Chapter 42 - Consumed
My heart pounded in time with each of Derrick’s footsteps as he approached me. Derrick would let me in again, and once he released my chains, I was going to run straight for Nordingaard.
I might not have freed Fraleigh, or the women of Lycaster, but at least I was going to free Riyan.
Derrick stepped behind me. Oak and vanilla mixed with the sting of spirits filled my nose.
He was drunk again? That would make this even easier.
He unwove the chains around my wrists and they dropped to the floor in a heavy heap. He unclasped the lock at the back of my head and I gasped as he pulled the iron gag out of my mouth. The gag landed on the floor with a loud thud.
Just as I thought, Derrick would not have kept the woman he loved in chains for long. I still had his heart. I still had his mind.
I counted his footsteps as he circled around to face me.
His hands floated up to either side of my face, his thumbs caressing the line of my jaw. Slowly, the chainmail clinked as he lifted my blindfold like a veil.
I opened my eyes—Derrick’s face was hollow, his brow was hard, and his eyes were bloodshot. A slight red line was visible on his cheek from where Grigory’s knife had nicked him, but otherwise he looked unharmed.
At least on the outside.
He let out a ragged breath through his nose. Even though his voice was dry, sadness soaked his words. “Did you use sorcery on me?”
My white flame seeped up my throat, carrying the truth with it, but I kept my voice cool. “You wanted to dream and I made it happen.”
And if he let me get a little closer, I would let him dream again…
Derrick’s eyes softened, but then snapped up as a loud knock pounded on the door.
I took the brief opportunity to scan the room. We were in the Duke’s study. A golden sunset soaked the blue curtains and oak furniture.
“Your Excellency,” a guard warned from the other side of the door, “you cannot just—”
“Derrick!” Brietta shouted. She pounded on the door again. “What are you doing to her? If you hurt her, I swear—!”
A guard grunted like he had just taken an elbow to the clavicle. Derrick stomped toward the door.
I kept my eyes on the far wall as the portrait of Alastar the Conqueror stared down at me. My arms shivered as I pictured him putting the golden collar around my neck as he did with Fraleigh.
Derrick yanked the door open. “You always think the worst of me! Does she look harmed to you?”
Brietta ran into the room and took my face in her hands. “Did anyone hurt you?”
Pages flipped in the back of my mind and the light between her eyes twinkled. I sent her a quick message: “ New plan. We run, now. ”
Her brown eyes went wide, but the tether between us broke as Derrick slammed the door shut.
He tossed a glare at Brietta as he flipped the lock. “You knew about her. Of course you did!”
Brietta matched Derrick’s glare. He walked to a cabinet against the wall and pulled out a bottle of spirits.
“Has anyone in this palace not committed treason?” His eyes flared as he uncorked the bottle. He took a swig and yanked the bottle from his lips. “Do I need to interrogate my sisters next? Find out who else is plotting against me?”
I shot Brietta a look, beckoning her to take my lead. “I never plotted to hurt you, Derrick.”
Calm him one more time. That was all I had to do…
Derrick’s darkened eyes flicked over to me and Brietta’s hand slipped over mine.
A warm smile suddenly spread across Derrick’s face. “Of course not, darling. Not you. Never you.”
Derrick gestured to Brietta with his bottle. “ You, however, have been plotting with my uncle to depose me.”
I kept my face schooled but gritted my teeth. How could Derrick be so paranoid and still wrong?
Luckily, Brietta’s voice was calmer than I expected. “Derrick, that is not true. I only spoke with the man to clean up your mess from last night.”
Last night? Not even a full day had passed since Ragnar slipped the sleeping potion into my tea. I had more time to get to Nordingaard than I thought.
Derrick set down his bottle and spread his hands on top of his desk. “And sneaking around the library with Annalisa? The only use my twin has for books is to turn them into weapons.”
Brietta stayed calm. “We found your mother’s diary.”
He scoffed. “And what did you find in those wine-stained pages? Inventive ways to manipulate your husband? Incoherent babble about my dead grandfather? Or perhaps a detailed list of every way to destroy me?”
I squeezed Brietta’s hand. Derrick’s paranoia had spiraled to an incomprehensible level. Maybe if he just let me touch him, I could put him to sleep one last time and give us a chance to escape.
