Chapter 112

But this morning was strange. She watched him before he woke, and despite so many nights shared, she saw Aden’s face as though seeing it for the first time.

Relaxed in sleep, his face lost the flinty edges it carried when he was awake. The mouth that curved cold when he was angry. The eyes that could burn like ice. All his hard features, now softened in sleep.

Could the people guess that the Duke of Winter, that mythic, towering figure, could be so relaxed? That their stern lord could ever look so gentle?

When she asked if he slept well, he’d opened his eyes quickly. Too quickly, it seemed.

“Were you already awake?” she asked slyly.

“No,” he said, earnestly, “I awoke just as you spoke to me.”

There was no lie in his voice or his eyes. She smiled.

“Well, good morning.”

“It is…thanks to you,” he said, smiling in return.

***

When he’d first heard a bride was coming for him, Aden hadn’t thought his life would change. No matter if she was from the warm region, or the winter. He hadn’t thought his betrothed would affect him much at all, nor play much part in the business of either the mansion or Delrose.

But Ilyin had proved him very wrong.

As soon as he had returned, injured, from the warm region, he’d had to rush to help at Elo’s territory, then back to the mansion. Yet with all still left to do, he’d been able to sleep deeply thanks to her.

“Ma’am finished all of that; It’s already been done on Ma’am’s order.”

Aden had heard variations of that at least three times this morning from Idith, and more from others.

“I always worry,” she’d said as they lay together. Her concerns always came as pillow talk.

“About?” he’d asked.

“Whether I’m taking on too much power,” she’d said, “Taking too much from you.”

If only you understood, he’d thought, understood how much power you truly hold. Ever since I was first bewitched by your summer light, you’ve held me in the palm of your delicate hand. Me, and all of Delrose.

He’d hoped she understood that, hoped she’d hold them with care.

Now, seated at his desk, tapping his fingers thoughtfully, he asked Idith for a report.

“What’s the situation with the basement jail?” he asked. It seemed among the few things left to him. Ilyin’s management was so skillful he had little else to touch. Even the information that came from their spying on Elo, she examined and organized before it came to him.

Those reports still included the original, raw information, of course – and that still echoed what he’d been told by Rippo de Mille. That Bright Elo and Green Mille were allied with the Yesters. That someone among those creatures could see the future.

Aden thought the monsters might have an uncomfortable chance of victory if it were true. He thought of Ilyin’s own strange foresight, the gift that came down her mother’s side of the family. Its origin was unknown. Aden wondered, if there really were someone among the Yesters who could see the future, did they also see it in dreams?

The intelligence brought from Elo’s territory didn’t confirm Rippo’s claim, but it did show strange actions on their part, enough to stir his concern. Low-level knights were being promoted and brought to the mansion. Slowly, their senior knights were being rotated out, replaced by newly minted knights promoted above their rightful place.

The illusion of the same presence of forces, but increasingly mere decoration, while their more valued knights were being whisked elsewhere. Their secret stronghold, Aden knew, wherever that may be.

But for what purpose?

“The prisoners in the basement jail all tried to kill themselves, but none succeeded.”

Idith’s cut the train of his thought. No more pondering, he thought, rising from his chair. It was time to get answers directly from those who’d attacked him in the warm region.

***

“Grandmaster Den” was always busy; “Biflten Master, Aden de Biflten” even more so. Ilyin rarely had a chance to see him in the morning. In passing, certainly, as he was hurrying about pursuing this duty or that one, and he would, in those brief moments, show small, discrete signs of love – a grazing touch of the hand in passing, or a smile where only she could see. Brief, stolen moments that warmed her.

But it wasn’t only his responsibilities that crowded between them. She was never alone in Biflten Mansion. She had guards around her, yes, but also maids, knights, . . .  always someone from Delrose that needed her attention for a moment, for one reason or another.

“Is the necklace too tight?”

And now it was Etra. At least, with Delrose always beside her, she was never lonely. She was thankful for that. If living in Viscount Arlen’s mansion had seemed like a dream, now she felt ensconced in a better one.

“No, it’s fine,” she answered, smiling. She let the hand that had been fiddling with the necklace drop for a moment, but then absently returned to it. Etra tilted her head slightly.

“Is whatever worry is distracting you something that this old, slow maid couldn’t understand?” she asked.

“No,” Ilyin said with a light laugh, shaking her head. She pondered for a moment, then gestured to Etra.

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Of course, ma’am,” Etra replied, bowing deeply. “What can I do?”

“Bring me a plank that will burn well, and a sand board.”

The request was so odd Etra blinked.