15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter fifteen
The guest parlour has always been one of my favourite places within Grange Castle.
Tall arched windows fill the room with the delightful glow of the morning sun that reflects on the gold edging of the furniture.
It is much larger than guest parlours usually are, the duke and I shrunken in comparison as we make our way to the three plush, green couches that surround the unlit hearth in anticipation of its warmth.
I sit on the sofa that faces the door and Ansel perches gracefully on the edge of the one that lies parallel to the mantelpiece.
We sit there, awkwardly waiting for the young servant girl to return with the coffee-tray, both unsure whether we should talk or simply enjoy the peace of one another’s company.
A shiver ripples over me in the biting cold of the room.
I do not know when guests were last received in this room, but I assume it has been many years since the fireplace felt the crackle of flame against its grate. The air is all the more bitter for it.
Ansel practically falls off the chair at the chance to be of service as I pull my cloak tighter around my body to trap in heat.
‘You are cold? I can send for someone to light the fire. It should already be done, the servants know their princess is present.’
Before he can even get to his feet, I pull the fire from its recesses within me and shoot it into sparks in the direction of the hearth.
The readily placed logs burst into intense flame, the heat hitting us in a blast. I close my eyes for a moment savouring the warmth I have created.
It is a unique sensation, to revel in the most dangerous part of oneself, to relish in the idea that good can be made of it.
Ansel falls back into his sofa, shaking his head with a light laugh. ‘Of course, how could I forget such a gift?’
‘It is the most unusual of abilities from what I can tell, I don’t quite know what use it will be in my time as a Reyheni royal, but I suppose we will find out when the time comes.
’ I make an attempt at being humble, masking the pleasure I get from it with forced indifference.
Ansel intertwines his fingers on his lap. Expectant.
‘What form had you expected your powers to manifest in? You seem to believe there is something more useful you might have been rewarded with.’
It is not possible for me to pretend that the question does not catch me off guard. I roll my answer around on my tongue before verbalising it.
It is odd. I failed to proceed with full caution when Calli was so open and generous with me, I have accepted her kindness for what it appears to be.
I have returned her openness – even extended it to her insufferable brother despite all the evidence that proves him unworthy.
Nevertheless, I find myself wondering whether I should be sure of my answer to the duke before I bestow it upon him.
I shake my head as if to dispel such thoughts before they take root and ruin my chances of a real connection with the duke.
‘Well, I guess I thought I’d be gifted with some sort of ability to protect, to shield my kingdom, you know?’
He nods at me as though to urge me to continue, but when I sink back into my chair wordlessly, he smiles. Gods above, I am heating up by the second. That smile is enough to make an ancient deity melt into submission.
‘That is what you had thought, yes. But what had you hoped for? What were you standing there at that altar wishing for with every ounce of your soul?’
I sift through my mind, the nerves and the turmoil of that morning flooding in all bitter and biting.
The fear of being a disappointment, an unworthy heir.
The looming threat of Umbra and the darkness I thought I’d have to protect my people from.
What did my subconscious scream out for in that moment? What ability did I dream of, plead for?
I look Ansel in the eye, my vision slightly blurred at the desperation of the thought. Something I still hope for now.
‘Sight. I wished for the ability to see the past, know the present and predict the future. I wanted to know and understand anything and everything there is to know, so that I might stand a chance of expecting what is to come. For me and for Reyhen.’
The duke leans back on the sofa, seemingly pleased with my answer.
‘You do not need to know everything to know your kingdom and its strengths. Your fire is protection enough against what you do not anticipate, use it with pride, Your Grace. Foresight is an act of clairvoyants and omniscience is reserved for the gods themselves. You have been given exactly what you need to be you. Own it.’
His words are a comfort and a caution, and I receive them with a tight chest and an unconvincing smile.
‘Thank you,’ I say with a slow blink. ‘I think.’
We lock eyes, smiling softly at one another, with all the quiet flirtation of youth flushing our cheeks.
Ansel Reyer truly is one of the most handsome men I’ve ever laid eyes on, his beauty so feminine it’s the most masculine and charming sight.
Such a welcome contrast to the usual harsh, sharpness of male features, although there is beauty to be found in those too.
I sense movement in the window behind his head, and the duke shifts his attention to the fire, like he suddenly feels the force of the vulnerability of our shared glance.
I take this as an opportunity to steal a look at the window, but it remains empty bar the shifting orange leaves of the oak tree that stands in the courtyard across from the parlour.
Perhaps that was all it was, a fluttering of leaves or the swaying of branches.
I blink my suspicions away and turn my attention back to the duke.
‘I wish to apologise to you about how my mother treated you that night in the ballroom, about how I left you standing there.’
He gives me a handsome, crooked smile. ‘Nothing I didn’t deserve, I’m sure.’
‘Why does she hold such disdain for you? She seemed to be under the impression that I should not endeavour to associate myself with such company. Perhaps she has gotten word of your rebellious phase.’
Ansel’s body tenses a little, but his smile does not falter. ‘A little something like that. I think she believes that I will behave as my father did, and I am amazed she thinks anyone capable of acting with as much stupidity as my father.’
His words spark a confusion in me. ‘What did your father do that was so unforgivable to her?’
He sighs, scratching at the knee of his breeches, his forehead creased and his lips twitching. ‘He partook in his own rebellion of some sorts, he did not agree with how your father intended to erect the Divide and he tried to put a stop to it.’
I perk up slightly at the mention of the Divide.
‘What did he disagree with so strongly that he would risk his own title – his life?’
Ansel shakes his head. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I have my own theories.’
Before I can ask what he means by that, the movement behind him continues, a steady progression of guards walking single file across the window.
Each man’s head lolls around his shoulders dreamily, eyes open and unblinking.
