Chapter 18 - Commander
My feet were light as I danced on the waves.
The low song of the sirens vibrated under the seawater, but I was not afraid. Light from the full moon crested on each rolling wave.
“ One of these days, I will teach you how to swim. You just have to wake up. ”
Even though the voice from the sea felt as delicious as a satin ribbon against my ears, I stopped dancing. Why would I need to wake up?
My eyes felt like they were weighed down with boulders. I slowly rolled my head, feeling the pillow beneath me.
I was in bed, not in the sea.
I slowly opened my eyes and oriented myself in the pastel shades of Annalisa’s bedroom.
My heart skipped a beat as I recalled my dream. I had heard Riyan’s voice. For the first time since he left, I heard his voice.
But how? Daigen was in the room when he had invaded my dream. If Riyan was in the place West of the Moon and East of the Sun, how had he connected with me at all?
I slid my hand under the blanket toward my leg. Maybe the Nordingaard crystal had something to do with…
Wait…where was the crystal?
My hand touched the bare skin of my leg and my heart stopped. I lifted my pillow. The crystal was nowhere in sight.
“Looking for this?”
I slowly looked over my shoulder to see Annalisa standing next to the bed and dangling my choker in front of her.
I just needed to tell the truth in a way that benefitted me. “It was a gift from the North. It reminded me of home and it is very precious to me—”
“Do not lie!” Annalisa snapped. “You think I do not know exactly what this is? You were kicking around in the middle of the night and this was glowing on your leg!”
My heart raced. Annalisa could be cruel, but she would not turn me in to her father. Not after everything we had been through.
Her deadly eyes glistened. “You will end up like her. ”
She was too afraid to say the name, but I knew she meant her grandmother.
Even though her brows were furrowed like twin arrows, Annalisa was not angry with me. She was scared for me.
My hands rested over my heart. “I know.” The truth of everything bounced around in my chest, waiting to find its way to my lips.
And I let it out. Not because I was not strong enough to keep it down, but because my friend deserved to know everything.
Most of all, I wanted her to know everything.
Annalisa sat on the bed and listened while the rosy dawn turned into bright golden rays. Her brows furrowed in confusion when I told her my blood bond was gone. She smiled when she heard about my adventure to the Bloodstone lilies. Her hand found mine when I told her of our journey up Nordingaard mountain.
“Grigory told me all about Nordingaard—such a strange and frightening place,” Annalisa said. “I wish he were here. He would know how to make Ganora pay for taking Riyan.”
Though the crystal was back on my thigh, my stomach clenched. Had her bond affected her too? “How did you fall in love with Grigory if you were only together for two days?”
She looked down at the floor and smiled. “After the… you know what happened, he stayed up all night and talked to me. He listened to me. He…he thought I was important and worthy.” She hugged her middle and her cheeks pinked. “If that is not love, I do not want anything else.”
A gentle knock echoed through the room before the door swung open. Merri entered carrying a small box with a bright pink bow on top.
The corners of Merri’s eyes crinkled with her warm smile. “Happy birthday, Madame Thornebow.”
In Annalisa’s mind, her birthday was not until the evening. Every year, just before a quarter past five, Annalisa would whisper “Happy birthday, Derrick” and wait exactly twenty minutes before it was her birthday. As soon as she reached that magical time, she would tear open whatever gift Derrick had sent to the school.
I had to witness the odd ritual for years, but Annalisa apparently was fine with breaking tradition for Merri. She ran to Merri and crushed her to her chest before taking the box in her hands.
Annalisa’s eyes sparkled. “A pink ribbon? It’s from the finest jeweler in Hyton square!” She pulled the pink ribbon from the top of the box when another, younger maid walked into the room carrying a large tray filled with breakfast delights.
The maid’s chestnut hair was neatly coiled into braids on the back of her head, but I did not miss the crystal blue in her downcast eyes—Rosaline.
What was Fraleigh’s servant doing in the palace disguised as a maid?
Rosaline set the tray on the table in front of Annalisa’s couch. Merri gestured to the tray as Annalisa tore through the box. “I brought all your favorites.”
I left the bed and crossed to the couch as Rosaline met my eye, raising a single finger to her lips.
If Rosaline had told me about Daigen in the first place, maybe she was part of his “gentle hand of guidance.”
