"I didn't expect to find you here Lady Valewyn," Dowly asked, clearly curious and also casually trying to steal the oxygen fuelling the fire between her and the duke.
Karsyn turned to the lord. "There was an attempt on her life, Sir Caerwyn brought her here for her protection," he explained, the airing of secrets as if they were nothing, felt out-of-place.
It was like old friends gathering after many large events took place, and awkwardly revealing every detail as if it was casual gossip.
Naome looked to her concerned, but it was the men who continued to talk about her and her situation as if she was simply a bystander. It felt horribly like those old days, when Caerwyn and Edrien spoke over her head as if she were a problem to be solved rather than a person to be asked.
"Who do you think it was?" Dowly inquired, a seriousness itching into his features.
"Well—"
"It wouldn't be the first time the north struck at me," Rhosyn cut in, a fire was raging inside her, the words used mostly to barb Karsyn.
Silence caught the room for a moment and she felt how she practically threw a gut punch at the north—whilst in the north—and refused recoil.
Neither did Karsyn. His demeanor had shifted, something rigid, but commanding.
"It wasn't the north," he outright dismissed. "I thought I told you that the north wouldn't raise its hand at you again."
He addressed her as if the other two weren't in the room, like it was a private conversation and only her opinion mattered here.
"People go against their superiors' orders sometimes," she refuted. "If not, who else could it be?"
Dowly and Naome remained silent, all but fading into the distant background as Rhosyn challenged Karsyn and he rose to it.
"What, like how you went against your prince's?" he said, danger hinting in his voice, but his visage remained uncoloured.
The words prickled across her skin and tinged her cheeks red—with rage, embarrassment, maybe both. He'd all but called out her recklessness. Compared her to a rebel faction. Stretched out how she tried to do something out of loyalty into an act of treason, and she hated that he was right.
"There's plenty of people that benefit out of your demise I'm afraid," Karsyn softened ever so slightly—which wasn't much.
"Like who?"
"The king?" he offered and Rhosyn scoffed.
"He has more to lose if I die randomly," she countered. "My title would fall to some distant family that has little to no connection to me and he'd lose the receivership," Rhosyn explained. "No, maybe Lord Merrow or something."
"You sound confident," Karsyn replied, though she wasn't sure if it was sarcasm mocking her.
"Well, we'll find out soon enough—" Dowly blurted out, Karsyn cutting him off with a look that could turn liquid to ice.
Rhosyn watched the room, seeing the tension shift and the words unravelled inside her head. How would they be able to find out, and so soon...
"You've got a spy in my estate?" she exclaimed, the dots connecting and from the look on Dowly's face, she knew she was right.
Karsyn only hardened.
"We only have the one," Dowly defended, knowing the cat was out of the bag and deciding to save face as much as possible. "And he's not even that high up—he can't be."
Her head spun and she tried to understand the matrix he was explaining. But she kept getting caught up on the questions of why, when, who.
"The king has too many standing in as high standing staff, and so—" Dowly cut off. From a look, or just because he had the hint to stop rambling, Rhosyn wasn't sure.
The room shifted into a new sort of eeriness.
She knew her estate was no fortress. No safe keep where she could comfortably call home, not like the old days. But she didn't think for a second that spies would be crawling around her halls while she slept, ate, read ledgers. It all warped in the most unnatural way.
So, the north pointed its finger at the crown, the crown pointed its finger at the north, and Rhosyn felt caught in the middle.
Everything in her went thin and cold. Someone moved at her side and she almost flinched—but she bottled it down like she was used to. Before the duke's hand could reach her, boots hit the door frame, heavy panting and urgency that only a messenger ever seemed to have.
"Lady Valewyn?" the new voice asked.
Rhosyn turned to the young man, taking the offered letter and noticing the penmanship immediately—Edrien.
"I'm sorry, My Lady, I came here as soon as I learnt you weren't in Ravelocke Estate," the messenger heaved his breath, looking faint. He must've travelled straight from her homeland all the way here as she had done.
"Thank you," she murmured, the man bowing before disappearing.
Her fingers fumbled with the seal, and she opened the letter immediately, forgetting the quiet room she stood in.
To Lady Rhosyn Valewyn, Lady of Ravelocke,
You are invited to His Royal Highness Edrien Vaudren, Crown Prince of Aramor engagement to Princess Claude of Celandre. It will be hosted Saturday, a week from New Beginnings Eve.
From your benevolent prince,
Crown Prince Edrien.
It was so formal. So emotionless. So not Edrien, though the handwriting gave him away.
The engagement was being hosted this Saturday, she had to leave now if she wanted to comfortably make it. Her eyes shot up to the ones staring at her and realisation hit. They knew.
Now it made sense why Dowly and Naome were travelling south. They were to gather information. Maybe every northman was a spy for Karsyn—a tool.
Here she stood opposed to a faction that she sat comfortably in the middle of, cutting her off from her allies. She'd turned herself into a stranger even in her own home.
She hadn't known that when she sold her hand, she was also severing herself from her prince.
And that hurt.
Dowly spoke in code to disguise their goals from her, as if she was the spy who'd take them back home... But there was no one for her to betray. Edrien had all but stated that he couldn't trust her enough to even script her nickname into parchment.
Maybe she should've stayed inside the glass container she'd been placed in, to smile and wave when instructed. Instead she shattered that fragile safety, and she couldn't help but step on the broken pieces that littered her path. That path felt narrow. It was bloodied and lonely. She wasn't even sure where it ended... But it wouldn't be here.
"I should leave," her voice barely took to the room, despite the quiet.
Rhosyn turned from the strangers, slipping from the room and she could hear him following even before she'd cleared the threshold.
"Lady Valewyn," he called and she wanted more than anything to pretend she didn't hear him. But he had a way of catching her.
Instead, she turned on him. "When did you put a spy in my estate?" resolve curled in her voice and she stood her ground.
Karsyn wasn't surprised. He hardly was.
For a moment he studied her, as if trying to work out where her thoughts truly lingered. Only when she sighed, patience eaten up by the hostility that rippled inside her, did he speak.
"It was after Winter Festivities," he admitted, though Rhosyn wasn't sure if she trusted him, or if it mattered, or if that was even the question that bothered her.
She was just angry—mostly with herself—and she wanted someone else to aim at.
"We'll travel with Lord Dowly and Lady Naome," Karsyn said as if it was already decided and Rhosyn blinked at him, the words coiling in her stomach.
She opened her mouth to refuse, but he tracked her thoughts and was already cutting her off—he had a habit of that.
"It'll be safer as a group," he stated, mostly for Caerwyn she was sure. "And we'll take a carriage."
No, she was wrong. That was for Caerwyn, because Karsyn knew her better than to think the promise of a rickety coffin was love language to her. It was a threat, and he knew it.
"Yes," Caerwyn's voice sounded from somewhere close by.
But Karsyn's brows only raised, pointing the question at her. "Lady Valewyn?"
It thundered within her and she found herself hesitating. He was asking for her to agree. He posed the whole thing as a statement, yet he didn't move yet, hanging on her word. It crawled across her skin and she itched for the pebble weighing in her pocket.
And then something foreign slipped from her lips.
"Fine," she agreed with the duke.