Scarlet has returned home to the joy of her family—Charles running down two flights of stairs, the Duchess trembling at the sight of her daughter, a Duke both angry and proud.
A unique feature of Bravia was that if you dug deep enough, you found cold, no matter the season. Under Kestrelmont, for example, three meters below the main pantry, a cold storage locker kept things cool. Food that needed to be frozen was stored deeper in the underlying tundra. It was one of the reasons prolonged sieges against castles never really worked in Bravia. There might be two years of meat stored below the castle.
Kestrelmont was one of the bigger estates. An enormous selection of venison, beef, mutton, pork, and fowl was available, though most of it was frozen.
Cook had to rearrange her plan for the coming week given the unexpected increase in guests. Charles volunteered to go below and move several cuts from frozen to the next floor up, and he brought up an entire cold ham to replace the half turkey that cook had been planning to use for lunch.
Scarlet met him in the cold storage.
“What’s going on with your life?” she asked as he shifted cuts of meat around.
“Oh, you know. The usual. Fall in love with a girl. Fall out of love with a girl.”
Scarlet chuckled. “Already getting tired of Isabelle?”
Charles inspected a pair of lamb legs, handing them to Scarlet. “Here, Cook says we’ll need them for tomorrow.”
Scarlet passed the legs overhead to the main floor and shoved them so that they slid into the main pantry. It would take most of a day for them to thaw.
“I’m not tired of her,” he said. “I guess. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a typical boy for my age. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be like that. But here we are.”
“What are you talking about? Pass me that turkey while you’re at it.”
“I don’t know. She seems different. Like, maybe she put on a show to win my affections and now that she has them she doesn’t care anymore? Like she’s gotten complacent. Actually, it’s almost like she finds me distasteful, which is making me feel the same way.”
“You’re weird, brother,” Scarlet said.
“Yeah, I know. But not everyone can charge across a continent to collect an army. Some of us have to stay behind and manage what’s here.”
“Ha! Imagine you managing anything.”
“Actually,” he said. “I’m pretty good at it.”
“I know you are. I’m just teasing,” she said.
“Should I grab some hens?”
“Did Cook ask for some?”
“No, but we’ve got a few people here.”
“Grab a dozen. Can’t hurt.”
He handed them to her, one by one. Spirehens. About two pounds of delicate meat on each one. They paired well with wheat ales.
Charles already knew that, so when he hefted up a keg of ale, it surprised neither of them.
“In any case,” he said. “She’ll be here in a bit and I’m not sure I really want her here anymore.”
“Then tell her so.”
“The thing is that I keep hoping she’ll become who she was. I was totally in love with her just a few weeks ago. I even had a ring made.”
“You did not!” Scarlet squealed.
“Honest truth. It’s in my desk even now. But I guess I got cold feet.”
“You don’t just fall in and out of love like that though,” Scarlet said. “Something happen? What did you say to her?”
“Nothing, I swear. Nothing said. Nothing untoward. We did kiss some.”
“Mmmmm,” Scarlet said. “Kissing is nice.”
“Oh, you know about that now then? That Philip guy been snogging my sister? Do I need to have a talk with him?”
“You will not have a talk with him,” Scarlet said sternly.
“Oh, boy. That makes me feel like I actually need to have a talk with him. Do you like him, Scarlet?”
“I love him,” she said.
It was simple, but it caught Charles off guard. He set down the cut he was holding and took her hand and kissed it. “I’m glad for you, sis. Really.”
She smiled at him.
“Wish I could say I was still feeling that way.” He frowned.
“Want me to talk with her and see if there is a problem?”
“I guess,” he said. “I talk to her still and she says there’s no problem. Still hints she wants me to propose. But either I’ve changed or she’s changed and I can’t put my finger on what it is.”
“You seem the same to me,” Scarlet said. “Though a bit more gloomy.”
“The whole thing is making me gloomy,” he said. “You ever look at someone and see sunshine and then when they don’t think you’re looking you see shadow?”
Scarlet was about to say something and then she stopped. “What did you say?”
“Sometimes when I look at her and she doesn’t know I’m watching, it’s like she’s not even there,” he said.
It struck a chord in her. She held it for a moment, but couldn’t place it. “Just be kind to her. You’ll figure it out.”
“I am always kind,” he said.
“To a fault. But don’t change,” Scarlet said. “Hand me some sausages will you?”
“Wardyn is a very interesting fellow,” Charles said as he handed up four long links, one at a time. “I was very interested to meet a Uruk.”
“Wait until you see Yselle,” Scarlet said.
“Who’s she?”
“A very beautiful aelf with wings. Just in case things don’t work out with Isabelle.”
