Epilogue I
Aidan
Aidan drummed his fingers on the table, watching each one fall in succession.
He savored the feel of control as he first let them drop slowly, deliberately, then drummed them faster so they tapped out a dull staccato on the polished surface.
It was only days ago that something as simple as drumming his own fingers hadn’t been possible.
They’d been part of his body, but they’d been Morland’s to command.
“Lord Aidan?”
Aidan’s head snapped up, and his eyes met his steward’s. Loreleigh eyed him warily, as if she expected him to snap at her. It was a perfectly reasonable reaction considering how he’d treated her recently. No…how Morland had treated her.
Aidan had quite a few women in positions of authority on his staff, including Loreleigh and Maziren, and it had quickly become apparent over the last several weeks that Morland had little respect for women in general, and even less for women of high rank.
Aidan had been forced to watch Morland dismiss, demean, and degrade – or worse – several of the women in his household without being able to do anything.
The man who’d held his body and mind hostage was now dead – Nemesis damn him to the tortures of the lowest hell – but Aidan was still dealing with the fallout from Morland’s behavior, and likely would be for some time.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Aidan asked. “My head is still a bit foggy from my illness.”
The steward looked a bit taken aback at his apology, and Aidan knew she didn’t know what to make of the radical changes in his demeanor lately.
He’d gone from a level-headed lord who considered advice from anyone, to a mean-spirited and even cruel ruler who snapped at those around him, and then back again.
When he’d been imprisoned in the dungeons at the Citadel after Bressen had finally discovered Morland, the staff at the palace had been told he’d taken ill from something the healers couldn’t help with.
They’d only seen ‘him’ briefly the couple times the assassin had come to Seatherny and walked the grounds in his form simply to stave off rumors something had happened.
He didn’t know much about the woman, Talyn, but he was grateful to her for that at least.
Now came the work of rebuilding the relationships with his people that Morland had destroyed. Especially the relationship with his husband.
Pain stabbed through Aidan as he thought of what Jasper had endured while Morland had been in charge of his body, and he shuddered. He couldn’t dwell on that now, though.
“You were saying something about the training camps?” Aidan asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Loreleigh said. “They’ll be set up and ready for troops in a week or so. Samhail will be here tomorrow to speak with you and the generals about how Hiraeth’s camps are running.”
Aidan nodded and glanced to the side where Maziren stood sentinel, ever-ready to defend him.
She’d always stayed close to him before, but she seemed to be a couple feet closer now.
He knew she felt like she’d failed by letting Morland get to him, but there was nothing she could’ve done. Not that he could make her see that.
Not that he could fully convince himself of that either. Until recently, his faith that Maziren could fight any threat had been unwavering, but she’d been powerless to fight Morland. An irrational part of him couldn’t help blaming her, if only to keep from taking on all the blame himself.
Ever in tune with him, Maziren tipped her head toward Aidan as he looked at her, and their eyes met. He saw the question in them. Did he need something from her?
Not unless she could somehow erase the last few weeks from his memory and from those around him.
He suppressed a grim smile. Bressen could probably do just that if he asked the lord. Make him forget. Make them all forget. But that somehow seemed wrong. It was also the easy way out, and Aidan was determined to earn his way back into his people’s good graces.
“That sounds good,” Aidan told Loreleigh, turning back to her. “Is that all?”
The steward hesitated, and he knew it wasn’t. Jasper and Maziren had managed to keep the city and the territory running well enough while he’d been gone, but there were things only the Lord of Derridan could handle, and those things had piled up.
“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow, my lord,” Loreleigh said.
It was a lie, but he was grateful for it. He wasn’t in a state of mind to deal with any of this right now.
“Tomorrow then,” Aidan said as he stood.
“Just one more thing,” the steward added, standing with him. “Lord Bressen asked to meet with you at nine to discuss the succession in Polaris. He has a proposal that needs your approval.”
“Very well,” Aidan said. “Send him a confirmation please.”
Loreleigh bowed her head. “Yes, my lord.”
