He turned, decision settling across his shoulders, and began the walk back toward the keep.
Neither Krystoff nor Darion followed.
He found her in the chair by the hearth, her small form nearly swallowed by the seat, head resting against the winged back. Firelight gilded her nightdress and loose black hair, spilling down one shoulder.
She hadn’t gone to the Nest.
He could see it from where he stood. Silks and furs he’d arranged with painstaking care. The ravens he’d spent days carving glinted above. A sanctuary, meant to welcome his Omega bride.
For a long moment, he simply watched. Her hands, folded beneath her cheek, bore the calluses of work. He’d wager even the castle laundress had softer palms. These weren’t the hands of a pampered woman. They were the hands of someone who had clawed her way through life.
Part of him wanted, desperately, to believe she was blameless. That it was her father who’d set the snare, lured by King Ferdinand’s bride price. That she’d simply been caught in its web. But the thought festered bitter as gall: she had worn the veil, said nothing, let him stand there blind.
Was silence not also a lie?
JingYi stirred, lashes fluttering as she woke. She blinked up at him, her eyes darting as though disoriented, and pushed herself upright.
“My lord—” Her voice was rough with sleep. “Forgive me. I dozed off.” She glanced toward the Nest, then lowered her eyes. “I . . . didn’t want to disturb it.”
“I had the Nest prepared for my Omega bride,” he said, keeping his tone even. The words felt empty, a lord stating a fact, and he hated the sound even as they left his mouth. “You are that woman. Use it, or don’t. The choice is yours.”
Silence hung between them, filled only by the fire’s crackle. Her hand twitched toward her cheek, then fell. The birthmark remained bared in the firelight—stark, inescapably hers.
Alexander crossed the room and added another log to the fire. He poured two goblets of wine, added cloves and orange peel, then heated the mixture with a red-hot iron. He could feel her eyes on his hands—the indifferent motions of a soldier making camp, not a husband offering comfort. When he passed her the cup, she hesitated, then accepted it with both hands.
He sat across from her and watched her sip before breaking the silence. “Did you know that I hadn’t been told?”
Her lashes lowered. The firelight caught on the rim of her goblet as she turned it slowly in her hands.
“My father assured me you were apprised of my . . . condition,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
Alexander’s jaw ached from clenching. Every grievance of the day clamoured for him to reject her words outright.Lies,hissed the voice of his wounded pride.More deception.
But another voice—firmer, wiser, more commanding—intervened. It replayed every flinch, every steadfast silence, the sheer lack of guile in her bearing now. A schemer would have offered excuses, justifications, tears. She offered only one simple, devastating truth.
‘I didn’t know.’
The fury in his gut didn’t dissipate; it shifted target. If she spoke the truth—and gods help him, he believed her—then the deception hadn’t been hers, but her father’s.
And they’d both been the victims of that deception.
His eyes returned to those rough hands, still wrapped around the cup. Emperor HaiYán wasn’t a father but a tyrant who viewed his children as pawns—tools to sharpen, sacrifice, or display at his pleasure. Even if she was complicit, could he blame her? Anyone with a scrap of self-preservation would do the same to escape such a cage. She’d been thrown a lifeline, however barbed.
Alexander leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine in his goblet. He wanted to ask more about her past, her life. Would that be wise? He’d learned the danger of letting compassion blur duty. If he allowed himself to know too much—if he let himself understand her, care for her—would he have the strength to do what was necessary to correct his path?
JingYi set her goblet down on the table with a soft clink. Her gaze flicked toward him—brief, uncertain—before lowering again to her hands. Then, without quite looking at him, she said, “May I ask . . . when Lord Fortier spoke of House Wulfbane’s fall from grace . . . what did he mean?”
Alexander’s jaw worked silently. For a long moment, he only stared into the fire. The flames danced low, casting the room in a shifting amber glow, but the warmth barely touched the cold knot in his chest.
He didn’t want to talk about this. Least of all tonight.
Yet, she had asked with a gentleness that disarmed him. He owed her honesty, if nothing else—a clear-eyed explanation for the brutal choice he must later make.
“Blackwood-Veyrde sits atop a vast limyerite deposit. Old veins, deep and rich.” The words felt like a ritual, a history he’drecited in his head a thousand times. “Our ancestors were the first to strike inside a cave and find it glowing in the rock. Since then, the Wulfbane family has been the Crown’s trusted steward. It was more than a privilege. It was our legacy.”
He paused, lifting his goblet but not drinking. “My father was proud of that charge. Perhaps, too proud.” Alexander’s knuckles whitened around the stem. He forced his fingers to relax, one by one, before taking a long, bracing drink.
“The year I turned eight, accusations came.” The taste of the wine turned ashen. They came like a spring flood, he thought. A mere trickle at first, then all at once. “They said my father had been skimming from the veins, skimming tribute crystals out in secret caravans and selling them to rogue alchemists, foreign agents. The very men the Crown swore to keep such treasures from.”
