Chapter 33 - Always There
I wished being the Duke’s mistress just meant I lived on my back like I had first thought. That at least would have given me some rest.
I started my mornings draped in Hyton Blue and glimmering with a new gift from Derrick. An emerald pendant. An onyx ring. His great-grandmother’s tiara.
He kept me sparkling and I kept him fed. I sat next to him at every meal, sampling each and every dish to check for poison. Just because the Viper held affection for Derrick did not mean others could not slip a potion into his food.
As the days passed, Derrick’s cheeks had started to fill out again…and so had mine. I matched him bite for bite at each meal to keep him eating, fighting through the pain in my stretching stomach. My calves were rounder every time I tied my garters. My Nordingaard crystal had chafed against my soft thighs before, but it grew so unbearable I hid it away in a drawer.
Derrick was always too close for me to risk him finding the crystal, anyway. I missed the calmness flowing into my skin, but I just had to wait until the next full moon before I could wear it again.
Though I had used my magic every day, I had not heard Riyan’s voice even once.
Every night, I asked Midnight to free Fraleigh from her servitude. Each time, Alastar roared from the bottom of his pit and created a new crack in Derrick’s foundation.
As soon as Alastar shook the floor, Midnight would whisk me away to the safety of my bedroom in the paper castle before he disappeared.
My nights were sleepless and my days were no reprieve. Brietta sometimes called meetings with Annalisa and I to discuss a new detail in Freya’s diary, only for Annalisa to snap that Brietta had interpreted her mother’s scrawl wrong.
General Hyton sometimes gave me a break from the bickering and we would play a round of “answer for answer” over a cup of honeyed tea. In our visits, I learned he met Astrid the summer before his Junior year when he accompanied his mother to visit Hilda. Riyan was conceived when Ragnar snuck Astrid into a tavern during Winter Solstice. I also learned the General had to be cold and cruel to his son to keep him safe—anyone suspecting Riyan was a Hyton heir would have put him in more danger than he was already in.
In exchange, he asked me if I could learn to perform a blood bond enchantment.
My white flame surprised me with the truth—I could.
Though I was unsure if I could create a blood bond as strong as Fraleigh’s, my magic was strengthened with every night I mended Derrick’s wounds.
We had the same nightly routine. He locked his arms around my waist, I greeted Midnight, and I found a new door that led to a memory where Alastar had roared through his mind.
The memories grew heavier on my heart. He saw Freya draped limply on a couch and did not know if she was dead or alive. He shed lonely tears on his sixteenth birthday. He escorted each of his older sisters at their Presentations before they were torn away from him. He even refused to let go of Sapphira’s arm the instant he saw Emperor Orlon’s grey hair.
As the moon waxed in the sky, the walls in the paper castle got narrower and narrower until I was crawling on my belly to make my repairs.
But I pressed on. I was only able to mend the cracks in the walls because Derrick was always fighting Alastar, though he did not even know he was doing it. With everything I had seen in Derrick’s memories, a weaker man would have succumbed to that voracious need for control.
Made me wonder what he was fighting for.
Regardless of the reason, his resilience gave me hope. After eleven Dukes, he could finally be the one to prevail over Alastar and release Fraleigh.
So if Derrick was going to fight, I would fight too.
At every party, Derrick gripped the arm of his throne while I sat in his lap, my Hyton Blue skirt draping over his legs. Though my eyelids were heavy as bricks, I forced myself to keep vigil over the ballroom, tasting each goblet the servants brought before letting Derrick have a sip.
Mother seemed to be acting in a similar role. She followed General Hyton around the ballroom like a dark shadow, her full lips always on the rim of his goblet before she handed it to him.
Annalisa usually only made a brief appearance at the parties before the crowd overwhelmed her, but Brietta swept through the ballroom with a dazzling smile. She mingled with men and women in every House color, occasionally throwing an approving glance to my place on the dais.
If I stayed glued to Derrick’s lap, she did not have to worry about becoming pregnant.
But she did not always approve of my methods.
“You are cutting his meat for him?” she had asked one morning.
I folded my arms. “He gets very tense when he sees blood. I cannot risk him falling into another convulsing fit.”
She pursed her lips and returned to reading Freya’s diary. “Just feed him haddock from now on.”
After a week of restlessness, the parties ceased and the season of business had begun.
I clung to Derrick’s arm as we walked through the palace halls. His first official meeting with the Barons was in mere minutes.
Derrick wore the crown of Lycaster, his cape billowing from his shoulders and his chest gleaming with chains of gems.