Annalisa’s squeal tore my eyes away from Rosaline. She held up a golden pendant of the House of Thornebow emblem—a fox in an oval frame.
“Look, Sera!” She held the pendant flat on her palm and thrust it under my nose. ‘Annalisa Thornebow’ was engraved at the bottom of the oval. She dropped the pendant into my hand. “And he sent me a letter with it!”
She held up the fine parchment and proudly read: “Happy twenty-second birthday, precious. I wish I could be there with you, but wear our crest over your heart and know that you have my heart no matter where I am. F.W.A.B.Y.B.T.M.”
I furrowed my brows. “F.W.A…what? What nonsense is that?”
Annalisa rolled her eyes, but her smile stayed on. “An acronym for Grigory’s special phrase for us—‘fate will always bring you back to me.’”
She pressed the parchment against her heart and squealed. She lovingly placed the note on the table and spun around, holding her curls on top of her head to expose her neck. “Put it on me! Put it on me!”
The pendant was surprisingly heavy, but I wrapped the chain around her neck and opened the clasp. I glanced back to the couch, but Merri and Rosaline had silently left the room.
As soon as my fingers left the back of her neck, Annalisa ran toward her dressing table and sat in front of the mirror to admire her new gift.
I smiled. Riyan had told me Grigory used to be a heel with women, but as the new Madame Thornebow looked at her reflection with stars in her eyes, I was sure he had changed his ways.
A flash of black flew in the open window. Annalisa screamed and whipped around.
A raven with another roll of parchment on its leg stood on the windowsill.
Shit, I had forgotten to explain the ravens to Annalisa.
I ran up to the raven. “What are you doing here?”
Annalisa got up from her dressing table chair. “Are you talking to that thing?”
It was all too much to explain. I had never mentioned my brothers around Annalisa, or even told her their names. “Yes. I…I grew up with a love of ravens.”
Not a lie.
I turned to the raven and dropped my voice to a whisper. “You could have come when I was alone, Endre!”
The bird growled. Wrong—I was definitely speaking to Erik.
“Do not get that tone with me,” I whispered. “I cannot tell you two apart!”
Annalisa stood next to me, looking between Erik and I. “This is by far the strangest thing you have ever done, Sera. The bird has a name?”
I sighed and gestured to my brother. “This is Erik. I know another raven named Endre and even though they look identical, they get testy when you mix them up.”
Annalisa scoffed and looked down at Erik. “I understand, I have a twin brother.”
She walked over to her easel in the corner, which she never tidied. She picked up a brush out of her jar of dirty oil and a small pot of pink paint. She quickly dried the brush on the side of her nightgown and dipped it into the paint.
She walked over to Erik. “Mama did this to me when I was a baby. Derrick and I looked indistinguishable as bald little infants when we had gowns on, so she put a drop of paint on my head.”
Erik hopped away from the incoming brush.
“Hold still!” Annalisa commanded. “If you cooperate, I will share my breakfast.”
Erik stood still as Annalisa painted the top of his beak pink. I could not believe my eyes, but seven years of being an animal must have made him never refuse the opportunity for food.
Annalisa returned her paint supplies to her art corner and then sat down on her couch in front of the breakfast tray. She patted the armrest to her left and Erik flapped over and perched on it.
Annalisa held a grape between her fingers and extended her arm toward Erik. He snatched the grape with his beak and Annalisa flinched. “You greedy thing!”
I smiled, picturing tall and stoic Erik in human form taking a grape out of Annalisa’s hand. I walked over to Erik as he ate and untied the parchment from his leg while Annalisa poured herself a cup of tea.
Once the parchment was safely in my hand, I leaned down and whispered, “Behave, today is her birthday.”
“Ugh!” Annalisa scowled, pulling her lips from the edge of the teacup. “That new maid has no clue how to make tea. This is way too bitter!”
Erik flapped his wings and flew out of the window. Few things were more offensive to Erik than bad tea.
“Hm, he must not have been that hungry,” Annalisa said before popping a grape in her mouth.
I stepped over to Annalisa’s dressing table and unrolled the parchment. I ran my eyes over the inked scrawl that had to be Evereon’s.
Still have two feet on the ground? Soldiers getting restless. We need you back.
I rolled my eyes. Freeing Fraleigh was taking longer than I had thought, but his impatient ass could wait.
