CHAPTER 142: ONE HUNDRED & FORTY TWO

*Valka*

The throne room looks worse for wear. There had been a fight in our absence and someone had broken the centre table used for the meetings in half.

A new one obviously sits in the centre but Lucien’s eyebrows arch at the fresh mahogany, as well as the smell of dried paint. Even the walls were painted anew.

When he looked to the members of the Council in question, no one would meet his gaze. It’s like that feeling I got as a child whenever my father was leaving home and I knew I could snoop and break as much furniture as I could before he returned.

The memory makes my head spin.

Before we left Silvermoor, Lucien and I had stopped at House Ironfang. There wasn’t much left of it. It was destroyed and looted, and as we stood in the yard, taking it all in while my not so subtle gossiping neighbours kept pretending they weren’t watching through their windows and whispering in hushed tones that I was married to a monster and had become one, and all about how they knew I was always a strange child, I realized the house didn’t at all feel like home.

It felt like a wreck that had been visited by death one too many times.

But I’d walked along anyway. My father’s grave was in the back of the yard. It was but a simple grey headstone with his name. Eldric Ironfang.

That was it. There were no flowers. Not even dead ones sat by it. I suppose Rhea was angrier than I thought about everything. Understandably so, I think.

And I sat by it. Felt Lucien’s hands curl on my shoulders as I stared and stared at it, wondering what I could have said to him. What I should have said before I left him. Perhaps I should’ve told him I loved him one more time. Because before anyone else, he loved me first. I should’ve told him I was sorry. Because he lived his entire life for me. He had been young when Margot left. And every year spent afterwards was looking after me, moving with me, being my sole companion on some days. And even on the days I ran off to be a scoundrel, he’d sit at the edge of that little house of wood he’d built for just us two and wait for me.

I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I ran my fingers across the headstone and said it. And let myself feel the grief that I had been holding back since that day I received the letter I wouldn’t read.

And Lucien had said nothing but sat in the sand with me, his arms wrapped around me tightly.

After which he had given me a bit of space to explore the rest of the house. For which I was grateful.

Because I found something in my father’s old bedroom. Normally, it would have gone unnoticed by Rhea because it was hidden in the planks of wood underneath the flooring. The most recent looting must have brought them up and the corners of them were mostly half chewed up by rats.

There were letters. Missives, actually.

To be honest, I haven’t quite wrapped my mind around any of it yet. I’d shoved them into my sleeve the second I heard Lucien’s footsteps. Because they were addressed not to me, but to Lucien.

That bit had been hard to glean, because there had been no name on the notes because they weren’t sent out. They were merely rough copies. But there were received notes and I recognised Lucien’s elegant writing scrawled onto some of the pages. Not to speak of the few I saw of Margot’s. All written in the Old Language. And worse yet was an old scrappy book with my ugly handwriting in its worn pages. A diary of some sorts that I’d kept before I forgot entirely about everything.

They all sit heavy in my luggage, hidden amidst my dresses, waiting to be read when I’m all alone. Because I don’t know what the hell could be in them. And I’ve had so much to think about in the last couple of days that I’d chipped it back as a less important worry.

That my husband possibly *knew* my father and failed to mention it.

"I didn’t have the faintest clue that you were all so passionate about redecorating," Lucien murmurs, lips curved in amusement as he stares pointedly at the lack of the smaller throne that should have been beside his. Mine.

Someone obviously had it moved.

The servants begin falling over themselves to fetch me a chair but I gasp as Lucien grips my hip and brings me to sit across his thighs.

My cheeks burn at the attention and the gazes of members of the royal houses present, but I sit straighter and raise my chin. Margot is beaming from ear to ear, and noticeably, she is seated in the very center where House Blackspire used to be, while the latter have been shoved to the back. I suppose things like treason does affect a House’s standing, after all.

Did I fail to mention that the minute Margot saw me at the entrance a few minutes ago, she had walked over to me, done a full scan of my face and crushed me into a hug?

I didn’t even know how to feel about it. It was both awkward and very warm. And then, she pushed me off by my shoulders, like she hadn’t been the one clinging to me fiercely and said, "You need a bath."

Lucien’s nudges me with a hand to my waist and I lift my gaze to my people and say, "Report."

What follows is the most boring and grueling recollection of events that have followed in the last couple of months since we’ve been away. Finances, Provisions, and Weaponry. More discussion on the abuse of wealth in the royal coffers and the discrepancies in the reports.

