Chapter 4 - The Beast a House Full of Children
I wake to his hand at the back of my neck.
firm enough to pull me gently from sleep, his thumb brushing once against the skin below my ear as the motion of the carriage slows beneath us.
I stir with a soft breath, still half-lost in the warmth of him, my cheek pressed to his thigh, my body heavy with the kind of sleep that only comes when fear has finally loosened its grip.
"We're here," Achilles says.
His voice is low, quieter than usual, softened by the confined space of the carriage and the strange intimacy of travel.
I open my eyes slowly, blinking up at him through the last haze of sleep.
The light outside has changed. Afternoon now, gold and richer than it was when we left the capital, spilling through the narrow carriage window in warm bands that cut across his face and shoulders.
For a moment, I look at him.
At the angle of his jaw. At the dark fabric of his coat. At the way one hand still rests on me as though waking me means risking my disappearance if he lets go too soon.
We're here.
My tiredness evaporates so quickly. I push myself upright, smoothing my dress without really paying attention to what I'm doing, my curiosity rising all at once.
Elias speaks of his home the way people speak of secrets they enjoy keeping, half-serious, half-mocking, always with the impression that whatever you imagine is wrong in exactly the way he intended.
I've tried more than once to picture it.
Some sprawling, overdone manor full of wine, noise, and irresponsibility.
Or something crumbling and dramatic, full of weapons and poor decisions.
Or perhaps a place that looks entirely proper from the outside and utterly insane within.
With Elias, it could be anything.
And that makes me want to see it even more.
Achilles seems to notice the way I straighten.
His mouth almost shifts.
Almost.
"You look alarmingly eager."
"I am," I admit without shame.
"That is concerning."
I smile as he opens the carriage door.
The first thing that greets me is air fresh, cooler than the capital's, touched with earth and greenery and something bright beneath it, like growing things left untamed for just long enough to become beautiful.
Then comes the light, pouring in around the open door, gilding the steps below and the long gravel path beyond.
Achilles steps down first, then turns to offer me his hand. I take it, still looking outward in confusion as I lower myself from the carriage. The moment my feet touch the ground, I understand that I did not imagine it.
People are waiting for us.
Many people.
Maids in bright uniforms stand in careful lines along the entrance path.
Footmen and stable hands linger just beyond them.
A few older servants cluster near the manor's steps in the sort of organized formation that says they were arranged this way by someone strict and that they have already had the fear of disorder beaten into them through repeated experience.
But what shocks me are the children.
There are children everywhere.
Not one or two tucked politely at the back, not some noble household's carefully presented heirs lined up in perfect little outfits with solemn faces and rehearsed bows.
No.
There are children in clumps, shifting little swarms, and pockets of energy barely contained by the adults trying and failing to keep them still.
Some stand in bright little rows that immediately dissolve the moment no one is looking.
Others whisper. One is clearly trying to sneak behind another child to pinch him.
A little girl near the front is holding what appears to be a frog with the solemn reverence of a priest holding a relic.
Another child is crouched beside the stairs, trying to coax a striped cat out from beneath the railing.
There are so many of them.
For one absurd second, I wonder if we arrived in the middle of some village festival by mistake.
Then Achilles steps fully away from the carriage.
And chaos erupts.
A group of children detaches from the mass like a launched weapon and throws itself directly at him.
I gasp.
because no one in the capital would ever dare touch him uninvited.
Most adults barely manage not to flinch in his presence, and here are children, tiny, shrieking, relentless children, hurling themselves at the tyrant king with all the fearlessness of creatures who have never once been taught to fear the dark.
Three hit his legs. One catches his side. Another grabs his coat. A little boy with curls nearly launches himself at Achilles's waist and has to be caught with a single absent, steadying hand before he topples over.
"What did you bring us?"
"Did you kill anybody on the way?"
"Why is your sword smaller?"
"Is that your wife?"
The questions come so quickly that they overlap into one impossible sound. Achilles does not move for the first two seconds, which usually means he is deciding whether to tolerate this or remove every child in a three-foot radius like an invading force.
Then horrifyingly, astonishingly, he smiled.
A woman steps forward before I can fully recover from the sight.
Her posture suggests years spent managing disaster with exacting discipline.
Her dress is dark but crisply tailored, the fabric expensive without being ostentatious, and her hair is pinned back so neatly it seems impossible a single strand could ever have escaped without permission.
She carries herself with the sort of authority that belongs not to royalty but to the people who keep royal households from collapsing in on themselves.
"The manor welcomes you, Your Majesty. Your Grace." She bows with perfect precision before lifting her head. "I am Alexis, head maid of this household."
Something about her makes me dislike her instantly.
But something in the way her eyes linger on Achilles feels wrong. Too aware. Too familiar. Too pleased to be in his presence. When she turns toward me, her expression settles into something smoother, more correct.
But with him...
Her voice had changed.
Only slightly.
Lowered just enough to be noticed if one was looking for it.
And I am.
She turns sharply toward the children at once, her expression hardening into professional disapproval.
"What did I say about proper conduct?" she snaps. "Back. All of you. Back this instant. This is a manor, not a marketplace. You do not throw yourselves at guests like untrained animals."
One little boy still hanging from Achilles's coat looks affronted. "We're not animals."
"You are worse," Alexis says coldly. "At least animals listen."
A little girl with a ribbon half-undone in her hair points at Achilles. "But it's him."
"Yes," Alexis replies. "And that is exactly why you should know better."