He glanced down at his chest. “I hate wearing these.” He twisted one of the heavy chains before releasing it with a thunk against his chest. “They were his. ”
I smirked. “Well, with how inheritance works, the jewels were always yours. Your father just held onto them for a while.”
He kissed my forehead. “Will you ever stop dazzling me with your brilliance?” He slowed his stride and pulled me closer to the wall. “I want you at the meeting with me.”
I knitted my brows. “But I am a woman. The Barons would take it as a grave insult.”
Even though I was a Baron. The thought tasted sour—what good was power if it relied on the acceptance of others?
Derrick’s eyes twinkled. “No one denies the Duke what he wants.”
He gripped the frame of a portrait of a beautiful fair-haired woman and swung it open like a door. A small set of steps greeted me through the portrait hole.
He helped me up the small ledge and followed me. At the top was a tiny room that fit only a plush pink chair, a footstool, and a small table with parchment atop it. The chair faced a large portrait of Alastar the Faithful, the fifth Duke of Lycaster.
Derrick placed his hand on my shoulder and dropped his voice. “You should see the whole meeting through the portrait.”
I turned, reaching high to take his face in my hands. “You will do just fine.”
I lifted onto my toes to give him a kiss on the jaw.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and smiled. “You do not have to always get on your toes for me. I can meet you at your height.”
I lowered my heels to the ground and shrugged. “I never notice when it happens. When you are small, you spend your whole life on your toes.”
He kissed my hair and turned to leave, but then looked over his shoulder. I gave him a reassuring smile and lifted the hem of my skirt, revealing the Hyton dagger tied to my garter.
I had to replace the Nordingaard crystal with the damn dagger. Derrick rarely let me out of his sight, but wanted me to have protection when I did. If all I had to do was don the familiar weapon to keep him calm, it was worth the minor discomfort.
He gave me an approving smile as soon as he saw the bull-headed hilt and disappeared down the dark steps.
I sank into the pink chair and looked at the large portrait. Though my eyelids were heavy from exhaustion, I focused on the light filtering through the other side of the thin canvas. After a few seconds, I could make out a large table with eight chairs on the sides and a large throne at the end closest to me. The afternoon sun lit up the eight banners of the provinces of Lycaster hanging on either side of the table.
The portrait was just another one of Daigen’s tricks.
I shifted in the chair and thin markings on the wall caught my eye. A list of five women’s names were carved into the wood paneling. A weight dropped in my stomach as my fingertips traced the most recent addition to the list: Freya.
The name was carved in her own writing. Had she sat in the pink chair before me, watching Anders—or more likely, Alastar the Wise—conduct business with the Barons?
My fingers ran up the list, recognizing the next three names as Duchesses of the past, but the first name carved in the wall did not belong to any Duchess. The name in jagged script was not written in any history book, but was special all the same: Annalisa.
I had no idea who the ancient Annalisa was, but I traced her name in the wood, feeling the weight of her unknown history with every stroke of the knife she used to make her mark on the palace itself. What else had she contributed to the Dukedom that no one knew about? Did the Annalisa I knew have any idea the name she carried could have more value than any gemstone?
I knelt on the chair cushion. I felt a little unworthy as I untied the Hyton dagger from the garter, but I tossed the feeling aside.
If I had to hide my magic, my power as a Baron, and even my very presence in the room, I was not going to hide my name too. I slowly and deliberately scraped the blade against the wood underneath Freya’s name.
I was still her lioness, after all.
I pulled back the dagger and smiled. Serafina —the sixth strong, yet invisible, thread in the tapestry of Lycaster history.
The door to the meeting room creaked open and I sat down. The red-haired Baron Mydina walked in and had a seat underneath the light green banner bearing a great black wolf.
Baron Pebblebrooke came in next, seating himself beneath the light blue banner with a white swan. Baron Meadowshyre quietly followed, sitting next to him beneath the pink banner with a lark. Baron Amberfield sulked in and plopped in the seat under the yellow banner with the deer. Baron Thornebow slipped around the door and sat beneath the grey banner with the silver fox.
Finally, Baron Elvar strutted into the room and sat at the right-hand side of the Duke’s throne. The purple Elvar banner bearing the sea serpent eating its own tail was the perfect backdrop for his proud face.
I looked to the left side of the throne—the seats under the crimson Bloodstone banner and dark green Ravenwood banner were empty. I folded my arms across my chest. Those seats were supposed to be mine.
The door swung open and Evereon walked in. His coppery hair was neatly combed and his Bloodstone cape fell from his shoulders. The Bloodstone and Ravenwood pins gleamed on his chest.