Aidan turned and strode out the door. He sensed Maziren behind him, and he wasn’t sure if he found her presence comforting or grating.
She’d been in his service for nearly thirty-five years now, well before he’d become a Lord of the Triumvirate.
Most of the time he noticed her about as much as he noticed his own shadow, which wasn’t to say he took her for granted.
He just always trusted her to be there without having to confirm she was.
Strictly speaking, Maziren had been in his father’s service first. She’d been hired to protect Aidan from his father’s enemies, although less out of love than out of a need to keep rivals from having leverage over his father.
His father’s business dealings had been incredibly lucrative for the family, making them powerful among Derridan’s nobility, but those dealings hadn’t always been especially legal.
Aidan had kept Maziren on as his personal guard even after his father had died and Aidan had dismantled the more unsavory side of his family’s business empire.
She was usually laconic, her tongue sharp when she did use it, yet somehow Aidan had grown close to the woman who fought ruthlessly whenever he was threatened.
As luck would have it, he’d eventually been able to offer her a position more befitting her talents, that of Captain of the Guard and bodyguard to a Lord of the Triumvirate.
Aidan headed straight for his bedroom, Maziren’s light footfalls drowned out by his own heavier ones.
He spent an inordinate amount of time in bed lately.
Not sleeping. Just in bed. At times he was afraid of sleep because when he dreamt, he found himself shoved back down into the dark recesses of his own mind, forced to watch Morland do awful things to those he cared for, to those he’d sworn to protect.
He still remembered waking that first time in the temple.
He’d known immediately something was wrong, but it had taken him a moment to realize he no longer had control of his own body.
Then it had suddenly felt like someone pushed his head underwater, and he fought back with everything he had against whatever was trying to kill him.
It was only later he’d learned it was Morland in his head, that the man had tried – but failed – to kill his consciousness. Instead, Morland had at least succeeded in pushing Aidan down into a deep pit in his own mind, one from which he’d been unable to claw his way up.
Aidan was lost in thought again as he rounded a corner, but he pulled up short as he almost ran into someone. The servant gasped and went paler than he’d ever seen a person go. He reached a hand out instinctively to steady her, but she flinched back violently and dropped her head.
Aidan pulled his hand back and clenched it into a fist at his side, not in anger at her, but at himself.
Evory was the girl’s name. He knew the names of all the servants who worked in the palace, and he knew why the sight of him sent terror through her.
She was the one he…the one Morland had cornered in the library.
Jasper had caught him – Morland – pinning the girl against the shelves as he shoved his hand up her skirt.
Evory had actually been lucky. Jasper had arrived before anything had happened. The girl Morland had stalked, raped, and killed later that night hadn’t been as fortunate.
Aidan shuddered as he remembered his body doing things to the girl he couldn’t stop, things that now woke him in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
He looked down at his hands, hands that had wrapped around that second girl’s throat and choked her to death before he’d hidden her body in a crate in one of the nearby warehouses.
He still remembered the feel of her pulse jumping wildly beneath his fingers, like a small animal struggling to nose its way free of his hold, while she herself fought frantically against him in a losing battle.
He looked back at Evory, who stood trembling before him. He was surprised she still worked here, that she hadn’t resigned, but he supposed she must not have a choice.
“Evory,” he said, his mouth dry. “I…I need to apologize for what I did the other day.”
Evory’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with fear. Far from being relieved, she looked even more terrified.
“I was sick,” Aidan tried to explain. “It made me do things I shouldn’t have done. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
The girl’s breath stuttered, and she nodded, but he could tell his words did nothing to help.
Aidan sighed, knowing she just wanted to be out of his presence. “Go on now,” he said, and Evory scurried around him to rush down the hall before he could change his mind. Part of him had hoped the apology might ease her fear, but he wasn’t at all surprised it didn’t.
Aidan looked back at Maziren, and, as usual, an understanding passed between them. She gave him a sympathetic look but didn’t say anything.
She’d gone back with him recently to the warehouse where Morland had stashed the other girl’s body. He hadn’t expected the body to still be there, but it was, rotting and nearly unrecognizable now in its box.