Chapter 179: Ashes, Oaths, and Affections

Chapter 179: Chapter 179: Ashes, Oaths, and Affections

On the eighth day out of Caelvyr, a rider caught up with the Duke of Draevenor’s carriage on the northern road.

His horse was lathered from the hard ride. He handed a sealed letter through the window, bowed in the saddle, and fell back without a word.

Cassiel broke the seal and read it once.

Then he burned it in the small brazier that warmed the carriage.

"Good news, Your Grace?" Bran asked from the seat opposite.

"It’s done."

Bran had served him long enough to know when not to ask anything further. He simply nodded and turned back to the window.

Cassiel leaned his head against the carriage wall and closed his eyes.

The night his shadow guard had told him about Miriam’s errand to Cloudmere Lane, he had understood at once what his wife meant to do.

He had seen, just as quickly, where it could go wrong.

An anonymous tip that came out of nowhere would only make a magistrate wonder who had sent it.

So that same night, a few quiet words had begun reaching the magistrate’s court, through channels that led nowhere near Draevenor.

A "foreign agent" had supposedly been seen in the city, asking questions about the kingdom’s geography, resources and borders.

By the time Elysia’s anonymous tip arrived, the magistrate had already been hunting for days. Hers was simply one more report among many.

The rest had been easy enough.

A small dose of medicine, and the innkeeper by the river gate found he could not remember the face of whoever had taken that room.

The watchmen who made the arrest answered to Sir Hollis Penhale.

The maps were examined by a clerk who knew better than to look too closely at the handwriting, and declared to be old charts of no value to anyone.

No one from the court was ever sent to Cloudmere Lane.

Even the decree for Lillian had been held back at his request. His brother had promised to send it the moment Melissa was too far away to cause any further trouble.

And then there was Xanther.

The men from the Velvet Lantern had been real goons. All Cassiel had done was make sure the watchman opened the right door at the right hour.

And that one of those men was paid twice that night.

Once by the Velvet Lantern.

And once by his shadow guard.

That goon would be found dead in an alley soon enough, getting exactly what was coming to him.

Cassiel felt nothing for Xanther’s fate.

He had turned a blind eye to Xanther’s antics earlier, for Benedict’s sake. Xanther had repaid him by slipping into the courtyard in the dead of night, intent on hurting Elysia.

Odette Penhale had been no different. A young girl with a kind heart, ruined by sweet lies she had been too young to see through, and forced by the harsh realities of life to grow up beyond her years.

A man like that did not change. He only went looking for the next woman. The next victim.

Now he would have a wife, a child and a desk at the river toll house.

He would simply never again be able to follow a woman down a dark corridor.

Cassiel opened his eyes and watched the grey hills slide past the window. Somewhere beyond them lay the border, and Lieutenant Rennor, and a great deal of danger he had not told his wife about either.

By now, Elysia would have heard about Xanther. She would have worked out most of the rest, too. She was far too clever not to.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at the thought.

Would she think him cruel for disabling his own cousin? Or would she simply think it a coincidence?

He was cruel. He had no illusions about that.

But when he thought of her alone in that house with Xanther still under its roof, he found that he could not bring himself to care.

He glanced down at the brazier. Nothing was left of the letter but a curl of grey ash.

Then, almost without meaning to, he thought of that last morning. Her arms around him, warm and sleepy and unguarded. The words he had murmured against her hair.

She had not caught them. He was fairly sure of that.

It was just as well.

Some things deserved to be said when she was wide awake to hear them.

---

The royal decree arrived at Draevenor the morning after Melissa’s carriage left the city.

The whole household gathered in the Great Hall to receive it. Lord Milo Flint, the elderly minister who served at His Majesty’s side, unrolled the scroll with great ceremony, while Lillian knelt beside Elysia, pale and bewildered, with no idea why she had been called.

"By His Majesty’s command," Lord Milo read, "Lillian Asheford, daughter of the late General Benedict Asheford, is hereby betrothed to Reeve Alderdice, son of the Duke of Merlinspire..."

Lillian did not hear the rest.