Achilles waves her off before she can continue.
"Leave them."
Her head turns toward him at once. "Your Majesty, they should know how to..."
"They're children," he says, voice flat, leaving no room for argument. "Let them be that now. There's time for discipline later."
Something passes through her expression then.
Something reluctant.
She bows her head. "Of course."
But her eyes flick up to him again before she steps back, and I see it more clearly this time, the way her attention lingers too long, the way she arranges her face when speaking to him, the faint shift in her mouth that I do not like.
I say nothing.
Because the children are still clinging to my husband.
And that is a distraction all on its own.
The manor rises behind them, broad and beautiful and somehow nothing like I expected.
It is grand, yes, stone walls, high windows, ivy climbing one side of it in deliberate neglect, but it feels lived in rather than staged.
Welcoming rather than severe. Elias's taste is everywhere, I realize almost instantly, not because I can see him in the architecture but because the place is full of contradiction.
The exterior is stately, but not cold. The entry steps are lined with potted flowers, flanked by dark, carved railings.
Rich colors glow through the open doors, deep blue runners, red-toned wood, and bronze fixtures, catching the light.
It is luxurious, undeniably so, but not in the rigid, polished way of palaces.
There is movement here. Disorder. Warmth.
It feels like the kind of house that laughs at itself for being expensive.
Animals move through it all as if it were part of the design.
A large dog trots past with a ribbon tied around its neck and absolutely no shame.
Two cats lounge on the front steps like minor nobility.
Somewhere to my left, I hear what sounds suspiciously like a goat.
Brightly dressed servants move through the courtyard with baskets, cloths, trays, and laundry, their uniforms color-coded by task: blue, green, yellow, and wine-red, turning the grounds into something almost festive.
I glance at Achilles.
"Why are there so many children?"
He lifts one off his leg and sets it aside before answering.
"Because Elias brings strays home."
I blink. "Strays?"
"He doesn't distinguish much between abandoned cats and abandoned children."
"That is not true," one older boy says from the side. "He likes the children more."
Achilles doesn't even look at the speaker. "That depends on the day."
Before I can ask anything else, one of the smallest children breaks from the group with a delighted gasp.
"Chi Chi!"
She runs straight at him, truly runs, all flying curls and tiny shoes and absolute faith, and hurls herself into his arms with enough force that even I nearly step forward on instinct. Achilles catches her automatically, one hand coming down to steady her.
It is one of the strangest things I have ever seen.
And somehow one of the most unsettling.
Not because it is wrong.
Because it fits too well.
The little girl, still wrapped around his neck, looks up at him with complete certainty. "You said you would come back before winter."
"It isn't winter."
"It almost is."
"But it's not "
I'm too surprised to do anything but stare.
There are eight children closest to him now, five boys, two girls, and the little one at his neck who seems prepared to fight anyone who suggests she is not first in line for his attention.
None of them looks older than six. One of the boys has his shirt half untucked, and one shoe buckled.
Another is trying to climb Achilles like a tree.
And Achilles
Achilles is letting them.
The change is subtle. Still him. Still stern in the line of his mouth and the cut of his tone.
But his hands are careful. His attention is patient in a way he rarely allows adults to see.
When one little boy nearly trips over a smaller child in his hurry to get closer, Achilles catches him by the back of his shirt before he can fall and sets him right as if he has done it a hundred times.
I feel something in me tilt.
Because I had not known.
I knew he was capable of care. I had seen it and lived in it. But this open, quiet kindness toward creatures too small to fear him feels like seeing another locked room in a house I thought I already knew.
He glances at me then, as though remembering I am there.
"This is my wife."
All eight children turn toward me at once.
I nearly take a step back.
Their stare is intense. Unfiltered. Entirely without manners.
"Ophelia," Achilles says.
A beat of silence follows.
Then one of the boys missing his front teeth and carrying himself with alarming confidence for someone so small announces, "She's too pretty for you."
Another nods solemnly. "Yeah, like Beauty and the Beast."
The little girl at his neck gasps in outrage and points accusingly at Achilles. "You were supposed to marry me."
I choke on my own breath.
"You promised you would wait until I got bigger," she continues, deeply betrayed.
From somewhere behind the group, an older child mutters, "With his track record, you still have a chance. She most likely won't make it until next winter."
The entire courtyard freezes.
Even Alexis looks horrified.
Achilles slowly turns his head toward the source of the voice.
No one breathes.
Then he says, in a tone so flat it could frost glass, "Who said that?"
Silence.
A bird chirps.
No one answers.
The little girl crosses her arms. "chi chi ."
Achilles looks at her. "Yes"
"Are you staying?"
"For a little while," he says.
A boy with dark hair and a deeply serious face, one I somehow hadn't noticed before, because he was hiding behind the others, clings quietly to his leg.
He is smaller than the rest and far less willing to make himself known.
His fingers twist into the fabric as he leans closer and whispers something up at Achilles that I can't hear.
Achilles bends down at once.
Whatever the child says makes something in his expression shift enough that I catch it. He huffs out what might, in another man, be called a chuckle.
"Yes," he says.
The boy nods solemnly, satisfied, and refuses to let go of his coat.
"That's Dimitri," Achilles tells me.
Dimitri immediately hides behind his leg again.
I smile at him. "Hello, Dimitri."
He peers out for one heartbeat, then vanishes.
I look at Achilles.
And the sight strikes me again in full.