Chapter 60
The sun had barely risen when Roy took his post outside the chambers. A servant cracked the door open, revealing Adi positioned near the window. The puffiness in her face hadn’t subsided at all; instead, her skin was a map of dark bruises and dried blood.
“Go find Bert,” Yuls commanded Roy. His eyes lingered on Adi for a moment before he dismissed her with a sharp movement of his head.
Adi kept her gaze low, following Roy out into the hall.
“The swelling is terrible,” Roy noted. Adi reached up to gingerly touch her face. The inflammation was so severe she struggled to even lift her eyelids.
“Honestly, it looks like you’re hiding a stone in your cheek.”
“Is the damage that obvious?”
“Let me take a look. You’ve even got burst vessels in your eyes.”
Roy reached out to steady her, carefully tilting her chin so he wouldn’t aggravate her injuries. Even that gentle touch made her eyes pinch with pain.
“Does the Count frequently treat you this way?”
“No,” she replied. “This was a first.”
“It happened because of me, didn’t it?”
Adi didn’t bother with a polite lie. “What difference does it make?” Everyone was already aware of the truth, and Roy Gallardo knew it better than anyone. He had respected her talent, but he hadn’t realized he was being taught the Grimaldi family’s most guarded secrets.
“It was the sword style.”
“I don’t regret it,” Adi said firmly.
“Even after being pulverized?”
To call it a simple beating felt like an understatement. Roy was shaken; he hadn’t imagined a father could be so savage. The Count had struck her with a lethality usually reserved for the lowliest of enemies. It had been a public display of brutality that left every witness sickened.
While the nobility operated on a strict hierarchy of age and gender, it was nearly unheard of for a man to physically degrade his kin so viciously in public. They might kill one another in a duel, but they rarely stripped away a relative’s dignity before an audience. Yet, Adi had accepted the blows with a haunting familiarity.
Roy couldn’t fathom how she could be so accustomed to such violence.
“Only a Grimaldi has the power to take down a Grimaldi,” she explained. “There was a certain satisfaction in watching them fall to their own moves because they didn’t take their opponent seriously.”
“Just how deep is your grudge against Lev Zid?”
“Worse than you can imagine.”
Roy had already assumed her hatred was profound; if it exceeded his expectations by that much, the depth of her resentment was staggering.
He watched her, perplexed. She had betrayed her bloodline’s secrets to a stranger and been mauled like a stray dog for it, yet she looked almost triumphant. Though she was the legitimate successor to the Grimaldi title, it was clear that within those walls, she was treated as anything but an heir.
“Roy,” she said. He jumped slightly, worried she had read his dark thoughts.
“Yes?”
“Watch your back. The Count won’t let this go.”
It was a logical warning. No house would ignore the theft of their martial legacy.
“Get back to the South the moment the festivities conclude,” she urged. “And make sure your transfer papers are signed immediately.”
Roy paused, searching her face. “Since when did you worry about my well-being like this?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You knew this would be the consequence, yet you did it anyway.”
Adi stared at him, bewildered by his tone. She didn’t harbor any ill will toward Roy—she actually appreciated his charm—but she didn’t view him as a close confidant. He usually carried himself with an arrogance that bordered on vanity, so seeing him on the verge of tears was confusing. Perhaps he wasn’t as thick-skinned as he pretended to be.
“Have you used any salves on those wounds?” he asked.
“I have.”
“We should find a priest or a sorcerer. You need proper healing.”
“Don’t bother. That would only provoke the Count further.”
Roy sighed, conceding the point. “I suppose you can’t exactly go out in public with a face like that anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m assigned to the night shift,” Adi said, reaching for the door. Inside, they found Bert meticulously dressed and occupied with the morning news.
“Sir, the Duke is requesting your presence,” Roy announced. Bert nodded and rose, his eyes immediately landing on Adi. A flicker of sympathy crossed his face. He stepped forward and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Go on, Adi. Take the day to recover. I’ll handle the Duke.”
“I’m perfectly capable of working.”
“Rest when I tell you to rest,” Bert insisted gently.
