I turned to Brietta. “What could you possibly gain from agitating him like that?”
Brietta stood and gripped the back of her chair. “He is getting worse, just like Freya’s diary said Anders did. I have to stop him from turning into a monster.”
Shehad to stop him? She had never faced Alastar. “That is whatIam doing. Every night, without rest. And if you do not want him to shatter when I leave—”
“Sera, you coddle him!” She released the back of her chair and her brows knitted. “I thought I understood how you felt about him, but now you are compromised!”
“Compromised? All I am doing is fixing—”
“You cannot fix him, Sera!”
Fire filled my throat and I nearly opened my lips to fight back when Annalisa’s trembling voice broke the tension. “This is all my fault. I should not have said anything. I should not have made him angry.”
I unclenched my fists as soon as I heard her voice. “Anna, no—”
She let out a sob and Brietta and I were instantly at her side. We both rubbed her back and soothed her, trying to convince her that she held no blame.
Rain pattered in my mind as my thumb stroked the back of Annalisa’s hand. Just as I was about to lean into the raindrops and answer the call for help, Brietta looked across Annalisa’s trembling curls at me.
I did not need to throw out a tether to read Brietta’s eyes. She needed me to find Derrick before he destroyed anything else.
With a soft breath, I rose to my feet and started my search.
The music room was empty. So was his bedchamber. I even tried the kitchen with no luck.
At last, flickering firelight from a door on the first floor caught my eye—the portrait room of the Dukes and Duchesses past.
I silently pushed the door open to find Derrick staring up at the portrait of his grandfather. He gripped his hands behind his back and his chest was still.
I let out a rueful breath. After weeks of searching, we still had no idea who murdered Alastar the Wise or why.
Though whose fate was more necessary to unlock—the Alastar Derrick Pervale of the past or the Alastar Derrick Pervale of the present?
The soft light of the ember in my heart gave me the answer.
I shut the door and clicked the lock behind me. Derrick must have recognized my soft footsteps as his low voice rumbled overthe popping of the fireplace. “I need to apologize to Lis. And Brie. I need to…I-I hate…”
His words failed him again. I passed under the wrathful eyes of Alastar the Conqueror as I joined Derrick on the other side of the room. He still did not turn from the portrait, so I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my cheek between his shoulder blades.
The eyes of the Conqueror, the Good, the Terrible, the Beguiling, the Gentle, the Faithful, the Brave, the Cunning, the Steadfast, the Wise, and—horrifyingly—the Bold all weighed on us. Each one of them was just a piece of the monster in Derrick’s mind, tearing him at the seams.
And what was going to happen when I left him to save Riyan?
Derrick’s voice rumbled against my cheek. “What legacy will I leave when I die? Will I just be ‘Alastar the Weak?’ or ‘Alastar the Tongue-tied?’”
I smiled softly against his spine. “You will have a much better name than that if I have anything to say about it.”
He let out a long, shaking breath. “It hurts how much Brietta hates me.”
I pushed on his ribs to turn him around, but he would not look at me.
“She does not hate you,” I said.
Not a lie.
I canted my head, trying to catch his downcast eyes. “She is merely angry about…the state of the world.”
Still not a lie.
