Chapter 28 - Answer for an Answer
I drowned my turmoil the Hyton way—with a drink in my hand.
The celebratory coronation ball lacked any real celebration, and not just because the guilt from Brandt’s death weighed on me. The Barons and other nobility spoke amongst themselves with hushed voices and darting eyes. Hissed questions of the new ruler cut through the bright music no one danced to.
“He would not let go of the spear. What does that mean?”
“I overheard the servants say he screamed in the tower all night.”
“He can howl at the moon like a dog so long as he keeps the Darkest Night going every year.”
I ignored the gossips and quietly sipped from my glass—at least I did not have to worry about anyone poisoning me.
Derrick, however, paid no notice to the worrying dissent. He was little more than a grim statue as he sat on his throne with a shadow over his eyes. A servant offered him a golden goblet, but Derrick’s deadly glare sent the poor man scurrying away.
Brietta was quelling the fog of uncertainty, flitting from Baron to Baron and charming them with her glittering jewels and a wide smile. She kept her mask of genteel grace even though we all felt the ground cracking beneath us.
Annalisa nudged my elbow. “Stop looking so sour! Everyone is watching us.”
My sip of wine turned into Brandt’s blood on my tongue. I froze, but I forced myself to swallow it.
“He was my soldier, Anna,” I whispered. “He died because of me. ”
Annalisa raised her goblet and her low voice echoed off the metal. “He was the one who talked, not you.” She took a sip and lowered her cup. “No one is more paranoid than Uncle Ragnar. As soon as he caught him talking to Erik, Uncle Ragnar would spare nothing to wring the treason out of him.”
And yet Brandt had still withheld the truth and kept my secret safe.
I stared at General Hyton across the ballroom. He stood next to Baron Elvar amongst a flock of purple capes and dresses and flashed a smile that made my blood run cold.
General Hyton knew I was a sorceress. He had every right under the law to drag me up on the scaffold instead of Brandt, so why did he stay his hand?
The uncertainty clawed at my stomach. If “answer for an answer” was our game, I had to keep playing just to know what I was dealing with.
I tossed back the rest of my liquid courage and faced Annalisa. “What do you say we do some charming on behalf of His Excellency?”
Annalisa laced her fingers with mine. “ There is the Hyton spirit.”
The heels of our slippers clicked on the tile as we crossed the empty dance floor to the Elvars.
I glanced up at Derrick. He had his eyes fixed out the windows into the garden, his chin resting on his fist, and the crown of Lycaster resting heavily on his brow.
A little pull tugged beneath my ribs. I wanted to check on him to see if he was all right, but I had to see where I stood with the General.
I put on my best smile as we invaded the circle of Elvars. Baron Elvar’s chest glittered with sapphires as he shot me a suspicious glance.
Vivian Elvar placed her hand on Brietta’s shoulder as we joined the circle, breaking the conversation to dote on her only daughter. “We never dreamed she could be Duchess, but I suppose even the Duke’s heir could not resist our darling Brietta.”
Brietta took a drink from her goblet instead of rolling her eyes like she usually would.
“Ah, Serafina! Lovely to see you, dear!” Vivian’s bejeweled hands flashed as she placed a showy kiss on my cheek. Her amber perfume was so strong I had to hold back a cough.
I glanced at General Hyton, hoping he would read the greasy lip stain on my cheek as a stamp of approval from the wealthiest and most influential people in the Dukedom.
Vivian cast a glance down at Annalisa as if she were vermin. “And greetings, Madame Thornebow.”
“Pleasure to see the House of Elvar making an appearance for my brother’s coronation,” Annalisa sweetly replied.
“Your brother?” Baron Elvar replied with a barking laugh. “Damn, how many daughters did Anders have?”
General Hyton’s smirk mirrored Baron Elvar’s. “Some say one too many.”
The rest of the Elvar circle threw their heads back and laughed as Brietta glared at her family.
“Oh, but you remember this one, Tyreon,” Vivian said with a feline smile. “This is little Annalisa, she used to tease your niece back at Ashmore.”
