Free Web NovelChapter 91: The Lake and the Duke
Chapter 90: The Lake and the Duke
Lyria’s POV
I did not go to my chambers.
I told myself I would. I told myself it was the sensible thing — to go back, to lie down, to attend to my back with what little I had available, and rest before the next thing that required me to be upright and present and managing.
My feet took me to the lake instead.
The abandoned wing received me the way it always did — in silence, without question, without the particular quality of awareness that the rest of the palace had. The crumbling walls and the overgrown paths and the smell of old stone and growing things. The lake hollow ahead, the water catching the afternoon light in flat grey sheets.
I sat on the bank.
And I stared.
The pain in my back was there, ever-present. The wounds would not heal properly. They never did. There was always something new before the old had finished closing, layer upon layer building into the landscape of my back that I had stopped examining in mirrors a long time ago.
I exhaled.
The money from Helen.
I ran the numbers in my head.
The last payment from the Tallow and Tide — including the patrons’ contribution — would cover my mother’s medicine for two days.
That was something.
But when I turned to the rest of it — the escape, the three of us, the distance between here and somewhere that was not here — there was very little left. It was not enough.
It wouldn’t cover transportation nor food. It wouldn’t even help to take us to the closest territory, which was Westreach.
At times like this, I wished my mother was present. That she was right next to me. She always knew what to do, after all.
I was tired of everything.
I was tired of wounds that did not heal and money that was never quite enough and a palace that did not know I existed except when it wanted to remind me that I did not matter. I was tired of performing composure while being flogged. I was tired of the word "yet" sitting in the back of my mind since the Queen said it and not going away.
I exhaled again.
Longer this time.
"Why are you sighing like that?" a deep voice asked.
I jumped up immediately. My hands went out, my heart lurched, and I was on my feet before I had finished processing the sound, which meant I was standing and staring in the general direction of the voice before I had any idea what I was staring at.
Green eyes.
Pale green, slightly narrowed, looking up at me from beneath the lake. A head above the waterline. Red hair, wet and dark and plastered against his back and shoulders. Water running in slow lines down his face.
I bowed immediately.
The motion was automatic.
"Y-y-your Grace," I said.
The Duke of Blackmere tilted his head. The particular tilt I was beginning to recognise as his default expression for most things.
"I was not expecting to find you here," he said.
"F-forgive me," I said, already straightening. "I w-will go."
"I did not say you should go, did I?" he asked. "I was just surprised to meet you here... again. You can stay."
I hesitated.
He moved in the water, shifting position slightly, and as he did, the waterline dropped and his chest came into view, and I looked away immediately.
The opposite bank was suddenly very interesting.
"You are bleeding," he said.
"It is nothing," I said, my gaze still on the opposite bank.
"I can perceive blood," he said. "I know it is yours."
I swallowed.
Werewolf senses. Of course, he would perceive it.
"I-it is s-something minor," I said. "Your Grace s-should not t-trouble y-yourself."
"That is not possible," he said. "I am already troubled."
I said nothing.
"Let me see it," he said.
"I—" I turned back toward him, carefully keeping my eyes at the appropriate level, "I-I must respectfully d-decline, Your G-grace."
"Why?"
"Because," I said, "it w-would be entirely inappropriate for Your Grace t-to examine my back. We are hardly — we are b-barely a-acquaintances."
He considered this. fгeewebnovёl.com
"I have met you three times now," he said.
"T-that does not—"
"Three times," he said again, "is sufficient to constitute acquaintance."
I pressed my lips together.
He began to move toward the bank.
"Y-your G-grace—" I started.
"I am going to—"
"P-please d-do not," I said.
It came out with more force than I intended.
He stopped and then fixed his gaze on me.
I felt my face doing something warm and unwanted and directed my attention very firmly at a point somewhere above his left shoulder.
"Since you ask so very kindly," he said with a slight tilt of his lips, "I will remain in the water."
I exhaled.
"Thank you," I said.
Silence settled between us.
The water moved faintly around him. A bird passed overhead. A bunny crawled out but immediately went back to where it had come from when it saw us.
The silence only lasted for a while before the Duke spoke.
"The marks on your back," he said.
I looked at him.
"Is the reason for them," he continued, his voice the same even, unhurried thing, "the same reason for the look in your eyes?"
My heart stopped for the span of one breath.
"I b-beg your p-pardon?" I said. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
He was watching me with those pale green eyes, the water around him completely still.
"The first time I saw you," he said, "you had an empty look in your eyes. It’s not sad, exactly. Not frightened either. It’s just empty. And I can’t explain it, but it’s very unsettling."
I was quiet as he spoke.
"I noticed it then," he said. "And I notice it now."
He paused.
"Is the reason for the marks on your back the same reason for that look?"
I just stared at the Duke. I had no idea what he meant by that.