Unlike Brandt, Evereon had not included charcoal for me to respond. I set the parchment on Annalisa’s writing desk and dipped a quill into the inkwell.
I flipped the parchment over and scribbled my reply.
Making progress. Be patient.
I rolled the parchment back into my hand when the whisper of wings entered the room.
Erik landed on the table with a small vine of yellow cone-shaped flowers in his beak and hopped over to Annalisa’s teacup. He ran his beak down the length of the yellow petals, squeezing drops of nectar into the tea.
After repeating himself with a second flower, he tapped on the edge of the cup with his beak. Annalisa warily picked up her cup and drank. She raised her eyebrows and hummed in delight.
She smiled and stroked his back with her fingertips. “What a clever bird you are!”
I held the parchment in my hand as I sat next to Annalisa on the couch. I could not help but smile as I poured myself a cup and watched Erik drip nectar in my tea. I took a sip and savored the light sweetness that balanced out the burned leaves.
Tears lined my eyes as I drank, and not from the steam of the warm tea. I had never liked tea after Erik left. I only ever drank it out of politeness or forced it down when I needed medicine.
Tea was finally sweet again.
I wiped a tear away with the inside of my wrist as Annalisa continued petting Erik, completely ignorant to who he was and what he meant to me.
“You are such a pretty bird,” Annalisa said with a gentle smile. “I always liked ravens, even though the rest of Lycaster hates them. I never saw them as bad omens because…well, because my grandmother was from Ravenwood.”
Erik cocked his head, like he was actually listening.
I leaned my cheek on my fist. I had not seen Annalisa that serene…ever. Maybe she just needed a pet.
“I am named after her, at least my middle name.” Her voice went from an airy calm to pensive. “I have gone through life with a part of myself that I was supposed to be ashamed of…even if none of it was my fault.”
The door clicked open and Brietta walked in, her Hyton Blue robe around her nightgown and her hair still in a braid. She closed the door behind her and locked it with a sigh. “Finally escaped that damn room. We have a big party planned for tonight and we need to strategize.”
Annalisa scowled. “ We? What is this ‘we’ shit?”
Brietta folded her arms and sat in the chair across from us. “All the nobility will be there and now that we know about Derrick’s new name—”
Her brown eyes widened when she found Erik. She looked over at me, silently demanding an explanation.
The white flame spun beneath my ribs. I could not slither my way out of that commanding stare.
I swallowed and gestured to the raven on the table. “This is Erik.” The white flame pulsed hotter. “My…my brother. He never died, he was transformed into a bird.”
Brietta’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“He is a man? Ew!” Annalisa swung her arm and smacked Erik in the chest, sending him flying backward through the room. He crashed into the wall with a pained squawk.
Annalisa turned to me. “Why did you not tell me he was your brother before I fed him?”
I gestured to Erik as he rolled over onto his feet. “You would have thought I was raving mad!”
“What is he even doing here?” Brietta asked.
I answered by unfolding my hand and showing her the roll of parchment. “Communication with the House of Bloodstone, since…” The flame burned my insides again. Fuck, I had to tell her. “…since I became the Baron.”
Annalisa scoffed. “Great, another secret.”
Brietta blinked and then she smiled. “You are the Baron? Not Baroness?”
“Essentially.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Do not sound so happy that Nikkolas and Hilda are dead. They were wonderful.”
Brietta held up her hands. “I am certain they were but…” Her smile only got bigger. “You are the leader of the Northern provinces! You are exactly what Freya and I are trying to achieve.”
Annalisa sprang up from the couch. “What are you talking about? What are you plotting behind my back?”
Brietta stood, rising to her towering height. “No one is going behind your back when you never leave your room.”
“No, Grigory was right!” Annalisa stamped her foot. “You two are not really my friends! Not when you keep secrets like this!”
Erik flew to the table and stood between the teacups, shooting me a judgmental look. I wanted to kick him back across the room.
Brietta looked at me expectantly. Since when was I supposed to be a diplomat?
“We have not been fair to you, Anna.” I reached out to touch her arm. “We are just scared.”
Annalisa backed away from me with a scowl.
Brietta chimed in. “Your mother warned me that changing the laws to make the women of Lycaster true citizens was dangerous and we did not want you getting hurt.”
Ice clung to Annalisa’s voice. “You already hurt me by lying to me. And by ignoring me. And not inviting me to tea.”