Brietta put a hand on her mother’s arm and parted her lips to deflect, but Baron Elvar’s scoff came first.
“I do not care about schoolgirl nonsense!” he said. “My brother might listen to you prattle on about the meaningless business of women, but I have more important things to give my attention to.”
Baron Elvar looked at General Hyton and gestured to Derrick with his goblet. “For instance, the hell is wrong with our new Duke? He looks like an emaciated gargoyle! Has he even blinked?”
I opened my mouth to gently defend him, but Brietta beat me to it.
“His parents just died, Uncle!” she said. “He killed a man today!”
“And?” Baron Elvar replied, speaking to Brietta as if she were a child instead of the Duchess. “Business does not care, continental markets do not care—the neighboring kingdoms and empires are all looking to how that boy is going to handle things over the next few months. If he does not snap out of whatever trance he is in, all of Lycaster is in jeopardy!”
“Well deduced, Tyreon,” General Hyton said with a smile.
“Brother, is that not a tad dramatic?” said Brietta’s father. His purple doublet and round belly made him look like a grape.
“Spoken like a true second son, Vidaar,” Baron Elvar said with a crooked smile. “You do not understand the damage Alastar the Bold did. Ravenwood and Bloodstone have had nearly zero output over the past seven years and Thornebow’s markets never recovered after people stopped trusting their trade twenty years ago. If you never figured out that he kept most of court drunk and confused so they never realized how much he royally fucked our economy, then I pity you.”
I kept my face schooled as he ranted. I did not know much about the economy, but I at least understood how much Ravenwood suffered after Anders sent most of its sons to die. What place did the richest man in the Dukedom have lecturing about the damage of an empty belly?
“Oh my, is Tyreon spinning a thread about the ledgers again?”
I turned toward the familiar voice. Mother had worked her small body into the circle of towering Elvars, squeezing in on General Hyton’s left side. She smiled at Baron Elvar as she held a goblet in her hands. “The numbers are all so dizzying, your mind must truly be a marvel to keep track of it all!”
Baron Elvar’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here, Adalia? No one here wants to sleep with you.”
My stomach clenched and Annalisa gripped my hand. She squeezed it once, quieting all the scathing words that lashed up at my throat.
Mother laughed it off. “Oh, I am just bringing the General his refreshment.”
General Hyton glanced at the goblet and raised an eyebrow.
“Ragnar, careful as always.” Mother took a sip, her emerald eyes glittering. “See? Safe and sound.”
General Hyton smiled and took the goblet from Mother’s hands. “At least she is still good for something.”
If I were not in danger of being imprisoned for sorcery, I would have boiled that wine right before it touched his lips.
My eyes flitted to the throne—empty. I searched around the room for any sign of Derrick, but I could not find him.
A missing Duke was certainly a problem. Solving that problem would make me look quite useful to the paranoid General—like a benevolent sorceress, even.
I squeezed Annalisa’s hand and sent a gentle command into her mind. “ I have to find your brother. Entertain these snobs, will you? ”
Annalisa blinked and then a wide smile spread across her face. “Did any of you notice His Excellency has a scar on the back of his right hand?”
A small smirk flicked up Brietta’s cheek, but her father and uncle raised their eyebrows.
Annalisa held up her right hand. “He tried to take my dessert when we were little, so I stabbed him with a fork. Nearly pinned him to the dining table!”
Baron Elvar barked out a laugh as I made a show of draining my goblet. I smacked my lips. “So vicious, Annalisa! But it looks like I am out of wine, I need to find more.”
I maneuvered my skirt around the Elvars as they implored Annalisa to share more stories.
Whispers hissed past my ears as I crossed the ballroom.
“So much for our new Duke!”
“Looks like he hopped away!”
I glanced out the windows and found Derrick. He was standing in the garden and looking up at the bull statue.
I had not even spoken to Derrick since the Darkest Night. How could I face him again?
I closed my eyes and leaned into the soft song the Nordingaard crystal pushed into my skin. I was calm and I was brave—I could do something as simple as speak to a friend.
Even if he had just killed my soldier.
I let out a breath before I stepped out into the starry night. Even the tapping of my slippers against the steps did not catch his attention.
