Chapter 106
Affection. He mentioned it frequently, almost casually.
It was impossible to discern whether he spoke with genuine feeling or if it was merely a playful facade.
“……”
The truth was that Adi had momentarily pushed it from her mind—the nature of their bond and the specific requirements of the Duke. It was the fundamental premise of their arrangement, yet she had somehow overlooked it. Their connection was anchored, above all else, by the weight of a curse.
The Witch’s blight.
“I wasn’t particularly hurt by my Grandfather’s coldness,” Yuls remarked, his tone devoid of any visible distress. “My Mother wasn’t exactly human, after all. The curse originated from her lineage as well.”
Watching him, one couldn’t tell if he was being transparent or performing a part.
“Even a minor title on the border needs a solid political base to survive. My Mother wasn’t capable of providing that. If anything, her presence terrified people. It didn’t help that the North was swept up in witch hunts, a situation the Crown exploited for its own gain.”
And the House of Grimaldi had been a participant in those purges.
“Since a Witch couldn’t serve as a proper consort, my Grandfather arranged for a more suitable match.”
“That would be the sister of Marchioness Connolly,” Adi noted.
“Correct. That was the entry point for Eliza Connolly.”
Adi paused, her curiosity piqued. “Wait… your stepmother belongs to the Connolly line? Not a different house?”
Yuls gave her a momentary, questioning look as if her ignorance was surprising, but he quickly softened into a nod.
The vast geography separating the North and South often resulted in a total lack of cultural or political awareness between the two regions. Since Marchioness Connolly resided within the walls of Pallesa Palace rather than the capital of Ionad, it was plausible that a rising power might be unaware of the connection. Then again, Grimaldi was an ancient lineage, hardly a new arrival, and the Count was a household name.
Yuls silently wondered just how isolated they had kept this girl before he resumed his explanation.
“The current Marquis Connolly is actually a son-in-law brought in to take the name. The family lacked a male heir of their own to carry the title.”
Adi signaled her understanding. Such maneuvers were commonplace among the nobility. Spencer Grimaldi had harbored similar intentions. His strategy involved using her to maintain his bloodline, then passing the child off as a distant relative to justify a legal adoption.
“Because of those circumstances, the previous Duke Woodpecker became the only man in Dalkatir to effectively bypass monogamy. Even the King keeps only one queen, yet my grandfather wed a Witch and then brought a Connolly woman into his home.”
A short, dry laugh escaped Yuls. The Connollys were among the most established pillars of Dalkatir’s history.
“Consequently, my Mother was kept in the shadows. A high-ranking power player from the Kingdom was a far more palatable option than a Witch of a different race.”
The family strategy had been surgical: the eldest daughter brought in a husband to secure the line, the second was sent to the Woodpecker territory, and a niece—born from a sister who had married into Belipeera—was positioned within the Royal Family. This marked the Connollys’ deepest infiltration of the monarchy, though they had always been influential. Now, however, that very power was facing a decline. Yuls found the irony of their fading dominance quite entertaining.
“If they hadn’t forced your Mother into hiding,” Adi began, her voice thoughtful. “Is it possible you would have been spared the curse?”
“That is a very kind sentiment,” Yuls replied, offering a thin smile. It was a classic human reaction—to wonder if changing a single event could have altered the destination. Perhaps that was the entire basis for the concept of causality.
“Witches and humans don’t share the same perspective. Even if my Father had recognized her as his true wife, she wouldn’t have been able to tolerate that life.”
He leaned his head back, inhaling deeply. There was something about the gesture that felt distinctly non-human, as if he were a creature of the wild merely mimicking a person.
“Her only desire was to flee.”
Adi felt a flicker of doubt. Was he truly of a different species?
“She loathed the cramped, artificial world my Father built to keep her confined.”
In contrast, Yuls had a fondness for that glass-bound garden. It served as his sanctuary, the only place where he felt his lungs could truly expand. Without that refuge, he might have found the burdens of Woodpecker impossible to carry.
“She wasn’t always lost in misery, though. There were moments of genuine joy. On those days, she would share strange, rambling tales with me. She spoke of the forest’s ancient intelligence, its beauty, and its music.”
“Music?”
“Yes, bizarre melodies. She talked of oceans made of shifting sand, flowers that existed only in thought, and storms that could tear words apart. Things of that nature.”
Adi didn’t understand the meaning, but she privately agreed that it sounded hauntingly strange.
