hand in hopes to unite two powerful noble lines.
Nobody had seen the daughter for months on end, save for the servants who attended to her needs and brought food and drink to her chambers.
On the day of the wedding, the eldest daughter—veiled in white yet clad in a tight onyx dress—appeared in the church with a bump in her belly large enough to send shockwaves through all of Erandor.
More angry than anyone had ever seen him before, Lord Akechi raised his hand to his daughter and threatened to take the life of her unborn bastard.
But then a certain groundskeeper appeared, catching the lord’s arm before he was ever able to make contact with his daughter’s skin.
Lord Akechi publicly denounced his daughter in both the presence of the gods and the people.
Yet it was too late—the damage had been done.
Other noble houses—no longer wanting to associate with such debauchery—pulled out of trade deals, rescinded social invitations, and slowly ostracized the Akechi family.
Their House fell to ruin and their finances depleted.
To this day, House Akechi was still a part of nobility, yet the social stain of what had happened continued to affect their relationships, court life, business deals, social standings, and more. They managed to regain some of their wealth, but not without a great cost to all members of their House.
“They say Lord Akechi’s daughter disappeared with the groundskeeper.
My tutor said they suspected the couple went somewhere overseas.
” Draven shook his head in disbelief. “To think they stayed right here in Erandor under everyone’s noses this entire time.
” Something dawned on him, then—foolish though it was to only just now be realizing it.
“Wait,” he drawled slowly. “So that means…”
Suzumi nodded, seeming to know exactly where Draven’s thoughts were going. “Atlas, my father, was the groundskeeper in the story, yes.”
“Wow,” was all he was able to manage as a reply. “I…I would have never suspected.”
She laughed, the sound bitter and full of contempt.
“About two years ago, my grandfather found out we resided in Príth. He hadn’t even known about my mother’s passing.
But one day he showed up with a carriage and a proposal for my father: turn my sister and me over to him and all would be forgiven.
” She paused, her upper lip curling. “He even offered my father a respectable amount of coin for us.”
“I can’t see Atlas being the kind of man to accept such an offer.”
“He isn’t,” Suzumi confirmed with no small amount of reverence.
Her lips twitched with a smile, and she gently rested her chin atop her knees.
“I don’t know what my grandfather wants with us, but he continues to send correspondence, putting pressure on my father to turn us over to him.
Says it’s ‘the right thing to do after the shame he caused my mother’s family. ’”
“But he won’t ever do it, right? I mean, there’s no way Atlas would let you two go with him, is there?” Draven couldn’t quite explain why he felt so desperate to know if that assumption was true.
“No,” Suzumi confirmed, soothing the rush of panic from Draven’s chest. “Though he did ask us once. He said if it was what we wanted, he would let us go.”
“What did you and your sister say?”
She lifted her chin from her knees and looked at Draven, incredulous. “Are you kidding?” she practically snorted. “Can you even imagine Rhea and me living a life of nobility?”
The thought humored Draven, and he grinned. Truthfully, he was even teetering on a laugh as he imagined it—Rhea and Suzumi in decadent gowns attending etiquette lessons.
She seemed to take his growing smile as confirmation.
“See? I rest my case.” She lowered one of her legs while keeping the other propped up at the knee and shifted her weight back onto her arms. Suzumi tilted her chin up to the sky, her features smoothing over as a new softness filled her eyes.
The glow of the lanterns flickered across her skin, and there was something entrancing about seeing her like that.
Unguarded and wistful. Quiet yet reverent. An admirer of the stars and their sky.
Seeming to notice him watching her, she turned her chin over her shoulder. “You’re staring at me.”
Draven’s cheeks flared with heat as embarrassment crawled up his neck. “Oh, I–uh. Well, I…” He cleared his throat, realizing he had no explanation. “Sorry,” he mumbled instead.
Suzumi tilted her head and laughed at him.
It was a beautiful sound.
When she glanced back up at the sky, it was as if a question had etched itself into her features. Draven shocked himself when he found words tumbling from his lips at the observation.
“What is it?”
Had he ever heard his voice be that gentle before? He didn’t even realize he was capable of something so soft. Not while the ferociousness of his father lingered so forcefully within him.
She didn’t answer him right away, instead choosing to keep her eyes glued to the glittering sky a while longer. “Do you believe in fate?” she finally asked.
Draven was taken aback by the question. Did he?
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I’ve never fully considered it.”
“I don’t know if I do, either,” she whispered.
Suzumi pulled her eyes from the sky and locked them onto Draven.
“But if I were someone who did, I would think it brought us together. Your mother and my father. You, me, and Rhea—a runaway Great House Heir and half-blooded children of outcast nobility.” She laughed quietly, shaking her head.
“I know this will sound corny, but I haven’t seen my father act how he was at dinner since my mother was alive.
And Rhea?” She smiled, the action filled with both fondness and sadness.
“I haven’t seen Rhea so riled up over someone since… well, never.”
“And you?” Draven wasn’t sure where the question came from or why he asked it. Yet it was spilling from his lips before he could think better of it.
She studied him, a piece of caramel hair falling into her eyes. Draven reached out with his fingertips and pushed it back behind her ear. It felt like the most intimate gesture he had ever committed. More personal and saturated with feeling than any kiss he had ever shared with another.
“I am still figuring out my part in all this.”
Draven couldn’t hide his smile. “Anything I can do to help?”
She smirked before shaking her head. “No. But perhaps watching the stars with me a while longer is a good place to start.”
“Done.”
Suzumi smiled at him before gently resting her head on his shoulder.