Maybe the sound of my voice would wake him. “Derrick?”
No answer. His face was still gaunt, but his chest rose and fell rapidly with shallow breath.
I wrapped my hand around his. “Derrick?”
His hand trembled. “Why is there still blood?”
I looked up at the statue. Servants had cleaned all of his father’s blood off the stone and polished the golden horns clean.
“Derrick, there is no—”
“There is blood!” Derrick shouted. The muscles in his arm jolted harder. The veins in his neck bulged. “I still see it. I feel it on my hands. I smell it. Fuck, I taste it. I taste it!”
I grabbed his arms and pulled him toward me. “Derrick, look at me!”
His eyes met mine, but it was like he could not see me. The left side of his face twitched.
Shit, what was happening to him?
I stood on my toes and held his face. I stroked his sunken cheeks with my thumbs as he shook. He was little more than a skeleton wearing skin.
“When was the last time you ate?” I demanded.
He shook like a leaf in autumn, but stayed silent.
“Please, Derrick,” I cried. “Please let me help you. I will call the servants and get you food—”
His eyes rolled back and his knees buckled. My arms quickly wrapped around him as his head lolled against my back. The crown of Lycaster fell from his head with a clatter.
I braced myself as I held him, but I could not help the smile that bloomed when three gentle notes from a harp played in my mind.
Alastar XII had let me in.
“What in the high halls of hell is going on?”
General Hyton’s footsteps sprinted down the patio steps. Derrick’s weight lifted off my body as the General heaved him over his shoulder.
Shit, this did not look good. In the General’s eyes, I could have put Derrick under a spell and caused him to faint.
I tried not to sound defensive. “He has not eaten in days, General. We should get him—”
“I know,” General Hyton huffed. “He refused anything we gave him in the Western tower—threw the bread right back at the guards like it was full of maggots.”
The Western tower? Derrick had been locked in a cell all day? Is that how far the General went to keep Derrick safe?
Two guards appeared at the General’s side and each one balanced the weight of their Duke’s limp body between them.
“Take him to his chambers,” the General ordered.
The soldiers obeyed, taking Derrick in the opposite direction of the ballroom doors.
“Not the passages!” he barked. “Someone could be waiting with a knife. Take him through the ballroom so everyone can have eyes on him.”
The soldiers turned on their heels. My heart ached at the sight of Derrick’s feet dragging lifelessly against the cobblestones.
I kneaded the fabric of my skirt. Derrick had lost his parents, killed a man, and was starving. No wonder he was starting to go…
No, I refused to even think of the word. Derrick always had a sharp mind and a dazzling wit. He just needed some comfort. Anyone in his situation would.
“Forbidden to lie, and yet you kept so many secrets.”
I turned and General Hyton’s shadow washed over me. I could have played meek and helpless, but that would do me no good. He knew I was a sorceress and therefore dangerous. Leaning into that assumption might keep my head on my shoulders.
Besides, he merely held the crown of Lycaster in his hand, not a sword.
I set my jaw and looked up. “You executed Brandt Olson.”
His eyes were hard as he stepped forward. “I am the enforcer of laws, not the arbiter of mercy. He committed high treason.”
“As have I, yet here I stand.”
He caught my chin and my eyes met his. My neck was so bare and exposed, I nearly felt the edge of Traitor’s Bane on my skin.
His finger traced my jaw as he kept me in his hold. “An answer for an answer, let’s see if you will give me the whole truth this time.”
A chill pricked my skin, but I held firm.
“Nikkolas Bloodstone was not hiring cadets from my academy to be mere fortress guards or to repopulate the province,” he said. “That ‘militia’ Olson confessed to is a real army, isn’t it?”
I could have spat in his face.
“Yes,” I hissed.
He smiled. “Are you afraid of me?”
My eyes flicked down to the crown in his hand. “Only of the power you hold. But of you? No.”
General Hyton’s eyes gleamed. “Good.” He released my chin and stepped back. “What can you do, sorceress?”
