Chapter 14 Paeonia
?PAEONIA
Paeonia strolled silently through the castle after she finished cleaning her scratches. Her face remained in a permanent state of shock, unwilling to mutter—even to herself—about the events that unfolded the past few days.
She tripped over a cobblestone when Rowan’s warm hands on her body wedged into her mind, and how she had welcomed the touch.
The way his chest, peppered in dark hair, gleamed from sweat.
His shoulders broad, his muscles toned yet soft.
She tried to shake the burning feeling of him grabbing her tenderly like he might one day learn to care for her. Like they could be friends.
Perhaps she had judged him too soon—after all, he did mention being trapped here for more than a century. Maybe he could use a friend. Perhaps he just longed for company. She hoped her admission that she didn’t hate him turned his spirits around, if only a little.
Because you’re mine.
Paeonia bit her lip as she made it to the second floor, strolling past the empty wall, ghostly imprints of paintings that had long since been taken down.
Her hand gently stroked over the wallpaper, the crimson color faded in the rectangular shape of a frame.
She wondered why someone would remove them, never to be replaced.
Her fingertips gently caressed a spot that appeared to be torn, like claws had ripped into the patterned paper.
A gust of wind stirred her skirts, and a light shiver ran up her spine.
She searched for the open window and slammed it shut, taking a moment to gaze outside at the beautiful garden.
So haunting and eerie, but more magnificent than anything she could dream up.
The exhaustion overcame her sore body, her stomach growling painfully.
When she managed to find her door in the dimly lit hall, she almost tumbled over a silver tray that sat in the threshold.
She tentatively carried it into her room, setting the tray on her bed.
She removed the cover, and beneath was a simple, but warm, meal.
Her eyelashes fluttered as she inhaled the sweet smell of savory chicken and sugared carrots.
“Gods be damned,” a deep voice spoke from her door.
Paeonia jumped, clattering against the end of the bed, turning to face Castor. She held her chest dramatically, steadying her breathing.
“Apologies, Peony. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Castor’s usual quip was lost as he sauntered toward her, his mouth in a taut line.
“Castor,” Paeonia mumbled.
He appraised her, frowning at her disheveled state. Her torn dress and tangled hair.
“Perhaps you should get cleaned up first,” he said quietly, placing the cover back on the food.
Paeonia nodded even as her stomach rumbled in protest. She left the door open a crack when she entered the washroom. She wasn’t sure if it was because she desired to continue talking to Castor, or because she didn’t want to be fully alone.
Either way, Castor didn’t seem to mind. She could hear him shuffling outside her door, probably aimlessly touching the belongings in her room, while she slid off her dress and used the curious bucket of water that always seemed to be warmed to the perfect temperature to clean her face and dirty fingers.
“Do you have a question for me, my dear?” he called out.
The tall window in the washroom let the moonlight cast a decadent silver glow over the floorboards.
It rippled off the sloshing bucket of water and settled deep in her heart.
“I don’t know.” Today, Paeonia had been preoccupied with more than just getting Rowan to answer a question of hers.
She hadn’t remembered what she asked Rowan about.
Had she even asked him a question at all?
“Those portraits,” she began.
“What portraits?”
“Well, the empty spots on the walls in the hall… They appear to lay blank where paintings once hung.”
Castor was silent, making her think she was right in assuming they were portraits.
“What happened to them? Why have they been taken down?”
Castor tsked. “Now, that does not seem like a question you had asked of Rowan.”
She winced, dropping the cloth back into the wash bin before drying. She hated that he somehow knew exactly what she had truly asked of Rowan that day. “Who are the portraits of?”
“What good would that information do? If I said a name, do you think it’d mean anything to you?”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe—”
“Calliope. Laurus Nekranth and his father. June. Wesley. Lord Harth.”
She remained quiet.
“See. None of those names mean a damn thing to you. You’ll waste your question on tedious, fruitless information.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He let out a frustrated grunt. “Because,” he dragged, “I’m trying to help you, Peony. Ask me a question that truly matters. A question with an answer you can actually digest.”
