I stared at the blue curtain as my blood turned to ice. He did not say I was going to get hurt, or that I would be miserable, no, Derrick thought Riyan was going tokill me.
The fight raged until a body slammed into something hard with a grunt. Even though I was paralyzed with fear, I had to see what was happening. I gently gripped the blue fabric and barely pulled it aside to get a peek ofthe room.
Horror spiked through my bones when I saw blood on the floor. Duke Hyton held Derrick up against the side of the marble fireplace and gripped both sides of his doublet in tight fists. The Duke’s rings were stained red and thin ribbons of crimson streamed from Derrick’s cheeks and lips. Derrick’s golden coronet glowed orange from the raging firelight, but his eyes were white-hot fromhis outrage.
Duke Hyton’s strong arms trembled and he panted as he held his son back, but Derrick still would not yield. The two men were in a deadlock, eye-to-eye, underneath the fierce portrait oftheir ancestor.
The Duke spat blood onto the floor. “You think you are grown enough to take on your father? You think you can stand againstyour Duke?”
“I will not stand by while you send the woman I love to her death,” Derrick said with a snap of his red-stained teeth. “You will not take her awayfrom me.”
Stop, Derrick. Stop telling Duke Hytonabout us!
“Listen to me, you fucking moron!” Duke Hyton yelled as he threwDerrick down.
Derrick’s body hit the floor with a crack. My hand flew to my mouth to cover my lips. I wanted to scream, or scrape Derrick up off the floor, but I had to stay hidden. If even Derrick could not handle his wrathful father, I did not stand a chance if he discovered me spyingon them.
Derrick’s arms shook as he struggled to rise from the floor while his father lumbered to a nearby cabinet to retrieve a bottle of spirits. Duke Hyton uncorked the bottle with his teeth and took a quick swig before padding over and pushing Derrick’s face back to the floor withhis foot.
“You know what makes us look weak?” Duke Hyton growled. “When two of our provinces lose half their sons in battle and everyone in the Dukedomfeels it.”
Derrick was smart enough to stay down, but he still glared up at his towering father.
“What are you talking about?” Derrick asked indignantly as he pushed himself up a little. Duke Hyton scowled and kicked his son backdown again.
“Have you not noticed nothing is being built in the Dukedom?” Duke Hyton said after taking another gulp from his bottle. “We get most of our timber from Ravenwood and our masonry from Bloodstone. You know what you need to fell trees and breakup rocks?”
Duke Hyton leaned down and poked Derrick in his bloodied cheek to punctuate his point. “Young.Healthy.Sons.”
The loss of thousands of boys was not just a splinter in the hearts of everyone in Ravenwood, but a real problem for the whole Dukedom? Good. The rest of Lycaster could sufferwith us.
Duke Hyton backed off and paced in a circle around his son, swirling his bottle in his hand as he spoke. “And then there is Baron Frederick Ravenwood—another symptom of the problem. I have him locked up as damage control, but he is just a reflection of how his peasants regard the House of Hyton. Bloodstone is the same—they did not lose their heir, but they lost sons too. Theyhate us.”
I gritted my teeth. For once, I agreed with him. He took my brothers from me, my father from me, and since he gave Riyan the first selection, he took Derrick away from me too. I hated Duke Hyton more than anyoneelse alive.
“And your solution to this problem,” Derrick said darkly as he rose to his elbows, “was to sacrifice my innocent Serafina to make the peasants ofBloodstone happy?”
“Shut up about Serafina!” Duke Hyton shouted. “Think beyond your own selfish heart, boy! All eight Barons are angry at us for sending the Ravenwood and Bloodstone heirs to fight. And if they think their heirs could be next? What is to stop them from banding together and sending militias of their own to Hyton? Baron Elvar could siege the palace from the Western Sea with half a dozen of his boats! They could overtakeus all!”
I could not believe it—Duke Hyton was…insecure. Maybe the crown was not as powerful as Ihad thought.
“So you made Bloodstone your hero,” Derrick said quietly, now sitting up and still glaring at his father, “let him select a bride before anyone else, and then everyone is supposed to respectyou again?”
“Ireframedthe situation,” Duke Hyton said as he stopped in his tracks to fully face his son. “Remember, the peasants’ reality is whatever we say it is. I made it look like we only paused that first battle, not lost, and came back years later to finish the job. I elevated that beast, made him a glorious hero, and gave those simple peasants in the North something to be proud of again. They needed a reason to keep working, make more sons, and not take up arms against the House of Hyton. The other six Barons should calmdown too.”
So that was it. I was the final pawn in the Duke’s plan—giving me to the Bloodstone heir in front of a crowd of emotional peasants from the Northern provinces was supposed to secure peace in the Dukedom. A Bloodstone hero and a Ravenwood bride unified through the sheer grace of the Houseof Hyton.
I pretended to look at the victory celebration through the eyes of the peasants—what a flattering portrait it made of Duke Hyton, even though he had never washed the blood of thousands of boys offhis hands.
Impressive, butgut-wrenchingly disgusting.
Derrick rose to his feet with his fists at his sides. “I could have managed all this with Serafina as my Duchess. None of this hadto happen.”
“The monster was not supposed to choose her,” Duke Hyton said in a low voice as the fire popped behind him. “I specifically put someone close to his size in Selection Night for him to chew on and he ruined everything by going back onour agreement.”
I held my breath. Riyan was supposed to choose Brietta. She was a logical bride for a half-giant—she could at least put up a fight if Riyanattacked her.
I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes as my heart pounded in my ears. Riyan did not see me at the Suitors’ Ball or the Presentation and he had never met me before. Why would he break the Duke’s agreement and choose meover Brietta?