Before I could take a step forward, Brietta straightened her spine and spoke up. “Our plans of freedom, Derrick. That was what was in the diary.”
I looked from Brietta to Derrick. His brow creased and his shoulders stiffened.
Brietta took a step forward. “Full citizenship for the women of Lycaster. Property ownership. Access to inheritance. No more bride auctions.”
I bit my tongue. Revealing our plans was not going to make Derrick any less paranoid, but it would at least give me time to look for a way out.
Derrick’s voice was low. “You know I cannot do that.”
Of course he would deny her—Alastar would never allow it.
My eyes darted toward the study door. There was at least one guard outside and likely the General too. Not ideal.
Brietta stepped forward until she was right in front of the desk. Her spine was straight. “It is time. Your mother knew it, your grandfather knew it—”
“The Barons would stop it.” Derrick rose to his full height, but Brietta’s eyes were still higher than his. “They are already looking for a reason to dethrone me and behead me. The only liberation you will ever see is when your head is liberated from your shoulders.”
My eyes swept the walls, searching for the portrait I had looked through earlier.
Brietta gestured to me. “You fear the Barons when a sorceress has been by your side this whole time?”
Derrick barked out a laugh and shoved away from the desk. “I see what you are doing now. You are trying to use my love for Serafina against me.”
He stepped in front of me and held my shoulders. Even though he looked at me with glassy eyes and a smile, the door into his mind was bolted shut.
I still had no way in and no way out.
He kept his eyes on me. “But you do not understand what Serafina and I have, Brietta. She demands nothing of me.”
Brietta’s voice had a deadly edge. “Because she has no choice—you own her.”
He shot a glare at Brietta. “I never made that happen.”
My white flame raged and I could not hold back. “You liar. ”
Derrick’s eyes widened. Even Brietta held her breath.
I stepped out of Derrick’s embrace and glared up at him. “You gave me that dagger saying you just wanted to keep me safe, but then you hired Grigory Thornebow to kill Riyan before my blood bond was sealed.”
His chest rose and fell as he silently looked at me. I tightened my hands into fists at my sides. “Eight thousand marks was quite a bargain—eliminate the Hyton heir and own me.”
The air was tight as a noose. I barely reined in the flames inside me, ready to counter when Alastar finally broke free. If Derrick took a single step forward, I would choke him on his own tears.
But instead of fighting back, his face softened. “He was going to kill you, Serafina.”
The ember in the center of my heart warmed and my fire cooled only slightly. He was still wrong. “Riyan would have never—”
“Not him.” He shook his head slightly. “My father.”
Brietta looked at me as I held my breath. Duke Hyton was a horrible man, but would he have really killed me?
Derrick grabbed the bottle of spirits by the neck. He took a long drink before leaning against the edge of the desk and staring at the sunset through the window. “He never even wanted that monster in Selection Night, but my damn uncle had backed Father into a corner. Uncle Ragnar led a surprise siege of Nordingaard without my father knowing—the prime opportunity to show off his bastard to the entire Dukedom.” Derrick swirled the bottle. “He gave Father a choice—either Uncle Ragnar would reveal that he conquered Nordingaard where their Duke had failed…or his monster would get the first selection of a bride. Father had to choose stability of the Dukedom, even if that meant giving the dangerous heir his own line.”
My eyes darted to Brietta and her face turned white—she was supposed to be Riyan’s choice. She was the price of the Dukedom’s stability.
Derrick turned to me and his voice broke. “Nothing was going to stop my father from trying to kill him…not even a blood bond with the woman I loved.”
I could not breathe. My chest was tight, but my heart was warm.
He put down the bottle and stepped closer to me. His beautiful blue eyes swam. “So, yes, I paid Grigory to kill him. I gave you that dagger and promised you a marriage to another man if you protected yourself.”
Derrick took my hands in his and suddenly I was trapped in the pools of his eyes. “Riyan was always going to die. If you had sealed that blood bond…I could not let you die with him.”
My throat trembled with a fledgling sob. I wanted to scream at him and curse his blood for trying to murder Riyan. And for deceiving me. And for plotting behind my back.
