Chapter 81
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
W e rode through the rest of the day and most of the night, until we finally had no choice but to rest the horses.
It was still too slow. I needed to get Rowan back to the estate, behind the fortified walls, before Iiro decided to come after us. But this situation was tense enough. I couldn’t show up and proclaim myself Duke without my father’s body, couldn’t be seen to abandon it on the road.
Rowan passed out in our small bed at the inn before I could even send up dinner. Sleep didn’t come as easily to me. Or at all. Finally, I could lay there no longer and I crept from our bed, walking silently into the hallway.
Kirill stood watch outside the door, nothing in his stance giving evidence of the battle we had fought or the sleep he hadn’t recovered.
“I’ll stand watch,” I told him. “Get some rest.”
“I’m not the one who needs to sleep,” he said pointedly.
“You do to guard Rowan tomorrow,” I bit back, my tone harsher than I meant it to be.
He looked at me for a long moment before pulling out a flask, handing it out to me.
“All right. But first, custom.”
I looked at the innocuous silver, a muscle working in my jaw. I didn’t want to think about customs or the upcoming funeral rites or the body that Pavel was guarding just outside the inn.
And I sure as hell didn’t want to drink to the memory of a man who had left me with nothing but a resentful clan and a war on my hands.
More than that, I doubted seriously that Kirill did either. So I told myself it was the darkness and the stillness and the oppressive weight of my clan on my shoulders that forced more honesty from my lips than I would have normally given.
“You think he deserves that?” I challenged quietly.
How many stains were on all of our souls from the things he had forced us to do?
Kirill heaved a sigh, shaking his head. “What he deserved and what we gave him were never one in the same, but I am more concerned with what you deserve, Van. And he was still your father.”
I swallowed, pushing down memories of maps scattered across a table, patient hands guiding mine around a bow on my first hunt, the rare mix of peace and grief in his features when he showed me the painted winter sky over my mother’s cabin.
You’ll make a fine duke, my son.
Then, cruel smiles and icicle eyes and endless amounts of blood in the snow.
Still, my hand closed around the flask. I tipped it up to my lips, letting the cool vodka flood my mouth and wash away the sharp sting of the thoughts I could no longer keep at bay.
Kirill took the flask back, lifting it skyward in a toast before he took his own sip.
It felt like a betrayal to my wife, engaging in a single honorary gesture to a man who would have been happy to roast her on a spit just to see how long she screamed. This wasn’t for the prying eyes or a show I had to put on, but in private where no one but Kirill would have been the wiser if I had refused.
But he was right. Whatever my father had deserved, it had always mattered to me to fulfill my own duties. That didn’t mean I wanted to face her just yet.
I repeated my earlier order, my tone less frigid than it had been the first time. “Rest up so you can keep her safe. I’ll sleep in the carriage tomorrow.”
His blue eyes met mine, his lips tilting at the corner. “No, you won’t.”
He turned to go, nonetheless, but not before pushing the flask back into my hands. Then he descended the stairs, leaving me truly alone with my thoughts for the first time since my father died.
Since he was murdered.
Since I was finally free of him. Free of his despicable wife. Free of the volatile orders and the endless maneuvering around them.
Free of the only parent I had left.
I took another sip from the flask, leaning my head against the wall behind me and wondering why the air suddenly felt too dry for my eyes.
I spent the next several sleepless days and nights on the road contemplating what I would tell my people. How I would explain to them that I had left with my father and their Clan Wife and come back without either.
That I was their Duke now.
Even with each detail of my homecoming planned meticulously through the word sent ahead to Taras, my shoulders still pulled taut with tension the moment we pulled into the estate.
The courtyard was crammed to the brim with soldiers, villagers, and even the lords, only parting far enough to allow our carriage through. And, of course, the wagon carrying my father’s corpse.
I stepped out of the carriage, holding a hand out for my wife to ensure we presented a united front. Silence fell over the courtyard, but for the stray gust of frigid wind whistling through the trees.
It was appropriate, somehow, that a storm waited to beckon us home.
“Lady Mairi has betrayed us,” I announced, pausing for the gasps to sound throughout the crowd at my first words as their Duke. And for the inevitable suspicious glances cast toward my lemmikki, but I would address those soon.
It would have been impossible to hide all of the facts, so in the end, I had settled on something close to the truth.
“Alongside the man who proclaimed himself king, she plotted to murder my father in his sleep.”
I left out the part about how she had tried to blame either myself or Rowan, not wanting to convolute the issue or cast more uncertainties on us. That, at least, had been in the privacy of the throne room, and was not a story anyone was likely to want brought to light.
I scanned the crowd for reactions, noting mostly horror and shock, though there was fear, too. Of me? Of what it meant that our king was plotting against us?
Taras stood in the foreground, his somber blue eyes meeting mine. He, at least, knew perfectly well what lay ahead. I suspected he wasn’t alone.
I took a breath, continuing in my speech.
“Fortunately, your Clan Wife,” I gestured toward Rowan, who stood straight and stoic at my side, “was happy to exact vengeance on your behalf while I dispatched of the remaining traitors.”
The hardest part of my planning had been deciding what to do about the families of the traitors. My father would have executed them, but they had already paid a price for the dubious loyalties of the men who had been poisoned by Ava and Samu.
My people had suffered enough, so I chose not to divulge which soldiers died in defense of us rather than those who died at our hands.
“Rest assured, I do not step into my father’s role lightly. I am prepared to protect our clan against the threats posed by the false king, and from any threats that arise within.” I let that warning linger in the air, taking note of the lords who shuffled uncomfortably.
Finally, I squared my shoulders, keeping my features even as I took liberties with the truth.
“My father was a fearsome warrior and a steadfast leader. I will do his memory justice, and care for his people as he would have wanted me to.”
At least, some version of him would have wanted that, before his mind had betrayed us all.
A cheer went up, uncertain and not half as riotous as it would have been from Lochlannians, but a show of support, nonetheless.
It was enough for a start.