At least Evereon was keeping up appearances that he was running the North.
He sat beneath the snarling Bloodstone bear and rested his left leg on the Ravenwood chair. He tossed a vulpine glance to his father. “How disappointing, old man. You put in all that effort to make sure I never ended up in this room and yet…”
Baron Thornebow glanced at Baron Mydina. He had the same dark eyes as his nephew. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Baron Mydina straightened his spine. “Do not look at me, I have no son.”
Evereon laughed. “I am Baron Bloodstone’s proxy. Old Nikkolas would not come when he ran one province, but with two …he needed someone trustworthy to handle the North in his stead.”
Baron Mydina snapped his head toward his son. “There is nothing trustworthy about you—!”
The doors swung open. All six Barons and Evereon stood. Derrick entered the room, keeping his shoulders strong and his head high. He crossed the room and sat on his throne. The Duke himself was sitting at my feet.
I threw out my magic and created a tether between his mind and mine. If anything were to go awry, maybe I could calm him down.
“Hail Alastar XII,” Baron Elvar recited dryly.
“Hail Alastar XII,” the other five Barons grumbled in reply.
Evereon kept silent.
Derrick’s voice was deceptively strong. “First order of business.”
Baron Elvar shifted his shoulders. “You have held the crown for a little more than a week. How do you intend on fixing our failing economy?”
If Baron Elvar had brought up finances at the coronation, surely he had a plan he was just waiting for the blessing to use. I slid the suggestion down the tether: “ Ask him what he thinks is best. ”
Derrick blinked, accepting it. “You control all of our sea and river mercantile, Baron Elvar. Certainly you have a few ideas.”
Baron Elvar smiled. He turned his shoulders so he addressed the other Barons more than his Duke. “General Hyton gave me intelligence that the surrounding kingdoms and empires are failing.”
Derrick kept his face schooled, but Midnight scoffed and echoed down our tether: “ Acting as a mouthpiece for his lover? His poor rich heart is going to crumble when he finds out Uncle Ragnar only fucks the most useful person he can find. ”
My heart tugged at the thought, but the Barons listened with intrigue.
“We should take advantage,” Baron Elvar said. “Starting with the Sudrian empire.”
Baron Thornebow leaned on the table. “You want us to invade Sudria? The Southern provinces share a border with them. Any war would be in our lands!”
Baron Mydina nodded in agreement.
Baron Elvar waved his hand. “I am suggesting expanding Thornebow into the territory of a crumbling empire. We can use the spoils of war to restore Thornebow’s economy to what it was before Alastar the Bold executed your father.”
Baron Thornebow narrowed his eyes and smiled. Even Barons Pebblebrooke and Meadowshyre exchanged looks of consideration.
“No,” Derrick’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “I will not wage war against my sister.”
The Barons raised their eyebrows. Evereon smirked.
Alastar’s growl shook the tether. As inflammatory as the suggestion of war was, I could not risk Derrick breaking and letting Alastar wreak havoc in his mind.
I issued a gentle command: “ Stay calm, Derrick. Just listen. ”
He blinked and his shoulders dropped only enough for me to notice.
Baron Elvar chuckled without a single note of warmth. “I forgot you have relations in every kingdom, but I would hope that our Duke would not let that weakness ruin an important opportunity for us.”
The word “weakness” made Alastar roar from the bottom of his pit.
I quickly sent another whisper into his mind: “ You are not weak. Stay calm. ”
But Derrick did not accept the command. He tightened his grip on the arms of his throne. “A reluctance to pillage like vultures is not weakness, Tyreon.”
The other Barons shifted, each tossing a look to Baron Elvar.
Baron Elvar stared at Derrick with a hard brow. “Our markets have no output. People are starving in the North. Just think of what the Sudrian rebels would pay for their empress’s head.”
Derrick leaned onto the edge of the table, his voice low and dangerous. “You would do well to hold your tongue before talking of spilling Hyton blood.”
I gritted my teeth and desperately pushed down another command: “ Derrick, stop! ”
Baron Elvar scoffed. “Hyton blood? That woman stopped being a Lycastrian once she bonded to Emperor Orlon.” He waved his hand to the rest of the table, as if beckoning their support. “The one good thing Alastar the Bold did was sell off a daughter to each of the neighboring kingdoms. Their lines of succession depend on blood bonds to the brats that are in the palace right now. Think of the leverage we could have—!”
Derrick slammed his fist on the table as Alastar tore at the threads of his prison. “My family is not your leverage!”