Brietta and I exchanged looks. For once, Brietta was brave enough to speak first. “Fine. The three of us tell each other the whole truth from now on.”
Annalisa refused to meet my eye, but I offered the first bit of truth. “Both of you already know I am a sorceress.”
“And I…” Brietta squared her shoulders and took in a deep breath. She closed her eyes. “I…I gave Derrick a black eye.”
“What?” Annalisa roared.
I threw out my arm to stop her from giving Brietta a black eye of her own. I turned to Brietta, keeping my voice soft despite holding Annalisa back. “Tell us what happened.”
Brietta bit her lip and nodded. “The night after the family dinner, he was acting very strange.”
“My brother is strange, what else is new?” Annalisa spat.
“He…” Brietta’s voice trailed off, like she struggled to find her voice. “It was like he was someone else. He only wanted one thing, and he was not taking ‘no’ for an answer, and I was trapped in that room…”
Brietta wrung her hands. “After I defended myself, he got sick—like he was purging all the evil from his body.”
I thought back to the memory the Man of the Mountain showed me of Derrick right after he had consummated his marriage with Brietta. He was violently sick and shaking.
I had first thought he was sick because he had drank too much, but maybe it was not how much he drank but what he drank. Brietta also had some special wine from Duke Hyton’s private stores right before the ball.
What if it was not the magic of the blood bond that had forced them to be intimate with one another? What if it was…
“Poison.” I looked up at Brietta. “Did Duke Hyton poison you on the night of—?”
Brietta nodded, tears shining in her eyes that looked only at the floor. “That is why neither of us can remember what happened. I have never drank anything Anders offered me since, but at the dinner…Derrick did.”
A chill ran down my body. Derrick did not sound like himself that night when he came to Annalisa’s room. His voice was strained with a ravenous edge and the only thing that would satisfy him was…
Me. In his lust-poisoned state, he first wanted me.
If Annalisa had not slammed the door in his face that night… No, I did not even want to imagine what the man who was not my Derrick would have done.
My throat trembled. “Derrick would never—”
“I know,” Brietta said, hard and fast. “And I will not let him apologize each time he tries. We drank the same poison. If he admits fault, then so must I. And I refuse to believe—”
Brietta sucked up her tears and threw her shoulders back. “That is why we need to strategize. If Anders is turning his son into a monster because he is desperate for an heir, we have to get him under control.”
A thought pulled on the back of my mind, where Freya had said a monster consumed her husband…
“Under control?” Annalisa snapped. “Are you going to put my twin brother on a chain?”
Brietta tightened her hold on her arms. “What do you suggest, then?”
Annalisa laughed—not what I expected. “You two want to play the games of the House of Hyton? You need someone who was raised as a Hyton.”
She crossed to her dressing table, dipped her fingers into her water bowl, and started smoothing her curls into perfect ringlets. “First of all, everything in our family starts and ends with my father. If you can manipulate my father, you have control of the House of Hyton.”
She was only confirming what I already knew. I just needed more information on his mother to back him into a corner and force him to release Fraleigh from whatever deal that held her in captivity.
Brietta loosened her grip. “So we need to get into your father’s head? Maybe with Sera’s magic—”
“Wrong.” Annalisa twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “My father lets no one in, but he has shown his hand for once. The only thing he cares about right now is Derrick and how the nobility perceives him.”
Brietta and I glanced at each other. Everything she stated was obvious, how did it help us?
Annalisa took note of our silence and scoffed. “Make Derrick look good. If Derrick looks good, my father is complacent. If he is complacent, he is not making moves against anyone. If he is not making moves, we can make moves against him. ”
Annalisa was never a strategist nor was she a planner. She had always struck first and asked questions later—sinking her teeth into the jugular with no cares in the world other than herself.
Erik perched on the edge of the dressing table. Even though Annalisa was the one preening herself like a bird, I could not find the school bully I grew up with. Instead, I saw a commander giving orders to her soldiers.
Annalisa rested her hands on the dressing table and looked down at Erik. “I have spent twenty-two years dealing with my father’s bullshit. I am tired of trying to win his affection, now I want to earn his hatred.”
She looked over her shoulder at us. “If you want any hope for the control you seek, Derrick had better have the best damn birthday of his life tonight.”