There must be over twenty of them, a parade of reanimated corpses all driven by the same mind.
Of course, the last to pass by, dressed in black and an infuriating smirk, is Eliaz Daegon – the biggest pain in the ass known to man.
He flexes his fingers in a wave, in the same menacing manner he did that first time I saw him at my initiation.
I clench my teeth together, my blood turning to molten steel in my veins.
I don’t know what he is up to, but I know I will not like it.
‘Your Grace?’ Ansel follows my gaze to the windows, but Eliaz is gone before he can catch sight of him.
I stand up, barely able to tear my eyes from the window as I make for the door.
‘Please, if you will excuse me, I will be right back.’
‘Is everything okay? I can help you if you nee—’
‘No! No,’ I say a little too quickly as I dodge the coffee table. ‘All is well, I just remembered something that I have to do. But, I will be back. Stay here.’
Ansel looks around with hands upturned as if asking where else would he go, and I practically throw myself out the door before he can shout another word after me.
My skin feels like it has taken on the temperature of the sun by the time I get outside and follow the trail of stray trance-induced guards as they pass the side doors.
I round the corner, and before I see anything I see Eliaz, his head upturned, his white bleeding hair slightly frizzed by the light rainfall that sizzles upon contact with my skin.
He has a look of dangerous delight on his face, an expression that urges me to trail his eyeline upward.
When I catch sight of what the Umbrian king seems to find great pride in, I dig my fingernails deep enough into my palm to draw blood. If I was hot before, now I’m practically made of flame.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Eliaz?’ I run over to him, lifting my skirts to stop my feet catching on them. The King raises his eyebrows at me, his lips lifting with the insufferable teasing of a smirk.
‘Have a nice morning chit-chat with that beautiful man back there? I didn’t think pretty boys would be your type, Princess.’
‘I am in no mood for jokes. What the hell are you playing at?’ I ask, spitting ire.
He gives a swooping gesture to the old stone turret we stand before, with all the pleased smugness of a child having created an atrocity they call art on the wall with ink.
‘I present to you… a ladder.’
But the subject of my anger is nothing close to a ladder.
Standing on shoulders and clutching with desperate fingers onto the gaps in the stone, are around twenty guards, each with different variants of the same dreamlike expression on their faces.
Their eyes glisten with fear, and trembling moans of horror escape their lips whenever they happen to dare a look downwards at the next guard beginning their ascent up the human ‘ladder’ that Eliaz has created.
‘Get them down now!’ I scream, shoving him with all my force. ‘You cannot just make these men bend to your twisted and idiotic whims, they are real men and they deserve to retain their own autonomy.’
Eliaz rolls his eyes, smoothing out his coat, barely fazed by the impact of my body against his. ‘So dramatic. And here I was thinking you’d be pleased with me for coming up with a way around the door-being-welded-shut issue.’
A guard slips with a scream, gripping onto the back of another fellow guard, narrowly escaping a fall. Even with the strength of the armour protecting his body, the sheer height of the drop would be enough to shatter him into death.
‘Look at them! They’re petrified and cannot understand why they feel the sudden need to climb the height of the castle. Get them down, now.’
He tuts at me. ‘It’s innovative.’
‘It’s immoral,’ I shoot. ‘I would’ve thought the man who will go to extreme lengths to save the people of his apparent enemy’s kingdom, would be against such an atrocious act against their guards the very same. They are people too.’
The haughtiness on Eliaz’s face gives way to something close to dejection in a brief wavering of his upturned lips, before righting itself. A flash of emotion behind the arrogance.
‘We need to get into your father’s study, and they looked like they would be excellent at scaling tall buildings.’
The realisation of his mistake makes me even more angry than his refusal to feel apologetic about the manipulation of other people’s minds.
‘My father’s study is not in that turret, you ignorant fucking idiot. It’s in that one.’ I point in the direction of the turret to the right of the face of the castle, and he mouths a silent ‘Oh,’ trying to mask his embarrassment with awkward indifference.
As his head turns, a glint of light flashes across the front of his neck, like lava under broken earth.
‘What was that?’ I step closer, tilting my head as though it’ll aid me in getting a better look.
‘What was what?’ He looks genuinely confused at the question.
‘That weird glinting across your throat. It was like a crack of light in your skin.’
Eliaz blinks at me, stupefied for a second by my words, caught in a thought – a memory. The tightness that rises in his face with the confusion quickly gives way to a practiced calm. That irritating shine returns to his hot-honey eyes, indicating oncoming torment.
‘The delirium of exhaustion has finally caught up with you I see,’ he says, and I have to fight the urge to punch him for the second time. ‘Perhaps the little princess needs a nap before we continue.’
I settle for a push to the shoulder instead. ‘I need no such thing! And you will put a stop to this horrendous display of superiority. Release these guards before I burn you bald and char your mouth shut.’
‘I’m hesitant to suggest sleep again, Princess,’ he jibes, but to my surprise, the guards begin to climb down from the turret, one by one, rubbing their heads and staring at each other in muted disorientation.
With a reluctant tiredness and a desperation to avoid further confrontation, I make an attempt to get Eliaz as far as possible from the soon-to-be very angry guards.
‘Now, I may have found a temporary reprieve in the absence of physical answers. Follow me.’ I turn to make my way back inside, knowing the lack of attention will drive Eliaz mad, and he will follow me before he lets his only source of entertainment end.
‘I’m not interested in attending your date. It looked rather tense in there – and not the good kind. If you’re looking for someone to spice things up, he’s not my type.’ Despite his words, I hear his boots crunch on the gravel behind me.
I fear the duke is not prepared for the second guest I will be bringing to the castle.
This will be interesting – and not the good kind.