Chapter 56 The Duke of Larafyn
The Duke of Larafyn
Isit at the smaller table, my hands resting lightly against the wood, looking at the empty chair across from me. Colsar said he would be late. That has become normal. My attention lingers there longer than it should.
He has likely not eaten. I could wait. I have waited before. The thought does not sit well tonight.
My eyes move around the room, the prepared table, the untouched food, the space held open for something that has not arrived. Then I think of what the Sovereign said to me not long after we arrived. "I dine at the same time every evening. You are always welcome, with or without Colsar."
There are things I need to discuss. Veynar.
What comes next when we leave this place behind.
I look at the empty chair once more, then stand carefully.
The movement pulls low through my abdomen but it no longer stops me.
I will go to the Sovereign first. Then I will have something sent up for Colsar and find him after.
The hidden corridors are quiet, sound softened and held close. I move through them without thinking now, past doorways I have not entered, past intersections that open briefly onto places that exist and do not at once.
Ahead, the throne room comes into view, courtiers crossing with purposeful motion, voices carrying faintly. None of them turn.
The air changes as I step through. The sound follows, voices clearer, everything pressing fully into place around me. No one reacts. I move through as though I had always been here, servants passing with lowered heads, guards along the walls, their attention brushing over me and away again.
The larger dining hall is lit when I reach it and that surprises me. I pause just outside the doors and listen. Voices, more than one, the full rhythm of something already established.
I push the doors open. Long tables stretch through the room, the high windows holding the last of the evening light.
The Sovereign sits at the head. Across from him, a man I place almost immediately.
Colsar had mentioned the Duke of Larafyn to me once, briefly, the way he mentioned things he considered important without elaborating.
He looked exactly as that suggested, broad through the shoulders, the bearing of someone who had never needed to prove his strength to anyone.
And beside Colsar, close and angled toward the table with a map spread between them, her hand resting near its edge as she speaks in a voice low and precise and already part of a conversation that has been unfolding long before I arrived.
Jessamy.
I should not be surprised, it was no secret that she was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Larafyn. She was his only child, due to some type of affliction he carried. She looks beautiful, unsurprisingly, in a gown of burgundy, her rich brown curls piled high on her head.
I look as I feel. Tired and not quite like the version of myself that existed before the children.
The anger moves through me before I can stop it and I let it move without letting it show.
I remember the last time we stood in the same space, the balcony at Rathmor, the way she had leaned close with that cruel smile of hers.
“If you’re wondering, the prince tastes absolutely divine,” she had said.
The words had struck exactly where she meant them to. I had walked away and said nothing and hated myself for it, and I have not forgotten a single syllable of it since.
I remember what she is to Colsar. What she was. And now she sits here, looking beautiful and rested and dining with him, while I had sat alone.
Brinette had mentioned her once, not much, only that she was the Duke's daughter and that it mattered because the Duke’s brother sits on Veynar’s war council. Lord Fyne, apparently.
I keep my face a mask. I have had enough practice.
For a moment I do not move, and then the Sovereign looks up. "My queen," he says, as though I have joined something expected rather than interrupted it.
Colsar turns. Something moves across his face, small and gone almost immediately.
Jessamy's attention follows his and when she sees me she goes still, something moving through her expression that she does not manage to contain quickly enough.
Surprise, and then something else beneath it, the rapid reassembly of composure.
"Colsar did not mention you were here," she says.
The words are directed at me but her eyes move briefly to him as she says it, and the implication in that glance is as intentional as anything she has ever said to my face.
I step forward. "I did not realize you had company," I say, and my voice carries nothing she can use.
"Then you are all the more welcome," the Sovereign replies.
I take a seat and a servant appears quickly, placing a setting in front of me.
"The northern border will not hold if they continue to move that way," the Duke is saying.
"They will not," Colsar replies, the certainty in his voice quiet and complete. "They have tested that ground before. It does not give them what they need."
"And if they change approach?"
"They will not."
Jessamy turns slightly toward him. "They never do. Not when they believe they already understand the terrain."
