Chapter 75 — Did We Choose Wrong?

Chapter 75: Chapter 75 — Did We Choose Wrong?

~ Aldric ~

"You pulled."

"I did not pull."

"Aldric."

"There was resistance." He held the pin up over her shoulder so she could see it, then dropped it onto the dressing table with the others. "That is not the same as pulling."

Sharon watched him in the mirror with the particular patience she reserved for him and for nobody else alive. Her hair was down past her shoulders on one side and still fastened on the other, and the pins were coming out at a rate of roughly one every thirty seconds, which was three times slower than her maid managed and which she had never once suggested he stop doing.

"How many of these do you use?"

"As many as it takes."

"You could armour a soldier."

"Then the soldier would have very good hair." She tipped her head as he found the next one. "You have run a Great House for twenty-six years. You negotiated the eastern grazing rights with three Alphas who all wanted you dead. Surely a man of your accomplishments can remove a hairpin without assaulting his wife."

"The grazing rights were simpler."

"They were not."

"They were considerably simpler." The pin came free without any resistance whatsoever, and he set it down. "Nobody at that table was watching me in a mirror."

Sharon laughed, low, the last fastening came loose and her hair fell over both shoulders.

Aldric put his hands on them, bent and kissed the side of her neck, just under the jaw, where he had been kissing her for twenty-six years.

She leaned back against him and made a small sound.

His hand moved down from her shoulder, down her neckline into—

The communication mirror chimed.

Aldric closed his eyes.

"I am ignoring that."

"It carries the House seal."

"It is nearly eleven."

"Which is precisely why," Sharon said, sitting up, "you are not going to ignore it."

The glass on the far wall had already begun to fill. The Blackthorn seal assembled itself across the surface — the thorned circle, the four points — and beneath it, in smaller script, a personal signature.

Aldric read it and exhaled through his nose.

"Alaric."

"At this hour?"

"My son has inherited a great many things from me." He straightened his robe and drew the front of it closed. "Timing was not among them. Neither was patience."

Sharon was already up off the stool. She swept her hair back with one hand, took three pins off the dressing table and put them where they needed to go, and had her robe belted and her spine corrected before Aldric had crossed the room.

He touched the frame.

Alaric came up on the glass.

Alaric stood the way he always did when he wanted nobody reading him — straight-backed, shoulders still, hands loose at his sides. Even through the communication glass, Aldric could see that his collar was fastened perfectly and his expression had been put carefully back in place.

Aldric knew immediately that his son was furious.

It was always the jaw.

Kieran burned hot. He shouted, broke something, spent his anger and usually had nothing left of it by the end of the hour.

Alaric did the opposite.

He went quiet.

His teeth set. His face emptied. Then he carried whatever had happened around with him until he had decided exactly what to do about it.

Aldric had spent eighteen years learning the difference between his sons’ silences.

This one meant something had gone badly wrong.

"What is it?"

"The servant is here."

Aldric’s brow pulled together.

"What servant?"

Something flickered across Alaric’s face before he caught it. Irritation, perhaps, at having expected his father to understand without making him say more.

Aldric’s voice hardened.

"Be clear, Alaric."

His son drew one short breath.

By the time he let it out, the irritation was gone again.

"The one you made me watch."

Behind Aldric, Sharon stopped moving.

Aldric kept his eyes on his son.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

"Where?"

"Valerius."

Aldric looked at his son.

Valerius. The academy took perhaps two hundred a year out of an entire continent. Half of those were Houses buying their children a corridor to walk down. The other half arrived with sponsors, records, testimony, three generations of pedigree and a family that had been preparing them since they could stand upright.

"How?"

"I don’t know the full details of her admission."

"You don’t know."

"I know she is no longer with Melissa. I know she came through assessment." Alaric’s chin stayed level. "Beyond that I have nothing official, and I have not gone looking, because going looking would tell people that House Blackthorn is interested in her."

That, at least, was correctly reasoned. Aldric let it stand.

"She’s enrolled?" Sharon came up beside him. "Properly? At Valerius?"

"Yes."

Aldric turned from the mirror, picked up his cup from the side table, found it cold and set it down again.

"Then it is Valerius’s problem."

Alaric said nothing.

"The girl spent eighteen years in my kitchens without managing anything more remarkable than being difficult to dismiss. If the academy has decided to educate her, I wish them patience."

"She has made it our problem."

Aldric looked back at him.

"What happened?"

"Nothing I couldn’t handle."

"That was not what I asked."