“Some things are beautiful precisely because they are alien. Eventually, I developed a love for that forest. There are certain things that, the more you observe them, the more impossible it becomes not to love them. Do you agree?”
“I do,” Adi murmured.
He wondered if she was simply being polite or if she truly felt the same. He hoped for the latter. If she could feel that way, perhaps she would eventually grow to love him over the long years they were destined to share.
“Good.”
Endurance. If only affection were enough to make it bearable.
“What about your own story, Sir Knight?”
Adi looked hesitant. “You mean my childhood?”
“Anything at all. I want to hear about you, whatever you’re willing to share.”
She still seemed confused by his interest.
“I have many questions, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. Just tell me something from your past—whatever comes to mind.”
“I’ve never shared my history with anyone,” she admitted.
“Then I am honored to be the first to hear it.”
“How were your early years? You seemed to have a close bond with your brother.”
“We did. He was the reason I made it through.”
As she spoke of him, Adi realized his face was fading from her memory. She could only clearly recall the boy in the single portrait she kept. He would stay that age forever in her mind, though he would have looked vastly different had he survived.
“He must have been there at the beginning. A baby is helpless; someone had to have raised me during those first months. I just don’t know who it was.”
“Was there no wet nurse assigned to you?”
“No.”
The denial was immediate.
“No one wanted the task. I was treated as if I didn’t exist in that house.”
Yuls’s brow furrowed at the detached way she described her own neglect. Behind him, Dimitri looked equally grim, his expression sour with displeasure. Adi noticed the chamberlain’s scowl and wondered what had upset him, but she didn’t linger on it.
“So, once in a while…”
She trailed off, unsure if she should voice a theory she had never shared with anyone, not even Adrian. It was nothing more than a guess.
“I’ve wondered if the person who kept me alive when I was too small to even see was actually my Mother.”
She paused, considering the logistics.
“To nurse a child, you have to be at that stage of motherhood. At that time, only three babies were born at Grimaldi: myself, Adrian, and…”
“Lev,” Yuls finished.
That was why the Zid woman had served as Adrian’s wet nurse before becoming the Countess’s primary attendant. She had secured that position partly due to the death of the previous head maid, but largely because of the intimacy she had developed with the Countess during her nursing years. It was a peculiar, tight-knit bond.
“Is it possible the wet nurse took care of you as well?”
“I doubt that very much,” Adi said firmly.
“Because of her resentment toward you.”
“She makes no secret of it.”
It was more than just simple dislike. Adi likely didn’t grasp the full extent of it. Yuls felt a small sense of relief that Lev hadn’t recognized the depth of his own emotions yet. Finding Adrina before that situation escalated felt like more than just a stroke of luck.
“By the time I was old enough to form memories, I was essentially on my own.”
It felt more like destiny.
“As a small child, I stayed in a room off of Adrian’s. When I got older, they moved me into the servants’ quarters.”
“The maids’ rooms?” Yuls repeated, stunned.
The idea that a noble daughter of a Count would be relegated to the staff quarters was beyond insulting; it was nonsensical. And she spoke of it as if it were perfectly normal.
“They just permitted that?”
“I didn’t have the power to change it back then.”
“I wasn’t referring to you. I meant the Count and Countess…”
Yuls stopped himself, realizing they never would have intervened. His expression darkened. They had left her completely uneducated—no politics, no social grace, nothing. Even if she was intended to be a pawn in a marriage, they had failed to give her the basic tools of her station.
“Never mind that.”
The only thing they had permitted her to learn was the way of the blade.
“You endured a great deal in that house.”
He wondered if the sword had been a blessing. Her prowess would certainly protect her, and it would keep the unwanted at bay… but it also meant she was constantly in the line of fire.
Adi simply nodded, seemingly unaffected by his concern. “Yes.”
“I’m just relieved to be away from Grimaldi.”
A small, genuine smile touched her lips.
“I wish I had something better to say about it, but there isn’t a single good memory there. It was a terrible place. I despise it.”
“You’re right to feel that way. It sounds wretched.”
“That’s why leaving felt like such a victory.”
Adi saw Dimitri nodding along in the background and felt a brief moment of confusion, but she kept her focus on the conversation.
“I wonder why I didn’t see it sooner. If I had realized how wrong it all was when I was younger, I might have found a way to escape and build a life for myself much earlier.”