He frowned for a moment. “Any fire aelves?”
“Not that I know of,” Scarlet said.
“I’d love to meet a fire shaper.”
“I’m not sure they even exist anymore,” she said.
Lunch was a divine affair in Scarlet’s eyes. The cold ham. The fresh bread. Chilled white wine from an eastern valley vintner. Cheese, crackers, and a very rare pineapple sauce.
She patted her stomach when it was over, but could only watch as Drogoth and Wardyn filled plates for a third time. Even Philip wasn’t able to keep up with them in consumption.
Philip and Scarlet had their pinkies looped together under the table.
She noticed her father watching her from the far end—not the way he watched guests, which was with the polite attention of a host, but the way he watched her when he had made a decision and was simply waiting for the right moment to act on it. He caught her catching him and looked down at his plate. When he looked up again, the host’s expression was back in place.
She knew that expression. She had been waiting for it, in one form or another, since the bridge.
“Scarlet,” her father said. “Let’s have a talk in my study.”
“Yes, father,” she said. She grabbed her wine and followed him across the foyer into the study—a place that smelled of pipe smoke and leather.
“Close the door,” he said.
She sat at the narrow end of his desk near the fireplace. He packed a pipe, sat down, and lit it.
Laid out on the desk were some of the maps and drawings and the treaty that he had clearly already looked at before joining the lunch.
“Tell me about Benedict,” he said.
This was always going to be the hardest part of coming home.
“Father, there is a story I must tell you that you won’t first believe, but you must because it is true and is the most important thing I have ever told you.”
His expression shifted from annoyance to something more careful.
“There are tales from lore, stories of fantasy, that we have forgotten were based in truth. I need you to understand that and not mock me when I tell you. It is the reason I have joined the Knights Celestial.”
Caspian was quiet for a long moment. He looked down at his desk, at nothing in particular, and then back at her.
“Okay, I will listen.”
She nodded, stood, and paced as she spoke to him.
“There is an ancient creature known as the Usurper. No one knows where he came from or why, but the knights archive names him as a pawn of Shaetan.”
“Shaetan!” he hissed.
“The Imprisoned One plots continually,” she said. “At some point in the far distant past, the Usurper made a bargain with Shaetan and from it he gained a power over death.”
“What kind of power?”
“His body is dead. Long, long gone. He walks as a spirit. But he maintains himself by stealing life from the living.”
“Now this sounds like a fairy tale,” he said, frowning.
“It’s absolutely true,” she said. He held her gaze and found nothing in it that wavered.
He nodded.
“Father, he can raise dead men from the grave and give them a false life stolen from others. They are his thralls, obeying his every command.”
“You’re talking about undead,” he whispered.
“I am.”
“Legends.”
“Truth. I have seen them with my own eyes. They killed five in Harrowgate. Killed two in Tallfellow Canyon. Killed two in Faerlong Dell. They killed Lance Ashcroft who had come to look for me. They tried to kill me. But Benedict slew them and fell protecting me.”
Her father turned briefly toward the window, then back. “Benedict was the best man I ever employed,” he said. “I want you to know that.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, father. It’s my fault. My fault for bringing him into danger.”
“It’s my fault. I sent him.”
“But I knew you would. It was part of my plan.”
He raised an eyebrow and then nodded once, slowly, in the way he had of closing a subject he couldn’t do anything about. “And this Usurper. Where is he now?”
“We think he is in or near Stormrest. But here’s the thing. He can live inside others. He can take over their bodies. You think you are talking to someone, but it’s not them anymore. It’s the Usurper.”
“Possession?”
“I guess so. I think he did it to Lance Ashcroft.”
“It could be me then. Anyone.”
“No,” she said. “For whatever reason, the Wentworths—our bloodline—is immune to his powers.”
“How—?”
“I don’t know. We don’t know.”
“Is there anything that can be done about him?”
“With Epherion’s help, perhaps. The Knights Celestial are not just a brotherhood. We were established two thousand years ago by Epherion himself.”
“The sun god?” Caspian said.
“Yes, the creator. We can defeat these undead with the power of the star. He has chosen us.”
“Chosen you?”
“None of us are worthy,” she said. “But Epherion is worthy. We do his bidding.”
“Do you?”
“He has spoken to my mind, father.”
He held her gaze steadily, looking for the crack in it. She didn’t give him one.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“I hope for the better.”
“In some ways. But I fear my little girl is gone.” He got up, poured himself a stiff drink, downed it, and poured a second, before returning to his desk.
“I’m still here, daddy. It’s still me.”
He smiled at her.
