Chapter 18 #2
Alexander leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine in his goblet.
He wanted to ask more about her past, her life.
Would that be wise? He’d learned the danger of letting compassion blur duty.
If he allowed himself to know too much—if he let himself understand her, care for her—would he have the strength to do what was necessary to correct his path?
JingYi set her goblet down on the table with a soft clink. Her gaze flicked toward him—brief, uncertain—before lowering again to her hands. Then, without quite looking at him, she said, “May I ask . . . when Lord Fortier spoke of House Wulfbane’s fall from grace . . . what did he mean?”
Alexander’s jaw worked silently. For a long moment, he only stared into the fire. The flames danced low, casting the room in a shifting amber glow, but the warmth barely touched the cold knot in his chest.
He didn’t want to talk about this. Least of all tonight.
Yet, she had asked with a gentleness that disarmed him. He owed her honesty, if nothing else—a clear-eyed explanation for the brutal choice he must later make.
“Blackwood-Veyrde sits atop a vast limyerite deposit. Old veins, deep and rich.” The words felt like a ritual, a history he’d recited in his head a thousand times.
“Our ancestors were the first to strike inside a cave and find it glowing in the rock. Since then, the Wulfbane family has been the Crown’s trusted steward.
It was more than a privilege. It was our legacy. ”
He paused, lifting his goblet but not drinking. “My father was proud of that charge. Perhaps, too proud.” Alexander’s knuckles whitened around the stem. He forced his fingers to relax, one by one, before taking a long, bracing drink.
“The year I turned eight, accusations came.” The taste of the wine turned ashen.
They came like a spring flood, he thought.
A mere trickle at first, then all at once.
“They said my father had been skimming from the veins, skimming tribute crystals out in secret caravans and selling them to rogue alchemists, foreign agents. The very men the Crown swore to keep such treasures from.”
JingYi went very still, the silence a pressure against his temples.
“There was a trial, one of the most public in Tremore’s history.
” His voice flattened, becoming the detached tone of a soldier reporting a lost battle.
“Witnesses, ledgers, crates bearing our crest, papers bearing my father’s seal.
It didn’t matter that he swore his innocence.
The proof was damning.” He swallowed, the next admission a lump in his throat.
“And perhaps . . . he wasn’t . . . entirely innocent. ”
The thought, even now, was a blade twisted in a wound that had never closed. He looked down at the empty goblet. “He was executed before my ninth name day.”
The silence that followed was absolute, a living thing in the room. When he spoke again, it was with a grim edge honed by years of bitterness. “The mines were stripped from us and handed to Lord Bertrand Fortier, a man my father had once called a friend.”
He could still see them in this very hall: Bertrand clapping his father on the back, laughing together. Sickening.
“His estate now gleams with white stone and gold,” he said. “His men wear our colours. He lords over this fief as if it had always belonged to him.”
Alexander rubbed his face, the exhaustion from a long day crashed over him now.
“We lost . . . everything. Income. Honour. Influence. Half our soldiers abandoned us. Villagers and tenants left, unwilling to live on a traitor’s land.
” He could still see the empty cottages, the silent fields.
“At court, they never say my name without a glance over the shoulder—as if I, too, might stab them in the back.”
He let the goblet rest in his lap, its weight suddenly intolerable.
“I spent twenty years clawing my way back. I earned my rank in the military. I bled on foreign soil to remind this kingdom that House Wulfbane is still loyal to the Crown.” The phantom ache of old wounds twinged in his side.
“Ferdinand, the old king’s son, finally saw fit to look past my father’s sins.
But the rest of the court . . . they have long memories. ”
“What about your mother?” she asked, her gentleness a stark contrast to the clamouring in his head.
He sighed, the sound ragged. “My mother could not bear the shame. She locked herself away. Stopped leaving her rooms. Stopped caring about . . . life.” The image of her door, perpetually closed, surfaced with a familiar pang. “Seven years ago, she died of consumption.”
JingYi tilted her head. “Did she love your father very much?”
“I believe so.” The admission unlocked a vivid flash: his mother’s laughter ringing through the hall, her hand in his father’s as they danced during a midsummer feast, the air sweet with wine and music. Parandor had been alive then. “They were very happy.”
“It must’ve been very difficult for her.”
Alexander’s fingers curled into his palm, nails biting into flesh. A different ache stirred. Duller than rage, but deeper—the old, helpless fury of a child watching his world collapse and being powerless to stop it.
“It was difficult for her children, too,” he said, his voice dangerously even.
She must’ve sensed the edge in his tone, because she lowered her eyes to her hands.
Her voice, when it came, was even gentler.
“It must’ve been terrifying for you and Yrenna.
You lost your father, faced judgment from the court and your neighbours, then watched your mother fall apart under its weight. ”
He didn’t speak right away.
He had knocked on the door of his mother’s chamber again and again, his voice growing hoarse with pleading. There was only silence on the other side. And Yrenna, barely four, curled on the floor with a blanket, waiting for a mother who never emerged.
Grief had taken their mother from them long before illness did.
“It was like losing both parents at the same time,” he said quietly. “I tried to shield Yrenna, but I was just a boy myself. Still trying to figure out how to keep the roof from caving in.”
JingYi’s eyes—dark as ink—met his. There was no pity in them, only understanding.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to compare your grief to hers. I only meant . . . she must’ve felt so alone. To lose the man she loved. The father of her children. The name of her House.”
“She wasn’t alone. She had us.”
He’d spent years trying not to think of his mother—not the way she used to be, and certainly not the way she left them. But he couldn’t forget the look on Yrenna’s face in those early days when grief had no name and love offered no answer.
He’d sworn, even then, to give his sister the life their mother didn’t stay for.
And he would keep that vow—no matter the cost.
“When did you go to train under Lord Reave?” she asked.
“A year after my father’s execution, Krystoff Reave, my father’s friend, brought me to his estate. I trained under him until I was old enough to fight.” His tone turned colder, more distant. “I went to war, hoping to earn back what we’d lost.”
“Darion said you saved King Ferdinand’s life.”
His lips twitched. “He embellishes. The king was engaged with several opponents and didn’t see one coming at him from behind. I killed the coward before His Majesty had to bother.”
The way her lashes lifted—just a flick—told him she thought he was being modest. He wasn’t. Still, that single act, whatever its scale, had altered the course of his life. The young King Ferdinand had remembered.
From there, things shifted. Victory brought prestige, and prestige brought gold. Investments, leadership, favours. Gradually, he regained the respect they’d lost—at least in public. Whispers still came, but tucked behind fists and fans. Spoken only where they couldn’t be answered.
Still, he hadn’t forgotten the sting of those early years. Nor had Yrenna.
“My sister is of age now, and has been for some years,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I’ve prepared her dowry, everything needed for a respectable match. And still, no offers came.”
Across from him, JingYi lowered her goblet. Her voice was soft, unassuming. “You’ve worked hard to restore your family’s name. Since your father’s fall, you’ve never stopped.”
Then, her eyes found his. “And a wife who is marked and lame does not further your cause.”