No matter what he tried, the night remains just beyond his fuckingreach. Had the girls not been in Sjoby assisting his dear mother, he would have demanded they return home to Blackwood. To simply exist in his presence as he shoved through the damned haze of his mind.
Aura’s room is chaos.
As he expects of his youngest.
Slats of wood cover her windows, although her usual stack of shit perched on the window sill is stacked haphazardly on her bed.
Sitting on top are sketches that tug at his black heart.
The bed creaks under his weight as he perches on it, examining her drawings around Blackwood. Her artistic skill is unmatched. To think there was a time when she burned it all.
But the next drawing he flips to feels like a rock sinking into his fucking gut.
It is a perfect representation of Calder Avardsson glancing to his left.
Sigvid’s jaw drops as the next thirty or so drawings are of his Inner Circle Member—images of everything from his hands and lips to his face.
He crumples the parchment in his trembling hands as he stomps across the hall to the room where Calder stayed. His gaze searches for any connection to his daughter when he notices a tightly folded piece of parchment peeking out from beneath the bed. He tears it open to find a pair of minks drawn and signed by Aura.
“Calder acted exactly as instructed. He seduced the Princess of Treland…”Isabel’s words resonate clearly in his mind as more memories from that night seep back until they become a barrage.
The carriage.
Isabel.
Calder leading Aura back from the docks.
For a moment, he allows the emotions to engulf him. The helplessness he felt as he watched them take his daughter, and the anger at her recklessness. Sig’s suspicions that Calder was not being truthful.
And, of course, the guilt.
He grips his chest, which aches as if his body denies him air. He needs to embrace his child and make amends.
The Lord Commander’s softened heart beats for a moment before the fucking rage slams into him.
It is not just Calder’s betrayal but also the looming understanding that someone else is to blame.
And he fucking sees red. “Avina! Avina!”
His boots shake their home as he stomps down the stairs to find her and Bjorn watching him apprehensively.
“Tell me you didn’t fucking know this!” He shoves the drawings of Calder into her arms.
Avina is a terrible fucking liar.
If she had a hand in this, she will reveal herself to him.
She carefully inspects the parchment with her index finger, twisting that loose curl at her temple. When she reaches the sketch of Aura clearly sitting on Calder’s lap, she clears her throat and places the stack on the table.
“I. Remember. Everything.” He growls as a rumble of thunder shakes the foundation of Blackwood.
She shuffles the papers until they rest evenly on all sides. “Our daughters are on a quest in Skalor.”
“Did you hear that?” Bjorn glances around. “An excuse to leave?” He slips downstairs to the kitchen.
“What fucking quest? I remember what was said to me before that bitch hit me with Azure. Calder organized everything before the Farewell Feast to capture Aura. How the fuck did Thora get caught up with this? And why the fuck is Edmund there?” Sigvid kicks a chair across the room. “I have to go get them back.Now!” His voice bellows so roughly she quivers.
“You have spent the last month in blissful ignorance. You can continue another while we await their adventure to conclude.”
