Chapter 121
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Yuls collapsed onto the settee in the drawing room, feeling as though his very bones had turned to lead. The morning’s obligations were behind him, yet the afternoon loomed with fresh demands. He required a moment of stillness before the next cycle began. If there was a single mercy to be found in the day’s itinerary, it was the absence of a formal luncheon.
A midday meal, he mused.
Adrina was likely deep in slumber by now. She had remained at her post throughout the pre-dawn hours; the fatigue must have been overwhelming. Because of that, he couldn’t justify calling for her. Though he craved the sight of her, he suppressed the urge. He reminded himself that they would be reunited under the cover of night.
Yuls forced the image of Adi from his mind, pivoting his focus to a more troubling figure.
He struggled to grasp the motivations of Pasalis Macauliffe. What was the man’s end goal? Had he deemed Claude an unworthy investment and begun a search for a better candidate, or was he simply desperate for a place to stand?
The displaced nobility of Dalkatir, including the Macauliffe line, were ghosts without a home. They lacked any legal claim to stay in Ionad, and Pallesa Palace was an ill-fitting refuge. Without a proper seat or a city to govern, they were adrift. Carving out a space in an established metropolis was a fool’s errand, as every scrap of influence had long since been hoarded by others.
Yuls placed no stock in lofty ideals or grand causes.
However, the prospect of a new foundation changed the calculus. What if a planned city, a mirror to Ionad, was commissioned?
And what if that foundation was laid within Woodpecker?
“They will have to be dealt with.”
A sharp, inexplicable dread began to prick at his nerves. It was a sensation Yuls recognized intimately. He had learned long ago that his instincts were never wrong. His capacity to detect shifting tides of danger bordered on the supernatural. If there was any trait he had inherited from his mother that he valued, it was this.
A dark foresight.
He needed to act before their influence took root, or before they sparked a catastrophe.
“My Lord.”
Dimitri’s arrival broke his train of thought. Gavin appeared to be taking his scheduled leave. Without moving from his reclined position, Yuls merely shifted his eyes toward the chamberlain.
“Prince Claude has sent a request for a practitioner of Healing magic.”
“Grant it.”
“As you wish. However, it might be prudent for you to observe the situation personally.”
“Is Claude not supposed to be confined for reflection?”
“Indeed. He is forbidden from leaving his quarters, but the restriction does not apply to those entering them,” Dimitri explained.
Under normal circumstances, Yuls would have dismissed the suggestion. Yet, if Dimitri felt it necessary to speak up, there was likely a compelling reason to attend.
“Very well.”
Yuls stood, his movements heavy but deliberate.
*
Spencer Grimaldi looked as though he were swallowing glass. In stark contrast, Claude stood at his side, looking on with genuine, unbridled amusement. The Prince was captivated. He wondered where such a creature could have possibly originated.
“……”
The answer was standing right there, of course. The biological source was the Count himself. And yet, Claude doubted this fire came solely from Spencer. The Countess must be a terrifying woman in her own right.
Watching Adrina’s stoic expression, Claude found her lack of remorse strikingly cold—and he found it utterly charming.
Spencer’s eyes were fixed on the blood matting Adrina’s hair. It looked gruesome, but a scalp wound always bled with exaggerated violence, even when the injury was trivial. She wasn’t in any mortal peril.
“I recall,” Spencer began, his voice tight. His eyes drifted toward Lev. “I gave instructions to bring her into the fold if she proved her worth.”
He turned his gaze back to Adrina, a deep crease forming between his brows.
“I did not, however, expect you to present her in this state.”
Word of a disturbance near the barracks had reached him. It had been dismissed as a common disagreement among soldiers until the chaos grew so loud that the various heads of households began to investigate. Among them was the Grimaldi chamberlain.
It was that very man who had intervened and escorted the combatants here.
Claude made a clicking sound with his tongue as the details emerged. Adrina had been surrounded by a swarm of knights, yet she had ignored the steel at her throat to systematically dismantle Lev. She had pinned him down with a blade, focused entirely on his destruction. The chamberlain’s report had carried a note of genuine shock at her singular, obsessive focus.
“A warrior first, a lady second,” Claude remarked.