She huffed, sifting through her memories, trying to remember if she had asked Rowan a question today. Her face turned bright red when she remembered asking him one simple thing. Something he answered. An answer that made her skin crawl.
“Why is he doing this?” Her words were quiet, muttered like a whisper, but she knew Castor had heard her—he seemed to keep his preternatural sense of hearing even as stone.
When he didn’t answer, Paeonia put on her dressing robe and gently opened her washroom door. Castor sat on the edge of her bed.
“It’s too vague a question.”
Paeonia’s shoulders sank. “You said that questions mean different things depending on who you ask.”
Castor lips tightened.
“So, answer it however you deem fit.” She didn’t know why she begged Castor to answer her; she wasn’t even sure she wanted the answer.
Because you’re mine.
Those three words rang in her head. The deep resonant way Rowan had purred them at her, like he owned her. She couldn’t name the heavy feeling that stirred in her chest.
Castor sighed and tilted his head. “He needs you,” he answered tersely.
Paeonia rested her hip against one of the footposts of her bed. “To tend to his garden?” she asked, a bit unconvinced.
“No.” Castor cut off her racing mind. “You’re far more important than a gardener.”
Paeonia furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand.”
Castor tapped his fingers along his thigh, then stood from her bed, pacing to the other side of her room. “Well, yes, it is important that the garden is taken care of, or he’d wither away. But he needs you for more than just that one vocation.”
“What? What else does he need me for?” Paeonia crossed her arms, her teeth clenching together.
Castor chuckled, but his laugh lacked any warmth. “I’m afraid he might actually smash me to pieces if I were to divulge that sort of information.”
“But you said you’d answer any—!”
“And I did,” he asserted, as if offended. “I answered your question. I told you why he was doing all this. Because he needs you. I cannot tell you more than that.”
Paeonia’s chest filled with anger, a feeling she so often kept locked away. But why hide it now? What good would it do her?
“You liar,” she cursed, upset at the fact that Castor seemed so willing to play with her feelings.
Castor took one step in her direction. “I am not a liar, Peony. And you are not an idiot,” he hissed. Paeonia reared back, and Castor seemed to shake himself of his indignation, coming to his senses. “I should go,” he said in his usual blithe tone.
Paeonia didn’t fight him as he made way to leave.
Before he crossed the threshold, something must have sparked inside him because he glanced over his shoulder and spoke again.
“As for the paintings—they live somewhere else in the castle. Some place hidden. Some place where Rowan doesn’t have to face them. Where they won’t haunt him.”
And with that, he shut her door and left her alone in her room.
Images of the frightening creatures from the forest haunted her, seeing them at every turn. Behind every potted plant, every column, every chair.
Now that she had faced what laid within the shadows of the forest, she worried for her father’s safety.
She made her way to the dining room earlier than usual, hoping she could eat alone before scurrying back to the gardens.
But hope died within her when she stepped into the room and heard the rumble.
Rain. It began to pour down, pelting the windows.
No, not rain. Hail. The cresting winter air was too cold for rain.
She strolled to the window and stared mindlessly at the harsh pebbles pelting the ground, bouncing and creating a white ripple as they landed.
She wondered how the storm would be hindering her father.
If his joints would be sore like they usually were when it stormed.
If he managed to get the cows into the barn in time.
If he was panicking, worried she got lost in the woods and eaten by some feral animal.
Her heart broke knowing there was no way her father wasn’t worried sick.
Perhaps he even stopped caring for himself.
She grimaced, tears stinging the back of her eyes, but refusing to fall.
Maybe Barth would help her father. He always made such a fuss, insisting to do things for him, knowing he was marked with the forsaken.
She might not have wanted to marry Barth, but she still appreciated him as a friend, and she hoped he would at least offer his assistance to her father for this month while she was away.
She wiped her face roughly and pushed away from the cold windowsill, heading toward the dining room. When she entered, she almost yelped. There, in his usual chair, sat Rowan. His chin rested on his folded hands, eyeing her.
“Did I startle you?” he taunted.
Her lips quivered, and she hoped he couldn’t tell that she had just been sulking. She held her chin a bit higher and continued her way to the table, taking a seat, breakfast already served on platters before them.