Chapter 12 #2
She blinked, the neatness of Everglen suddenly taking on a colder, more calculated hue. “Forgive me. I had assumed that duty belonged to the Wulfbane family.”
There was a sharp inhale. “It did. Once.”
The limyerite mines were the lifeblood of Tremore’s wealth, the source of the kingdom’s power.
For House Wulfbane to lose that control couldn’t be a simple administrative shift.
It was a gutting, a stripping of legacy and leverage that altered the course of its descendants’ lives.
Her mind raced. What political maneuvering could’ve warranted such a loss?
The silence around him had grown taut as a bowstring. Even the men behind them held their tongues.
JingYi lowered her eyes to Duskwane’s mane. She didn’t push, not when she wasn’t even his true wife yet. Some wounds deserved time before they were named.
“When Bertrand Fortier gained control of the mines, he built his mansion and Everglen for his workers and their families,” Lord Wulfbane explained.
JingYi studied the uniform rows of neat houses clustered around the manor. “His people seem . . . to be thriving.”
His silence stretched too long before he answered. “They are.”
Looking ahead, Parandor Castle stood on the horizon like a sentinel of stone and ivy. They crested another small hill, and once again the dirt path gave way to cobbles and clusters of homes nestled in the valley below—more scattered, but lovely all the same.
“This is our village,” he said, warmth threading his usual gruff tone. “Lornhelm.”
The cottages spread out like hearths across the land, with thatched roofs, tidy herb gardens. Children chased one another through the grass. Dogs barked from shaded doorsteps, and villagers paused in their work to bow as the procession rode in.
JingYi sensed it at once—the flicker of eyes, the hush following their passage.
Her heart thrashed like a caged bird. They couldn’t see her face behind the half-veil, but they spotted her petite frame, her foreign clothing, the stiffness in her posture.
What if they saw weakness? What if they whispered?
He leaned in, his breath warm at her ear. “Be calm, Princess. They’ll welcome you as their lady. Smile for them if you can. They’ll see it in your eyes.”
She hesitated, her fingers curling once before she steadied herself and raised her hand, a small and careful gesture.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then a child began to wave. A man by the cart tipped his cap. Someone murmured a greeting, and the stiffness in a few faces eased.
JingYi let out a breath.
A start.
She waved again, this time steadier.
The road carried them past a bakery, exhaling warmth and the scent of spice.
Chickens scattered as market stalls were packed away for the evening.
She saw the essentials of a self-sufficient village—a smithy, a cooper’s shed, a turning millwheel—all nestled together, providing food, tools, and shelter.
But she didn’t see a healer’s cottage.
“Does Lord Fortier’s healer who also serve your people?” she asked.
His grip on the reins tightened. “His physicians tend only to his workers. That courtesy does not extend to my domain. Our own healer left a decade ago. There has been no one since. Not even a midwife.”
No healer? At all? In X?en-Sarai, medicine was woven into daily life—not for mercy, but for order. Every court had its physician. Every village its herbalist. A community without one wasn’t just neglected; it was unravelling. To hear of a whole village in such a state was staggering.
She hesitated only for a moment. “If no one has stepped forward, then, may I?”
He stilled behind her, the weight of his regard pressing close. His voice, when it came, carried gravity. “I was hoping you’d ask, but it must be your choice.”
A choice—hers alone.
She’d lived too long in the shadows of what she’d been denied. This was a chance to shape something new. The thought rooted in her like spring’s first seed. Perhaps this land of wind-tossed meadows and timeworn stone could offer more than duty. Perhaps here, she could finally lay her roots.
The castle loomed closer now, banners snapping red and black against the grey. The gates yawned wide, the bridge ringing hollow beneath the thunder of hooves. She looked up at the imposing castle.
Parandor.
Not gilded, but solid. Its warmth came from the scent of baking bread, voices raised in welcome, the lived-in hum of stone. Beyond the gates, the courtyard burst into motion as grooms and servants scurried to attend them.
Lord Wulfbane dismounted, handed off the reins, and turned back to assist her.
His hand did not release her as her feet met the ground.
His grip held—a firm, public claim. An Alpha’s steadiness wrapped around her before his people.
A ripple of instinct stirred, her Omega nature leaning into the hold, traitorous in its hunger for anchor and shelter.
He bent close. “This is it, Princess. My home. Yours now, too.”
That word curled through her like flame against chilled limbs, sparking deep in her marrow.
He turned to Sir Darion. “Escort Her Highness’s three ladies-in-waiting back to the village. Put them up at the inn. They are not welcome in the castle.”
JingYi’s breath faltered. For a moment, the courtyard sounds faded into a distant rush. Her knees weakened, buckling under the sheer, staggering force of his command. No one had ever . . .
No one had ever.
“But my lord—”
The protest slipped out, a brittle, automatic thing—a habit born of fear, years of swallowing her own pain to appease the tormentors at her elbow.
She almost tried to excuse them, to soften his decree, but the look on his face silenced her.
Fierce. Unyielding. And it wasn’t turned on her—it was turned for her.
“They are fortunate I am showing restraint,” he said. “My men testified they pushed you out of the carriage. Were they not under the emperor’s protection . . .”
His words tapered off, but the weight of what was left unsaid was unmistakable. He was trying, she realized, to carve out a space of peace for her. To shield her from further cruelty.
A hot pressure built behind her eyes. She looked away, focusing on the worn cobblestones beneath her feet until the stinging subsided.
The soft groan of the great doors swinging open drew her gaze up. A figure emerged from the shadows. Lord Wulfbane looked toward the sound, and his expression softened.
“Ah. There she is. My sister.”
A young woman crossed the courtyard, tall and slim and graceful with pale-gold hair braided away from a heart-shaped face. She shared his striking eyes, but where his held steel, hers shone with warmth.