4. Portrait of a Prince in Ruin #2
The king straightens slightly, casting my brothers a look. The look , if I’m being honest. They move instantly, knowing better than to linger. Kai grabs my glass and chugs the whisky like a stressed mum, and Henrik offers me an apologetic grimace as he shuts the doors behind them.
The air is even stuffier than before: I might as well be pressed against the wall, suffocated by the presence of the man who calls himself king. “This is your last chance, Eric.”
I don’t bring it up. No matter how badly I want to. Instead, I provoke. My favourite pastime. “You’re sending me north to learn table manners. ”
“I’m sending you north in the hope that you finally understand that being heir is more than just a title.
It’s a duty , one you’ve been persistently failing at.
” He catches my gaze, and that resolve makes something inside my chest ache.
“You don’t have to respect me. But you will respect the Crown.
Consider this your official warning. Humiliate us again, and you won’t have a throne to inherit. ”
“What? Don’t tell me you’ll disown me?” I force a laugh, but again, he doesn’t react. Doesn’t snap at me or throw another lecture. That’s how I know he’s serious. And fuck, does my need to laugh grow tenfold. Not the restrained kind either, but maniacally.
I can’t believe he’s saying all this with a straight face, every word writing the usual story that I’m the problem child.
The unpredictable prince who can’t be trusted.
He’s saying it like he believes it. Like I’m the real scandal.
It would be amusing if it weren’t so grotesque or if I weren’t sitting here being punished for his sins.
“Enjoy Sheffolk, Eric. Learn something for once, or don’t come back to this palace at all.”
I grab the folder and push to my feet. He looks up when I pause by the door. My voice drips with poison. “I punched a man for humiliating one of your sons. You’re burying another to hide a secret you can’t even look in the fucking eye. Pathetic.”
I don’t greet him when I walk off; he doesn’t scold me for it, and the door clicking shut after my exit is probably a relief to us both.
Upon entering my room, I throw the file onto the coffee table, unbutton the top of my shirt, and pour myself another drink.
I take a few sips before placing the glass down and glancing at the folder.
Shit . The stack of notebooks is back on the table after I’ve stored it for probably the millionth time.
Mum says they’re evidence of a beautiful mind, probably why she keeps turning them into decorative piles.
But the sight of Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes, still with the University of Creswyck library barcode half-peeled at the back, makes my stomach churn. I should’ve returned it years ago, but some part of me clings to that place where I once belonged.
Reflexively, my right hand flexes, feeling the familiar pressure of the gold signet ring around my pinky. I run the pad of my thumb along the engraving. E.P.H.A. These initials I’ve touched so often that they may as well be embedded into my skin. Eryxon Piers Hyperion Atherbourne.
My father once told me that names aren’t sacred in our family; they’re something to be worn, weapons to be wielded against anybody who doesn’t share our blood.
Foolish of me to have once thought this a mere piece of jewellery.
It’s an order carved from my own name, reminding me what’s expected.
Last time, all it took was a look, and I had my bags packed a day later, dissertation abandoned.
Private ambition doesn’t matter shit, not when weighed against the Crown.
Through the ring, I can almost hear his voice.
You’ll do this quietly, Eryxon.
So I toss back the last of the liquor and stomp towards the file, splitting open the royal seal with more force than necessary, and throwing everything onto the table.
Photographs and neatly typed notes spill out, followed by news articles and hand-drawn maps.
The Crown’s idea of a homework assignment.
There’s no logical reason to be rebuilding bridges with Sheffolk.
None whatsoever.
No pending trade deals. No defence agreements in jeopardy. And we’re supposed to believe he wants to repair ties? Please . He doesn’t give a damn about that duchy. But he’ll spin it like he always does. I move the notes aside and choke at the headline of the newspaper beneath it.
PRINCE ERYXON APPOINTED ROYAL ENVOY TO SHEFFOLK IN HISTORIC RECONCILIATION EFFORT—Political analysts hail the king’s leadership in sending his son to foster trust where it has long been lost.
Fuck, it’s so well-crafted that it pushes everything but the bloody truth. I’m annoyed to find myself the slightest bit impressed at the precision of the spin. I crumple the newspaper into a ball and toss it aside before moving on.