Verya did a great job at giving orders no one wanted to follow. Funny that even I would have predicted the outcome of that. Gods know what Lucien was thinking. The Houses dissolve into childish bickering in minutes, death and dismemberment is being threatened.

I didn’t think I’d ever miss any of this but it’s no longer difficult to see why Lucien’s always amused. It is very entertaining.

In a nutshell, the castle was a madhouse when Lucien was gone.

"We must discuss the consequences of House Blackspire’s treachery."

Silence falls over the hall as Lucien’s voice bounces off the walls. My gaze flicks to Serenya of House Blackspire. Her eyes are ever clouded with a high she never seems to come out of. A tinge of sadness swell in my chest for a bit, that part of me that still has Ilya’s soft spot for her family in there, and I stomp on it.

Perhaps it was the grief of losing Ilya that made Serenya that way. But I look at her and see a mother who failed and made her daughter into a monster. And I do not feel sorry for her.

Her husband rises in her stead, jaw clenched. "She has already been punished enough. We have seen what you have made of her--"

"Yes, yes," Lucien waves him off, board. "But treason remains treason. And there is only one punishment fit for it. A public execution."

Tiernan Blackspire’s eyes bulge. "She is royal--"

"And Lyra is your Queen. As am I your king." The humour is gone from Lucien’s voice, but he keeps massaging my thigh gently. "Do you wish to die with her? That can very well be arranged." When the man says nothing, Lucien continues, "It is a little convenient, don’t you think, that she could leave, come and plan as please without either one of you suspecting a single thing."

The man’s jaw clenches. "She is a grown woman. We do not control her goings and comings--"

"Of course," Lucien smiles. "Had you been able to, we might have avoided the casualties and lives lost on the forefront of this war altogether. Do you know what it means to be on the King’s Council, Tiernan?"

Silence.

Sweat breaks on the man’s forehead. Every one else looks pale, faces tight and unsure. This feels like a scolding.

"You are my ears, my eyes, and my hands." Lucien watches each of them keenly. Thalassa shifts uncomfortably. "Even in my absence. Especially then. Had I arrived much later, you lot would have absconded and left the people to fend for themselves. Explain to me why a Council is needed if I cannot even trust any one of you." His gaze lifts back to Tiernan. "You are hereby dismissed until you have your House in order. If ever. And I will hear back from you soon on the chosen date for your daughter’s beheading."

I flinch at the harshness in Lucien’s tone, at the viciousness of the instruction. But Tiernan says nothing, though his knuckles are white from clutching his fingers in a fist too tight.

When he leaves the room, taking Serenya with him, Verya says softly, startling the entire hall, "Congratulations. On the children."

***

I lay back, limbs trembling with nerves a gnarled fingers push and prod at my belly, feeling for my pulse.

Lucien is wearing holes into the ground with his nervous pacing. His grandmother has warned him to stop it or she’ll whack him in the head, but he cannot seem to stop. Literally every five seconds, he asks, "Are they alright? Is she alright? Will everything be alright?"

My teeth dig into my bottom lip and I start to rise, but she slaps the side of my butt. "Stay still, girl."

I grunt in response and lay back down, staring at the ceiling and wanting this damn examination to be over yesterday.

After what feels like an eternity, she sits back against the stool, groaning tiredly and muttering something about the ache in her back.

"Well?" Lucien asks impatiently.

His grandmother fixes him with a stare that would make a child sit still and quiet for a whole day. "Go fetch her a glass of freshly squeezed juice. She’s thirsty."

I frown. "But I’m not--"

"Shut up, you sod."

I’m seriously starting to dislike this woman.

Lucien looks like he might argue, but he turns around anyway and marches from the chamber in a hurry.

Faded grey eyes flick to mine. "It will take some time before you are able to use your powers again. Or shift." Her lips press thin. "If I am to be honest, I do not think you will be able to. There is silver in your blood. To keep you from dying, your body overcompensated, for a lack of better word. In time, treatments may be used to flush it out of your blood stream completely, but there is no guarantee that it’ll be fine."

"And the baby?" I have a hopeful expression, even if I’m not entirely sure why when I add, "Babies?"

She contemplates for a second. "Child birth will be difficult," she announces. "Partly because of the ordeal you’ve been through, but it’s also known that Draemonts often comes out... larger than most."

What does that even mean?

She seems lost in her thoughts as she adds, "And it’s been many decades since we heard of twins, not to speak of triplets--"

"Three?" Lucien choked in the doorway and I have no way to describe his expression. I can’t even tell if he is frightened or awed or both. "There’s three of them?"