He was fascinated by her indifference to the swords pointed at her or the hands trying to restrain her. Where did such a savage streak come from? The Count was a hard man, but looking at the two blood-soaked figures, Claude decided the daughter was the more dangerous of the two. He let out a low whistle.
“There is something quite striking about a woman covered in gore.”
The room fell silent as they looked at the Prince. It was the look one gave a man who had lost his moral compass, but Claude was immune to their judgment. To him, the crimson suited her. He found himself thinking that red hair would have been a better fit for her temperament.
“What is the color of your wife’s hair, Count?”
“…You are asking about the Countess?” Spencer replied, confused.
“Is there another man in this room with a spouse?”
Claude was betrothed, but the ceremony was a distant prospect. Given his nature, it was a toss-up whether the girl would even show up to the altar.
“Well? What color is it?”
“It turned to silver-white after the loss of our child. It has remained so ever since.”
Claude glanced at Adrina. He suspected the grief wasn’t for a daughter’s death, but for the supposed death of a son. It was a conspiracy the entire Grimaldi estate seemed to be harboring.
A white-haired Countess.
“I imagine that is quite a sight as well.”
Spencer’s scowl deepened. He didn’t remember Claude being this erratic during their previous encounters and couldn’t fathom what had changed the man.
The inquiry into Macauliffe was still active, preventing Spencer from making any bold moves. Furthermore, based on the day’s political theater, the Viscount seemed more interested in courting Duke Woodpecker than the Prince.
“So,” Claude said, picking up a bundle of parchment. “What is your next move, Count?”
The pages held the transcript of the morning’s council. Scribes had recorded every word, and the document had reached Claude’s hands before Spencer had even crossed the threshold. It was a silent warning; Claude had allies in the shadows that Spencer had yet to identify.
The Prince idly turned the pages. He looked bored, but his eyes were sharp, catching every nuance. When he reached the section detailing Macauliffe’s potential shift toward Woodpecker, he let out a dry laugh. It was irrelevant where the Viscount’s loyalty lay. Yuls was already committed to Claude.
He was simply curious why Macauliffe would bother looking elsewhere. Any attempt to latch onto Yuls was a mistake. If the Duke were compromised, it would be as devastating to Claude as losing his own limbs.
With a sigh of boredom, Claude threw the papers onto the table, letting them drift like fallen leaves.
A servant stepped forward to organize the mess. Claude ignored him, his attention shifting to the far side of the room where the two wounded parties stood with a physician.
“As I recall,” Claude noted, looking at Adrina and Lev. “I did warn you that she looked like the sort to start a fire.”
“And what would you have had me do?” Spencer replied, his voice a flat line.
As he spoke, the door slid open. Yuls entered, his face a mask of cold fury. Joel followed, his hand pressed to his mouth in a gesture of pure horror.
“Does Adrina Dean not belong to the House of Woodpecker?” Claude asked, his eyes dancing. “Is that not the case, Your Grace?”
Yuls spared the Count a fleeting, icy look before walking into the center of the room.
His eyes found Adi. A wave of heat rose in his chest at the sight of her blood-stained hair and the raw scratches marring her skin. Regardless of her rank as a knight, she was a woman. The protective instinct he felt now was different from when he believed her to be a man. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the brutality required to mark her like that. He turned a murderous gaze toward Lev.
“How dare you touch her.”
But the rage hit a sudden wall.
Lev was in a far worse state. A jagged gash ran across his eye. For a second, Yuls thought the man had been blinded, but it was a deep cut to the lid that was causing the mask of blood.
The man’s throat and arms were a map of shallow cuts. She had used her dagger with precision, avoiding the killing blow. She hadn’t wanted him dead; she had wanted him broken.
Yuls found it hard to believe Adi was capable of such calculated violence, but the sheer hatred in Lev’s eyes confirmed it.
Adi, who had been dabbing at her own injuries, looked up. When she saw Yuls, she smiled softly. He couldn’t fathom how she could find joy in this carnage. She stood and walked toward him.
“Adrina.”
“I was the victor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is that not the primary duty of an Escort?” she asked. “To ensure that if a fight breaks out with a peer, we emerge on top?”
While such a tradition existed, Yuls had never intended for her to live by it.
“I never asked for a victory from you, Sir,” Yuls whispered.
“I only ever wanted you to be safe.”
His voice, usually so steady, betrayed him with a slight, unmistakable tremor.