“Let’s talk about the other thing.”
“Okay,” she said, breathing carefully.
“You’ve promised every Wentworth in the land a thousand acres as a freehold to serve an army that will be disbanded on the first day because you were too efficient. There is no more war to serve in. I don’t know how you achieved it.”
“You used those words, father years ago, in our flat that always leaked winter. Before we knew there was a chance to be legitimate again, you wondered if a promise of land would bring people to join us. A thousand acres was the traditional standard for family members who served in war.”
“You’re right. I did say that. Good memory. But then one hundred acres for just anyone who serves?”
“We can’t have just a landed gentry,” she said. “We need regular people to repopulate our lands. We needed a yeomanry, and a hundred acres isn’t a lot. There are two million acres. Someone needs to maintain it.”
“How many contracts did you get signed?”
“Over thirteen hundred.”
“Thirteen—hundred? You recruited thirteen hundred from Psalter’s Point? That’s half the town!”
“It’s not even a quarter of the town, father. It had grown over the years. In any case, I have established them for now at Faerlong Dell. As there is no war to fight, we have put them to reconstruction, beginning with the dell.”
“And this treaty you’ve signed with the krangs, without my consent—I might add—you think it will hold up?”
“Time will tell, but it’s something at least. We’ve had nothing for decades.”
He tapped the treaty with one finger, considering it. “Fair point. You’ve done well, Scarlet. Very well.” He set it aside. “I only have one concern.”
“Which is?”
“Philip Beckwith.”
She kept her expression neutral. “He is a concern why?”
“Because the boy wants you.”
“That’s okay daddy. I want him too.”
He stared at her. “Really? I thought you despised him.”
“No, daddy.” She shook her head. “I never said that. I despised the queen’s plan. I didn’t know him.”
“You know he’s probably going to ask for your hand?”
“I sure hope so,” she said.
He leaned back in his chair. “Have you known him long enough to say that?”
She looked down at her feet, then straightened. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Promise not to be angry.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, weighing it. “Okay. I won’t be angry.”
“Remember when we found the ring and the papers?”
He went still. “A day impossible to forget. Of course I remember.”
“The boy who found the ring. The one you made me stop looking for—”
“Yes?”
“It’s Philip.”
“What? Philip is—was the urchin who found the ring? It’s the same person?”
“It is daddy. He’s the boy.”
He set his drink down and was quiet for a long moment. He looked at the real Wentworth signet where it sat among the papers on his desk, and then back at her.
“Did he know all along?”
“He didn’t learn it until after the masquerade. And then when he knew it was me, he came to find me. He rode nearly all the way to Psalter’s Point, alone. He nearly died. Twice.”
Caspian exhaled slowly. He picked up the drink, looked at it, and set it down again without taking any. “When you are young, it was harmless, but then you started to get older, and it stopped being harmless.”
“I’ve loved him since we were kids.”
He tried to smile, but then his face cracked. And then he broke into tears.
“Oh, sweetheart—forgive me.”
She came around his desk and hugged him close.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I thought he wasn’t good for you.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all okay. It worked out exactly the way it was supposed to.”
“It did?”
“He loves me. He always has. The time apart gave us perspective. Now it’s not just a childish infatuation that grew. It’s always been what’s missing. He’s what has been missing. And I for him.”
“Young love,” he said, smiling.
“You will say yes if he asks, right daddy?”
“Probably not,” he said. He finished his drink, put the bottle away and left the empty glass on a tray on his desk.
“Daddy?”
He snickered as he walked out of the room leaving her behind.
“Well, don’t ask me,” Elise said to her daughter. “Your father is a man of his own mind.”
Scarlet smiled slightly. “Daddy would never say no.”
“Probably not,” Elise agreed. She set her book down and gave her daughter her full attention. “He danced with you at the masquerade.”
“He did.”
“And rode halfway across the world to find you.”
“He did that too.”
Elise was quiet for a moment. “I saw it the moment you rode over the bridge together holding hands.”
Scarlet nodded. “Then you know.”
“I know what I saw,” Elise said. “And I know my daughter.” She picked her book back up, though she didn’t open it. “Look at Charles. Two weeks ago that girl was his moon and stars. Now he can barely—well. You’ve seen it.”
“Philip is not Charles, and I am not seventeen,” Scarlet said. Not unkindly. Just plainly.
“No,” Elise said. “You’re not.” She opened her book. “I simply want you to be sure. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“I’m sure, mama.”
Elise turned a page without reading it. “Then I suppose that’s enough for now. I’m just glad that you are home and safe. That’s the most important thing to me.”
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible.
The way she calls her dad “daddy” warms my heart