Colsar exhales softly. "They will break themselves before they break that line."
“You say that as though the decision is already yours to make,” the Sovereign says.
A pause.
“I have told you more than once to take the Sovereign’s seat. It does not become optional with delay.”
The Duke's attention shifts to me then, measuring. "I do not believe we have been introduced. A friend of yours?" Directed at Colsar.
"My wife," Colsar says. A pause. "My queen."
The correction is quiet and final. The Duke inclines his head at once. "My apologies, my queen."
"In Shalvar, news travels slowly because of the wards," Colsar adds evenly. "It is not yet common knowledge that I am married.”
"Of course," the Duke says, though his attention lingers a moment longer before returning to the table.
The conversation continues. They do not pause for me. They make room, which is a different thing entirely.
"And the transition?" the Duke asks. "Will it fall before or after the holiday?"
"After," Colsar says. "It always does."
Jessamy nods. "The timing has held for generations."
I glance between them. "The holiday?"
The conversation shifts just enough to include me. Colsar looks at me. "The night of transition. It marks when younger siakars and kyvarins begin their first full shift."
"Into their full form?"
"Yes."
"At what age?"
"It varies."
Jessamy's voice follows easily. "It is one of the more foundational traditions here. I am surprised that was not explained to you."
Colsar answers without hesitation. "Then I should have explained it."
"Then I will learn it now," I say, my voice remaining even.
"It is not taught directly," Colsar continues. "It is observed. Prepared for. The body knows what to do before the mind does."
"It is usually something learned very early," Jessamy adds. "Among those raised for it."
The Sovereign's attention shifts briefly between us and then returns to the discussion.
Trade routes. Supply lines. Names I do not know and places I have never seen.
Jessamy moves within the conversation without pause, referencing last winter and the western line and the second incursion as though these are rooms she has lived in for years.
Perhaps she has. That is its own thing to sit with. I hate that she and Colsar have a past. He told me that it was nothing compared to what we have. Yet, somehow in watching her confidence and ease something in me stirs.
In Alarna, I had finally gained confidence.
Learned to wield my power. Yet tonight, in this room, I feel small and insignificant.
I feel uneducated. I do not feel like a queen at all.
I had come here to speak of Veynar. The words do not come.
There is no opening for them and I am not certain I would take it if there were.
I reach for the food though I do not taste it, trying not to think of Jessamy in my husband’s chambers on our wedding night. Colsar had assured me nothing had happened, but watching her now the image burns in my mind as though it happened last night.
Colsar does not look at me again in full. The distance between us is not physical. It is something quieter, something that has everything to do with where I entered into this and where they were already standing when I arrived.
By the time the meal ends I am no longer hungry. My dress is damp, my breasts leaking through the fabric. It is not time for the twins to feed, I do not know why my body is behaving this way. I do not know my body. I do not know why anything is the way it is.
I rush to rise when the Sovereign does, not wanting to draw attention to the wetness now seeping into the front of my dress.
He gives me a small nod as he passes. The Duke follows, inclining his head toward me once more before he goes.
Jessamy stands more slowly and her eyes find mine for a brief moment, something moving through them that I recognize because I have seen it before, dressed differently but carrying the same intent as the last time she stood close enough to make certain I understood exactly where I stood.
"My queen," she says.
The title is correct. The tone is not.
Then she turns back to Colsar, saying something low that I do not hear, and I do not stay to listen. I leave the hall the same way I entered it. Quiet. Controlled. The mask holding because it has to.
The corridors feel different on the walk back, clearer in a way that is not entirely comfortable.
Jessamy’s insults. My father’s disrespect.
Mysin. Yvara. I have always allowed myself to be made to feel small.
In many ways it is a comfort to me. But small got me stabbed, humiliated, and almost killed. And a queen cannot be small.
I understand something now that I did not before.
This kingdom may be mine by right. But I do not yet move within it the way they do.
I realize too, that I do not know much of Shalvar’s customs. Yet, these are now my children’s origins.
And Ari is siakar. I only know what Colsar has told me. That will need to change.
And I will not wait for anyone to teach me.