Adi clamped her jaw shut, remaining silent. Roy backed Bert up, pointing out that she had been through enough recently.
“Between that assassin and this… you’re becoming quite accident-prone, Sir.”
“I’ll be more cautious,” she muttered.
Bert looked pained. “It isn’t just about you. It’s difficult for those around you to see you like this.” Adi gave a shallow nod, though her expression suggested she didn’t quite grasp why they cared.
Once Roy and Bert departed, Adi sat alone in the quiet lounge. The morning was heavy and gray, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and grass. Her mind drifted back to the previous night. The Duke’s behavior had been utterly baffling.
She had expected everything to change once her true gender was revealed, yet he remained frustratingly consistent. He had simply told her to stay put, and when he couldn’t sleep, he had ordered her into the adjoining room. It was a bizarre request to make of a sworn knight.
And then there were his words.
“It was you.”
Adi whispered the phrase to the empty room. It was what he had said right after he kissed her. She turned the memory over in her mind, wondering what he could have possibly meant by it.
By the time the two men returned, Yuls was fully dressed. An attendant was finishing his hair while another adjusted his silk cravat. The humid air had forced him into lighter fabrics for the day.
Bert handed over the newspaper, and Yuls signaled for them to follow him into the drawing room. Once settled on the sofa, Yuls spoke his mind.
“I intend to bring Adi back to the Woodpecker lands.”
Bert hesitated. He didn’t object to the idea of having her with them, but he doubted Adi would ever agree to such a move. Still, after the events of the previous night, perhaps she was more inclined to leave than before.
“If she refuses the South, we’ll send her to Ionad. But I don’t trust Claude’s intentions. For now, we proceed as if she’s coming with us. Get the paperwork ready.”
“As you wish,” Bert replied. It wasn’t unheard of for high-ranking nobles to recruit palace guards into their private service. Roy was already set to go; adding Adi was just a matter of logistics. The real hurdle would be the 2nd Knights Order’s willingness to let her go.
“Do it quickly,” Yuls added. “I want it settled before the Count tries to interfere.”
At Bert’s nod, Roy slipped out of the room to expedite the forms. He knew speed was of the essence.
Yuls looked up at his remaining staff. Despite the tension of the previous day, he seemed oddly relaxed—almost cheerful. Bert noticed the slight curve of his lips.
“You seem to be in high spirits, Your Excellency. Do you have a plan?”
Yuls shook his head slightly. “Tell me, Bert, do you believe in destiny?”
Bert found the question uncharacteristically poetic. He didn’t believe in the Goddess of Fate or the idea that lives were written in advance. He believed in the agency of the individual—a philosophy Yuls had always championed.
“Are you referring to Adrina Grimaldi?”
“Do you think her path has somehow merged with Adrian’s?”
Yuls stared into the distance for a long beat before finally answering. “Yes. I think I do.”
The servants shifted uncomfortably, exchanging worried looks. This wasn’t the pragmatic Duke they knew.
“Maybe it’s the Witch’s blood in me,” Yuls mused. “It’s a romantic notion, isn’t it?”
The staff wondered if his lack of sleep had finally caught up with him.
“It seems she didn’t despise me as much as I thought.”
“If you mean the Witch,” Bert offered, “she might have cursed you, but there was always a sense that she held you in some regard.”
Yuls hadn’t seen it that way as a child. “I used to wonder if she would have kept me if I’d been a girl. If she would have loved me then.”
Witchcraft was a female legacy, passed from mother to daughter in a cycle of near-identical rebirth. That cycle had broken with Julius Woodpecker.
“I know it’s easier to navigate the world of men,” he continued. “But in her world, I was an anomaly. I assumed she viewed me as a failure.”
He was the son of the Oak Forest Witch, a boy born into a world of women.
“But it was just… different.”
He hadn’t been cast out, because he had never truly belonged. There had been no recognition of his birth, because the Witch could not see a human son as her own flesh and blood.
“In the end,” Yuls said quietly, “I suppose the arrangement was exactly what it needed to be.”