I chewed on my tongue and glanced around. No one would hear me unless the rose bushes suddenly grew ears. “I…I can heal. See memories. Set water ablaze.” I swallowed, hoping I could quell the truth of the last trick I had learned, but my white fire forced it out. “A-and…control men…but only if they let me.”
As soon as I thought I had doomed myself, he chuckled in his throat and smiled. “You do not need sorcery to control men.” He turned. “Come. I owe you three answers and I wager that you would want to ask them in private.”
Reluctantly, I picked up my skirt and followed him through the garden. He had every motive to make a death threat—I was a powerful sorceress, committing high treason, and my life was no longer bonded to his son’s. What did he want with me?
He led us to the side of the palace and pressed on a brick. A low click filled the air and a stack of bricks creaked open—a door to the inner walls.
Right where General Hyton had just said someone could be waiting with a knife.
He chuckled at my incredulous look. “Between the General of the Lycaster army and a sorceress, nothing could hurt us in here.”
I held onto my suspicions but stepped into the darkness. Maybe Daigen would be lurking around in case General Hyton tried to pull anything nefarious.
Or the General could really find out what the sorceress was capable of.
He sealed the passage behind us and held the crown as he walked in front of me in the narrow hallway.
The paranoid General left his back exposed to a sorceress?
My first question was the only one that burned at the front of my mind. “Why have you not executed me yet?”
“I am not a wasteful man.” His voice was nearly as soft as his footsteps. “You are a powerful being in a world that is crumbling. My skills can only…do so much. The House of Hyton needs someone like you to keep it secure in these fragile times.”
He knew Fraleigh was weak. After Baron Elvar’s tirade about our failing economy in a war-hungry world, General Hyton needed a pillar to prop up Derrick’s new reign.
A sorceress like me was just what he needed if the surrounding nations decided to invade…but I had no collar binding me into their service.
I did not need to appease the General, he needed to appease me.
I had already suspected the answer to my next question, but I wanted confirmation. “How do you know so much about sorcery?”
General Hyton suddenly turned a corner and I nearly tripped over my ankles to keep up. “My mother grew up in a manor on the base of Nordingaard. She told me tales of those who wish in wells and pray for the Man of the Mountain’s gift. She was fascinated by the mysticism of it all—the agelessness, the inability to lie, the magic tears.”
His voice hitched and he cleared his throat. “Forgive me, I cannot remember the last time I was able to talk about her.”
Was the General actually getting emotional? Maybe I could use that to my advantage and get more information out of him.
I smiled. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He looked over his shoulder and I briefly saw a glimpse of the boy who was once his mother’s “Little Diamond.”
“I miss her,” he said. The crown shifted in his hands. “I wish I could have done more for her.”
The pain beneath his quiet words made my heart ache. Despite looking almost identical to him, General Hyton had never been more like Riyan until that moment.
He was just a boy who missed his mother.
I could have had a dozen questions that could have been better than the one I had chosen as my final one. I could have asked him anything about Ilsa, or why he had been so cruel to Riyan at the military academy, but only one question felt right.
“Why did you never go back for Astrid?”
His eyes widened only slightly before he swallowed. “I went back right after my son was born, but the Bloodstone Fortress gates never opened for a Hyton again.”
The silence that followed weighed on my chest. I was about to open my mouth and risk owing the General another answer when he suddenly turned down a dark hallway.
“Despite how it looks, I do quite like your mother.” His pace was so brisk that I had to pick up my skirt and run to keep up with him. “We have an…alliance of sorts. Unfortunately, I have to keep Tyreon Elvar happy. We all have roles to play to keep the Dukedom secure.”
Between him laying on flattery like sheets on a mattress and the coil of red hair on his night table, he sent the message loud and clear.
Of course the richest man in Lycaster wanted the beautiful Little Diamond all to himself.
The General opened a panel in the wall and a soft, warm light filled the narrow hallway. The smell of soot and burnt fat filled my nose.
The kitchen—I had to get Derrick some food.
“I will ensure this goes to its rightful place,” General Hyton said, gesturing to the crown in his hand, “but if anyone is going to get my nephew to eat, it will be you. If you do not enter his chambers tonight, he might starve to death.”