There’s a breakdown of Sheffolk’s economy that makes me roll my eyes, as well as an image of Duchess Sylvaine with a list of dry facts beneath it.
She’s never beating the witch allegations, considering she’s pushing seventy and still looks at least fifty.
Imagine my father knows the duchy is made up of weird women who would curse me as soon as I arrive. The fucker’s probably counting on it.
The family tree looks way too detailed, and I flip it over in favour of what’s beneath.
The text blurs a little, my patience withering alongside it, so I fish the glasses from my pocket and slide them onto my nose.
The world becomes obedient again as I read through basic facts: the duchy’s one of three under the Crown, though they’d argue against the word ‘under’.
Dunmont pledged fealty. Norstowe offered troops. But Sheffolk swore allegiance to peace, not the throne, which is too clever because once the war was over, Sheffolk got to walk away as though they weren’t seated at the table in the first place.
There’s a note from my father attached: ‘Handle carefully. They’re proud ’. As if I didn’t already deduce that from the fact that they’ve never allowed a royal to set foot on their soil in fucking half a millennia. And my father is sending his heir right to them.
Fucking fantastic.
Flipping to the next page, I find a singular photograph stapled there.
It’s candid, taken at some charity gala, and recent, judging by the date scribbled in the corner.
Mum’s handwriting , I notice offhandedly.
In the image is a girl. She’s younger than I expected, or maybe just softer.
Small-boned with narrow shoulders, almost birdlike.
Too breakable. Her skin is a soft brown, warm-toned like the underside of a well-loved violin; she reminds me of something lived in.
Something organic. The image makes no attempt to flatter, and yet it does.
Her hair falls in a long black curtain, unnervingly silken.
There are no jewels, no braids, nothing to impress whoever glances at this photo.
But it’s her eyes that anchor me; a green so pale that it’s almost translucent, and it doesn’t match the rest of her.
I stare longer than I mean to and try to summon up hatred, but my mind traitorously whispers a truth I can’t ignore.
She’s striking, in a tragic sort of way.
Her features are so delicate that they appear to have been pencilled out but never inked.
The name beneath it reads: Lady Francesca Hadleigh-Marie Westcott Lanorythe Sheffolk. A mouthful, wow. Did they give her the names of every witch that came before her? Fuck, it sounds like something straight out of a period film where everyone dies of heartbreak and smallpox.
Another few paragraphs tell me that she’s the granddaughter of Duchess Sylvaine, future ruler of Sheffolk. I read on.
Born in Lanorythe, daughter of Lord Jonathan Lanorythe (deceased), eldest son of Duchess Sylvaine Sheffolk.
Her maternal line appears to be an afterthought: daughter of Beatrice Lanorythe (née Jacobs), a Coloured woman born in Cape Town, South Africa.
I pause on the word ‘Coloured’, but a quick internet search reminds me it’s a recognised racial group.
There’s no further elaboration about her mother, as though mentioning it was already an achievement.
I’ve read enough to know what absence of detail means.
Parents lost to a boating accident; older sister— the intended heir —perished in the same accident; only survivor, named heir at six.
There’s an article about her grief that’s barely five sentences.
Fiancé deceased. Gabriel Fairbanks, presumed dead after a fall near a cliffside called Blackwell Wash, not too far from Redford Estate.
Fell off a cliff. Right. And I’m supposed to play nice?
What exactly do I lead with— sorry for all your losses; want to trauma-bond?
The more I read, the more irritated I grow.
Quiet. Obedient. Raised by the Duchess herself.
No public scandals. The woman is a fucking ghost and exactly the type of heir my father wishes he had.
I can’t believe it. The man is sending me to sit next to her at mind-numbing events as though her behaviour will rub off on me like perfume.
The last thing I want is to be tamed by some prissy duchess-in-training.
Sheffolk is supposed to be a punishment disguised as politics.
What it actually means is containment: keep him in the country but out of the way.
There’s nothing diplomatic about it. It’s a muzzle.
I’m being sent north to be buried while my father’s mess continues to rot beneath the floorboards of this cursed palace.
Because God forbid the country catches even a whisper of what he’s done. God forbid the golden throne be tarnished by the secrets of the man who sits upon it. He never once asked me what I saw. Because he already knows. And he knows I won’t forget. That’s what terrifies him.