Alaric’s face closed.

Aldric waited.

With this son, waiting worked. Pressing usually produced only a deeper silence.

Eventually Alaric said, "She has made her history with this House public. More than once. Everyone at Valerius now knows what she was here, what happened with the bond and that she considers herself entirely outside Blackthorn authority."

Aldric’s mouth hardened.

"There are recordings," Alaric added.

"And?"

A brief pause.

"A Cardinal heir involved himself."

Aldric’s hand settled on the back of Sharon’s chair.

"Which one?"

"It doesn’t matter."

"Alaric."

"It does not matter," his son said, and this time there was enough edge beneath the control for Aldric to hear it clearly, "because it changes nothing about why I called."

Sharon glanced sideways at Aldric.

He caught it and let the question go.

Whatever had happened at Valerius had forced his son to endure something publicly, and Alaric would apparently chew glass before giving his father the details while he was still angry enough to care about them.

"That girl has always generated an amount of trouble entirely disproportionate to her usefulness," Aldric said. "She managed it in my kitchens for eighteen years. If she has now found a larger room in which to do the same, the Headmaster can enjoy the experience. Anything that reaches beyond Valerius can be handled by House counsel."

Alaric leaned slightly toward the glass.

"Father."

Aldric stopped.

The tone had changed.

Not louder but lower.

Careful enough that it was clearly meant to travel no farther than the mirror.

"She isn’t wolfless."

Nobody spoke.

Sharon turned fully toward the glass.

Aldric became aware, distantly, of his own heartbeat.

He disliked that immediately.

"Are you certain?"

"Valerius confirmed it. It’s on her record."

"Her record."

"She has a wolf," Alaric said. "Officially assessed and classified. Her Power Class is Nascent."

Some of the tension left Aldric’s shoulders.

"Nascent."

"I know."

"Nascent is nothing, Alaric. It is the floor of the ladder."

"I said I know."

The words came out sharper than they should have.

Aldric’s eyes narrowed.

Alaric heard it too. His jaw tightened, but he did not apologize.

That, more than the tone itself, would have earned Kieran an immediate correction. Kieran knew better than to let temper climb into his voice with Aldric, because Aldric had never given him reason to believe it would be tolerated.

Alaric was different.

He was the son Aldric trusted with things he would not put in Kieran’s hands. The one who listened the first time, kept what he was told to himself and rarely allowed emotion to interfere with whatever needed doing. In eighteen years, he had earned enough latitude that Aldric could let one badly chosen tone pass without mistaking it for defiance.

So he let it pass.

For now.

But his attention sharpened.

Alaric had already slipped twice during a conversation in which he was clearly trying very hard not to slip at all.

"Then why did you call?" Sharon asked.

Alaric did not answer immediately.

He stepped closer to the mirror, glanced once toward something outside Aldric’s view, then lowered his voice before looking back at them.

"There was something else. During her entrance assessment."

"Go on."

"I wasn’t there. I’ve spoken to four people who were, and no two accounts agree completely."

That sounded more like Alaric. He was already exposing the weakness in his own evidence before either of them could find it.

"But?"

"They all agree that something came off her."

Sharon’s hand closed around the edge of the dressing table.

"What?"

"I don’t know."

"Alaric—"

"I don’t know the full details," he said, then checked the irritation before it could rise further. "Some called it pressure. Some called it an aura. One insisted it was a sigil, though I have no reason to believe that. None of them could tell me exactly what it was."

"And yet you called," Aldric said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Alaric was quiet for a moment.

"Because whatever they disagree about, they agree on where it came from."

Aldric waited.

"Her."

Sharon rose from the stool.

She had been perfectly still for long enough that the sudden movement drew Aldric’s attention.

"Alaric." Her voice had gone careful. "I need you to be certain about what you are suggesting."

His son looked at her through the glass.

"I’m suggesting that what we decided about her may have been wrong."

Aldric did not move.

For several seconds, the room sharpened around him.

The hairpins lay in a neat row across the dressing table where he had placed them.

Sharon’s tea had gone cold.

The fire had burned low enough that the room had begun losing some of its warmth.

And eighteen years ago, in another room inside this House, Aldric had made a decision and spent most of the years afterward believing he had made the correct one.

He turned his head.

Sharon was already looking at him.

Neither spoke.

"Did we choose wrong?" Aldric asked.

Something tightened in her face.

She did not answer.

And in the glass, Alaric noticed.

His eyes narrowed.

"What happened back then?"