But I could not deny that his intentions were anything but pure. Every ribbon of logic and sense in my mind twisted into an endless knot. Why could I not just hate him? Why could I not just put him to sleep and run like I had planned?
Derrick’s thumbs stroked the backs of my hands and he smiled. “I would turn the world upside down for you, Serafina.”
“You ass! ”
We both turned. Brietta’s white face had flared red.
“You only paid Grigory to save her! ” she yelled. “If Riyan had chosen me like your father planned, you were just going to let me die with him?”
I yanked my hands out of Derrick’s grip. He squared his shoulders and his lips opened to reply, but Brietta cut him off.
“Was I just the sacrificial Hyton lamb?” she shouted. “Big enough to breed but not valuable enough to save?”
His brows furrowed. “Brietta—”
“I wrote those damn poems!” Her eyes watered, but she still bared her teeth. “For years, it was me! And you would have just let me die!”
The situation was spiraling out of control. We had to get out, even if we just had to outrun Derrick without using magic.
Then Derrick turned to me and I froze. “That was you, Birdie. She is just lying—”
Brietta pushed herself between us. “How much longer are you going to stay in your damn dream, Derrick? There was no Birdie, there was Serafina and me trying to make you fall in love with her!”
Brietta was backing Derrick against the wall, so I scanned the portraits. Each one was too small, too high, or too round to be the one I needed…
“We were foolish schoolgirls, grasping for control wherever we could.” Brietta stepped forward as Derrick stepped back. “But now you get to be the fool…”
My eyes settled on a portrait of three pink roses that was the right size…
“Serafina and I are leaving you…forever. Your line dies with you, you stubborn bull.”
I quickly cast out my magic, sensing the faint twinkle of an “X” on the other side of the portrait.
Daigen had made both a window and a door.
“She is not leaving me!” Derrick cried.
I whipped my head around. Derrick’s chest rose and fell as he barely contained his outrage.
My stomach knotted—Alastar was rising.
His voice was low and deadly as he faced Brietta. “You can lie to me all you want.” He took a small step forward and Brietta took one back, then again. “I might not always know what day it is. Or how to speak properly. Or whether blood truly coats my hands. But one thing I know for certain is that Serafina loves me.”
I nearly choked on my tongue as guilt consumed me whole. Derrick stepped over and held my face. My breath froze as tears pricked the backs of my eyes, but my white flame spread through my body, warming my throat as the truth that I had held back for years threatened to escape.
Soon, my life would no longer be mine. Soon, I would never have the opportunity to release the truth on my own terms.
So I finally let the truth out.
“Derrick, Brietta is not lying,” I whispered. “I…I lied.”
His brows knitted. “No, Serafina—”
“She wrote the poems.” Tears wet my lashes. “I used her so you would fall in love with me. I used you to get the crown.”
“But I do love you.” He gripped my face and stole the air from my lungs. “And you love me…”
No music entered my mind, but the light between his eyes opened. He was begging, begging, for me to come in. To soothe his inner self. To stitch up his broken mind like I had done so many times.
“And you will not leave me.” His voice shook. “You c-cannot leave me.”
I stood on my toes and placed both my hands on his jaw. The ember in my heart was warm and pulsing. Midnight cried out to me as I made the thin tether between his mind and mine.
I closed my eyes and entered his mind. Midnight stared back at me in the center of the ballroom. All the stitches I had made every night glowed and strained under the widening cracks in the castle walls and floor.
I did not want to hurt him, but the flames around my heart raged with the truth, pushing me to my one true desire.
I needed Riyan to breathe again.
I pushed forward, my lips brushing his. “Sleep, Derrick.”
My Nordingaard crystal warmed against my neck. The white light reflected in Derrick’s wide eyes as I broke his heart.
I held back a sob as I gently quieted Derrick’s mind, putting every bit of him to sleep, and I commanded: “ Let him dream. ”
But as soon as Midnight accepted the command, the words “I lied” echoed through the starlit ballroom. The glowing white threads disappeared. The cracks in his mind split wider. The castle foundation crumbled. Alastar’s prison vanished.
With a low growl, Alastar slowly climbed out of the pit. Midnight only had enough time to look over his shoulder before the monster unhinged its wide jaw.
And Alastar ate him.