I gathered the strength for a forceful blast of magic to try to pull him back, but Evereon scoffed and broke my focus. All the eyes in the room turned to him as he relaxed in the Bloodstone chair.
“A war with Sudria would be a terrible idea,” he said.
Baron Elvar turned his ire to Evereon. “Of course you would protest, half Sudrian. ”
Baron Mydina cut a glare to Baron Elvar, but Evereon flashed a smile. “You talk of what you can gain from war, but you have never borne scars from a General.”
Suddenly every eye was on the line that cut across Evereon’s face, even mine.
He had said Riyan gave him that scar. Had he lied?
“Our lands still bear the scars of the first battle against the giants of Nordingaard.” He turned to Derrick. “How are you going to heal them, Your Excellency? ”
The tether on Derrick’s mind thinned—I was losing him.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Derrick responded, low and clipped. “You cannot blame me for—”
“I do not blame you,” Evereon snapped back. He swung his foot off the Ravenwood chair. “But I demand that you take responsibility now that you have the power to do something. Ravenwood and Bloodstone are still starving. What are you going to do about it?”
The tether snapped and Derrick threw me out of his mind.
No, damn it! No!
I pressed my hands against the thin canvas of the portrait, casting out my magic to try to reach him again, but I could not get in.
The Barons glared at Derrick, each waiting for him to rise to Evereon’s challenge. Even after a few pounding heartbeats, Derrick still refused to answer.
Evereon shook his head and smiled wryly, not taking his eyes off Derrick. “Just what I thought—nothing. Just like your old man.”
Derrick got up so quickly that the throne flew back and slammed against the wall beneath my feet. Evereon jumped up and he and Derrick stood toe-to-toe.
I wanted to claw through the portrait and drag Derrick back by his collar. Derrick’s neck was tense and rage burned in his eyes—Alastar was rising.
All my efforts were about to go up in smoke.
Evereon merely chuckled in the face of the monster. “The North trusts nothing from Hyton Palace.”
Evereon turned, his boots thudding harshly on the floor as he walked past the Barons and shoved the door open.
My blood boiled. Alastar was tearing through its prison because of him.
I tore out of the secret room and stormed through the halls, hunting Evereon down. A flash of crimson rounded a corner and I followed it.
I turned the corner and found Evereon with Rosaline in a darkened alcove.
“Why in the high halls of hell did you pick a fight with him?” I bit out.
Rosaline’s eyes went wide, but Evereon casually turned to face me. “Someone needed to speak for the North.” His yellow eyes flicked down to my skirt. “Especially since its Baron changed colors.”
I gripped my Hyton Blue skirt so tightly I thought I would tear a hole in the satin. “I am doing everything I can to bring Riyan back from the mountain. You have no idea what I have been through to get to this point—”
“I have a pretty clear picture, actually,” Evereon snapped. Rosaline tugged on his arm and whispered at him to stop, but he shrugged her off. “All I’ve heard since arriving in this cursed city is how the new Duke will never sire an heir because he can’t keep his hands off his mistress for even a moment.”
My mouth went dry, but flames raged in my stomach and behind my eyes. “How dare you think you know anything—?”
“You got lost.” Evereon dropped his voice and squared his shoulders. “I warned you, but you still got lost.”
He glanced toward the white box with pink ribbon I just noticed was in Rosaline’s hands. “No point in any of this now, Rosaline. Not when she already has everything she ever wanted.”
His crimson cape swished behind him as walked down the hall.
Did he think I wanted to be owned? Trapped under watching eyes? Working to the point of exhaustion?
Did he really think that having the Duke under my control was what I had always wanted?
I opened my mouth to tell Evereon he was wrong, but no words left my lips.
My heart dropped to my stomach. I tried again, but I produced nothing but silence. My hands slowly wrapped around my throat as I braced myself to accept the cold truth that coursed through my veins.
I could not tell Evereon he was wrong because I could not lie.
No…I could not have gotten lost. I only had three days left to save Riyan. I just had to work harder, I just had to…
I turned to Rosaline, who looked at me with wide eyes as she clutched the gift in her hands.
“Tell me why you came to Hyton Palace,” I ordered.
Rosaline shook her head and tried to back out of the alcove. “The timing isn’t right. I was under strict orders to—”
“Fuck what Fraleigh told you.” I raised my hand as my throat tightened. “Fuck whatever Daigen’s plan was. I will get an answer even if I have to rip it out of you.”
Magic trembled in the air, but Rosaline did not cower. She gripped the sides of the gift box and her voice was soft as the beginning of an avalanche.
“Fine, Serafina. I just hope you are ready for what I have to show you.”