She stared up at the scroll as though the words might rearrange themselves if she looked away. She accepted the decree in a daze.

When Lord Milo had gone, she was still kneeling there. Elysia had to help her to her feet.

Elysia did not think the timing was a coincidence.

"Your Grace..." Lillian’s voice shook. "Did you ask His Majesty for this?"

"I did."

"Mother always said..." She broke off. Tears spilled over before she could stop them. "She always said no one would ever care about me outside Rose Hall. That she knew best and I would marry whoever she chose."

"Your mother isn’t here any more," Elysia said gently.

Lillian looked at her helplessly.

"Then who... who will see to the wedding?"

Elysia smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind the girl’s ear.

"Don’t worry. Your wedding is mine to arrange."

Lillian burst into tears. Then, quite unexpectedly, she began to laugh, and for a while she could not seem to stop doing either.

When she had finally calmed down, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand like a child.

"Do you think Father would have been happy?" she asked quietly. "If he were here?"

Elysia remembered the day they had visited Uncle Benedict’s grave. Lillian had stood alone before it, her back very straight, quietly telling her father that the new Duchess had promised to find her a good husband.

"I think he would be glad I kept my promise," Elysia said. "And that you’re marrying someone who can make you laugh like that."

Lillian went pink to the tips of her ears and hid her face in her hands.

---

Doctor Grey came the following morning, as he did every few days.

He pressed and turned Elysia’s knee with brisk, impatient fingers, frowning the whole time, as though the joint had personally offended him.

At last, he sat back.

"You may ride."

Elysia’s heart leapt with joy.

For years, she had told herself that she did not miss it. That riding belonged to a girl who no longer existed, along with the crimson habit and the race grounds and her brothers’ laughter.

Now she knew. She had been lying to herself.

"Not for long," he went on, before she could get too excited. "No galloping. No jumping ditches. Nothing reckless. The moment it aches, you get down. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear."

He snorted, clearly not believing her for a moment.

"Your husband left me a list of instructions about your health as long as my arm. If you come back from that hunt limping, he’ll have my head." He began packing away his things. "And I am far too handsome to lose it."

Elysia laughed.

Then something occurred to her.

"What else was on his list?"

Doctor Grey shut his bag with a snap.

"That," he said, "is between me and him."

He was already at the door when he paused and glanced back.

"Has he written to you yet?"

"Not yet."

"He will." Doctor Grey sniffed. "He’s terrible at it. But he will."

That night, Elysia laid the pale blue riding habit across the end of her bed and simply looked at it for a long time.

She was going to ride again.

She had not let herself think about it in years. Not since the little red mare her grandfather had given her on her seventh birthday had been sent away.

When Elysia was small, that mare used to fold her front legs and kneel whenever she came near, so that a seven-year-old girl could scramble onto her back without a mounting block. Her brothers had laughed themselves sick the first time they saw it.

After her knee was injured, every ride had left her limping for days. In the end, it was Deborah who had gently suggested that it might hurt less if she simply stopped seeing the mare at all.

Unfortunately, back then, Elysia had listened.

And then, unbidden, another memory surfaced.

In her previous life, at this same Autumn Hunt, a rare, wild red mare had been led out before the royal pavilion. No one could ride her. Two grooms had already been thrown.

Elysia had not known her at first. Not until the mare fought the grooms and the sweat ran down her neck as red as blood.

Then she had known at once.

Her mare.

Antares.

That same day, she learnt that it was the Corvis family who had stolen the mare after she was sent away.

Moments later, before the excited crowd, Deborah had stepped forward, soft-voiced and smiling, and calmed the creature. The whole court had applauded.

Three days later, the mare was dead.

The grooms said she had sickened overnight.

Elysia had not believed them.

She had kept asking questions until a stable boy finally admitted the truth.

The mare had been fed a poison cruel enough to drain every bit of fight out of her. Deborah had never tamed anything. Once the applause died down, the mare had simply been led back to her stall to suffer.

What had happened in between, Elysia still could not bear to think about.

Her fingers tightened on the pale blue fabric.

This time, she would reach the stables first.