Aldric’s expression changed just enough to warn him away from the question.

"You know what you need to know."

Alaric held his gaze for a moment, then inclined his head.

"Yes, Father."

He did not ask again.

Aldric let the silence sit between them before he said, "When you were younger, I asked you to keep an eye on her. Do you remember?"

"Of course."

"And for years?"

"There was nothing." Alaric’s voice had settled again, the anger from earlier pushed back where it belonged. "She never shifted. She never showed anything unusual. After a while, you told me to leave it alone."

"Because I believed there was nothing left to find."

Alaric nodded once. "So did I."

Aldric glanced toward Sharon.

She was no longer sitting. One hand remained against the dressing table, her fingers curled around its edge.

When Aldric looked back at the mirror, Alaric was watching both of them carefully.

"Does Kieran know you called me?"

"No, Father."

"And Celeste?"

"She knows nothing."

"Good. Keep it that way."

Alaric’s brow tightened slightly, but he gave another nod.

Aldric moved away from the chair and clasped his hands behind his back.

"For now, I want you to do what you did before. Watch her."

Alaric hesitated. "Without approaching her?"

"Unless you have a reason you would normally have." Aldric looked at him pointedly. "The last thing I want is you suddenly following her through Valerius and making people wonder why House Blackthorn has developed such an interest in a Nascent first-year."

"I understand."

"If whatever happened during that assessment happens again, I want to know."

"The aura."

"If that is what it was."

Aldric crossed toward the fire as he spoke.

"Find out what brings it out of her. Anger, fear, injury, whatever it may be. Find out whether her wolf remains Nascent or whether that changes. More importantly, pay attention to the people around her."

Alaric frowned. "The Cardinals?"

"Anyone."

That made him listen more closely.

"If an instructor begins asking unusual questions about her, I want to know. If a student suddenly knows more about her than they reasonably should, I want to know that too." Aldric paused near the hearth. "And if she starts digging into her own past, you tell me before she gets very far."

Alaric was quiet for a second.

Then he asked, more carefully, "You think there may still be something for her to find?"

Aldric looked at him.

That was close enough to the question he had already refused.

Alaric seemed to realize it as soon as he asked, because he lowered his eyes slightly.

"Forgive me."

Aldric let it go.

"There are things better left where they are."

"Yes, Father."

Sharon shifted behind him.

Alaric looked toward her through the glass before returning his attention to Aldric.

"And if I find proof?"

"If you find proof that what happened during her assessment was not an accident, you come to me."

Alaric’s expression tightened slightly. "And after that?"

Aldric did not answer immediately.

The fire cracked behind him.

"After that, we decide how large the problem actually is."

Alaric nodded, though he was clearly waiting for more.

Aldric gave it to him.

"If we were wrong about her all those years ago, I will not make the mistake of dismissing her twice."

Something shifted in Alaric’s face, though his voice remained even.

"Understood."

"You will have access to the private archive and whatever House resources you require. If you need something you cannot obtain without drawing attention, come to me."

"Yes, Father."

"But until you know what you are looking at, you do nothing."

Alaric nodded. "I understand."

"And if I confirm it?"

Sharon’s gaze shifted to Aldric.

He did not look at her.

"If you confirm that we were wrong about her," Aldric said, "then you will not wait for her to become strong enough to make us regret it."

Alaric went very still.

Aldric held his son’s gaze through the mirror.

"You will have the full authority of this House. I do not care how it is done, only that nothing leads back to Blackthorn."

For the first time since the conversation began, the anger in Alaric’s face seemed to disappear beneath something colder.

"And if there is no other way?"

Aldric’s expression did not change.

"Then there is no other way."

A few seconds passed before Alaric inclined his head.

"Yes, Father."

"For now, you watch. You confirm what she is before you make a single move."

"Understood."

Alaric reached toward the edge of the mirror.

"One more thing."

His hand stopped.

"Kieran stays out of this."

Alaric looked back at him. There was no surprise on his face.

"Yes, Father."

"Celeste as well. Neither of them needs to know what you are watching for, and neither of them learns what I have authorized tonight."

"Of course."

Aldric paused.

"If they notice your interest in Raven, let them think it is because of what she has done to this House at Valerius."

A faint hardness returned to Alaric’s mouth.

"That won’t be difficult."

No. Aldric imagined it would not.

"Good night, Alaric."

"Good night, Father."

His eyes moved past him.

"Mother."

Sharon had been silent for some time now.

"Good night, darling."

Alaric touched the frame.

The glass went dark.